Richard Morrison on the London Word Festival

Joe Dunthorne

Dunthorne, 26, is the author of Submarine, a quirky coming-of-age novel set in South Wales. Submarine is currently being adapted for film. A graduate of UEA, he is also a talented poet whose work has been published in Reactions, The Guardian and Generation Txt.

Chris McCabe

Liverpudlian McCabe works as a librarian at The Poetry Library on London's South Bank. But forget any notions of cardigans and NHS specs – his poetry is raw, energetic and experimental, covering topics as diverse as Iraq, fatherhood and Pete Doherty. His second collection of poetry is published this year with the provisional title Zeppelins and follows his acclaimed debut The Hutton Inquiry.

Jay Bernard

At the tender age of 20, Bernard is fast establishing a reputation as one of the UK's most talented young writers with her poetry collection Your Sign is Cuckoo, Girl. She has performed her sensitive, emotionally-charged poetry at venues across the country, including Glastonbury Festival and the London Respect Slam. Bernard is currently studying at Sussex University. Oh, and writing a libretto.

Hannah Silva

Silva is a multi-talented poet, performer and choreographer from Devon. Her physical performances, fast-talking delivery and innovative use of cut-up text make her one of the most ambitious and entertaining poets in the country. She’s performed her work in Germany, Japan and throughout the UK, and is currently working on a multimedia performance entitled City Fragments, which she describes as ‘virtuosic explorations of articulation and the materiality of language’.

Dockers MC

London-based spoken word diva Dockers MC (real name: Laura Dockrill) is a graduate of The BRIT School of Performing Arts. She has performed with the likes of Kate Nash and Luke Wright, and her sassy, streetwise monologues are a hit at leftfield music festivals such as Latitude. Dockers acknowledges a wide range of influences from Roald Dahl to Steven Berkoff and even Little Britain.

Emma McGordon

West Cumbrian poet McGordon, 25, is a protege of cult Geordie bard Barry MacSweeney. She works as a freelance writer and workshop facilitator and was one of the stars of the Generation Txt poetry tour. Her first collection is due out in 2008 from Tall Lighthouse and promises to be one of the most exciting debuts of the year.

Simon Barraclough

Huddersfield-born Barraclough’s debut collection of poetry Los Alamos Mon Amour isn’t out yet but is already creating a stir. According to The Guardian, Los Alamos ‘wheels through forms, moods and locations around a sensual core of love poems’. Clive James is also a big fan, praising his poems for the ‘unmistakeable stamp of a vision asserting itself through vocabulary’.

Anthony Joseph

Dubbed 'the leader of the Black British avant-garde', Trinidadian-born Joseph is a multi-talented poet, novelist, musician and lecturer. His fans include Linton Kwesi Johnson and the legendary Caribbean poet Kamau Brathwaite. Joseph has toured the UK, US, Europe and North Africa with his free jazz quintet The Spasm Band. 2008 sees the long-awaited publication of his Selected Poems, Bird Head Son, following the 2006 release of The African Origins of UFOs.

Ben Borek

Camberwell-born Borek has just released his debut book Donjong Heights to critical acclaim. Donjong is an gripping but oddball Christmas yarn set in a South London tower block, written entirely in Onegin stanzas – an obscure and exceedingly demanding poetic form. Toby Litt dubbed it ‘a truly fantastic, and wholly unexpected, London book’ (Time Out).

Ross Sutherland

Sutherland, 28, made his name touring with the award-winning live poetry collective Aisle 16. A self-confessed video game geek, he has recently completed a thesis on computer-generated poetry and writes univocalisms – poems written using only one vowel. His first collection Things To Do Before You Leave Town is due out later this year.

Joe Dunthorne, Hannah Silva, Anthony Joseph, Ben Borek and Ross Sutherland will be performing at the London Word Festival. For more details visit www.londonwordfestival.com

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