The birth of the Foraging Pigs
Liz & Ted - photo credit Dave Streeter
September saw our very first Foraging Pigs Poetry Open Mic at the Kings Arms Upstairs, hosted by Liz and Ted.
I’ve wanted to host an open mic night with the most-excellent Liz Barnes for some time now — and we finally got our act together on the 25th September 2025.
We had some great poets reading and performing, including Dave Streeter, Miriam Valencia, Caroline Berry, Maggie West-Wilson, Mark Davies, Pauline Howley and Andrew Mayne.
Ted & Liz host the inaugural Foraging Pigs Poetry Open Mic Night
We can thank (blame?) Liz for the choice of name. Being from beyond the borders of Billingshurst, she looked online for historical facts and interesting things about the place and decided that the one detail that stood out was that ‘coastal folk’ used to bring their pigs to Billingshurst to forage. It was great that we had some coastal folk at the inaugural night to cement the idea that we are the foraging pigs. Moreover, we like the analogy of foraging for words when we write and hunting down that ‘truffle’ of an image!
Poet Liz Barnes takes the mic
It’s fair to say that Liz Barnes, my partner in poetry-crime, is a fabulous poetry talent. She’s had two poetry anthologies published by the Real Press and plans the publication of a children’s book in the next few months. She loves words, rhythm, music and feels compelled to write every day. She sometimes calls poetry her ‘advocate’ because she finds it easier to express herself through poems, allowing them to speak for her.
We first met a while back at another poetry open mic night, where Liz decided that although, as a fellow poet, I was clearly ‘competition’, I wasn’t going to go away — and we all know that it’s best to keep your enemies close! We hatched the International Women’s Day event at Waterstones in Horsham earlier this year and decided, after its success, that we wanted to work together again. Our poetry open mic gives everyone a voice and it’s 100% inclusive. Names are drawn from a hat and everyone has the chance to read at least twice. We’re celebrating poetry as being very much alive and kicking (perhaps squealing?)
I recently heard that Wordsworth called Byron ‘coarse’ and ‘epigrammatic’, a panderer to the basest artistic urges’ and secretly insane. Byron referred to Wordsworth simply as ‘Turdsworth’. But the Foraging Pigs are a much friendlier lot and applause and feedback are strongly encouraged in a climate of support. If you love it, we want you to say so.
Having said that, Liz is quite strict. She’s got some rules. And a gong. She doesn’t want poems that are really long, we’re sticking to a maximum of 3 minutes. She confirmed, in a tone that I found somewhat fearsome, ‘I am in charge of the gong and I’m not afraid to gong it.’
She is definitely not a fan of the long introduction, warning that ‘Anyone who introduces their poem with more words then contained within poem itself, or i at least fear you might be heading this way, will be gonged!’
Thankfully, I was the only person who came close to being gonged on our opening night. The rest of our foraging pigs behaved beautifully and we were able to go around with everyone having three turns. We were also very happy to have poetry books on sale at the event.
Books from Mark Davies, Maggie Weir-Wilson, Ted Gooda, Liz Barnes & Lexy Medwell on display.
The Kings Arms Upstairs in an excellent little venue, seating 40, with a great sound system and lighting. It’s also situated at the ‘cultural’ end of the village. We’re now hoping to make this a regular evening, on the first Thursday of the month, beginning in November. We’ve got new ideas planned to enhance the format even further, including the introduction of the ‘top truffler’! See you on the 2nd. Buy your ticket here for £3 to guarantee your slot!