Free Practice 002

Free Practice is a bi-monthly poetry night shaped by a conversation between two poets. In an ongoing exchange between the poets and their work, space is created for echoes, responses and interruptions. FREE PRACTICE 002 Features Belinda Zhawi + Takunda We’re starting Free Practice because we’ve noticed something missing in the poetry landscape. While many nights spotlight a wide range of voices on a single bill, Free Practice makes room for something more focused: a duet. Two poets, one stage, and a shared space for dialogue that’s improvised, porous, and alive. Across 45 minutes, two poets move in and out of each other’s work; riffing, responding, colliding, and letting their poems take on new forms in the presence of each other. Think of it like a back-to-back DJ set: two selectors weaving a shared sonic and emotional journey, guided not by a script but by energy, trust, and curiosity. After the poets have performed, the evening transforms into a conversation and Q+A hosted by Rohan Ayinde. Serving as interviewer and first responder, Ayinde guides a discussion that traces the threads that emerged during the performance. Free Practice is a site for overlap, for listening, and for spontaneous invention. It’s an invitation to witness two voices finding new rhythms together, and to learn in the spaces between them. Bios: Belinda Zhawi (b. Zimbabwe) is a literary & sound artist based in London (UK) & Marseille (FR), author of Small Inheritances (ignitionpress, 2018), & experiments with sound/text performance as MA.MOYO. Her works have been featured on various platforms including NTS, Boiler Room & BBC Radio. Her debut album, a collaboration with Duncan Bellamy (Portico Quartet) was released under the moniker BZDB on AD93 Records (2024). Her debut solo EP is Viva Voce Vol.1 (Accidental Meetings, 2025); she’s currently working on her first full collection of poems. Takunda is a Zimbabwean poet and performer whose work is as disarming as it is devastating. Blending razor-sharp imagery with emotional precision, her poetry moves through tenderness, violence, memory, and inheritance with a voice that refuses to look away. Her performances are electric and intimate in equal measure — drawing audiences into deeply personal worlds before confronting them with something larger, collective, and often uncomfortable. She is the winner of the Roundhouse Poetry Slam 2026 and placed 3rd in the World Poetry Slam Championships 2023. Her work has been recognised for its ability to hold contradiction: softness and brutality, humour and grief, control and rupture. Whether on stage or on the page, Takunda creates work that lingers, unsettles, and demands to be felt.