East London's finest spoken word event. Starting in the backroom of the (pre-gentrified) Victoria pub in Dalston in 2011, our first show featured Kate Tempest and Dizraeli as guest artists.

In 2015, we moved to The Book Club in Shoreditch, opening our first event with DefJam poet, Staceyann Chin and Manchester punk poet Thick Richard.

We now run shows online on the 1st Tuesday of every month, putting on the best guests from the world of spoken word and opening the (virtual) stage for the open mic slam. Each season begins in autumn with a Rappers Vs Poets event and ends in summer with the Hackney slam final, a show for all the season's slam winners.

Hammer & Tongue is an independent network of live poetry events, operating in 6 cities across England. Its national slam final takes place annually at the Royal Albert Hall.

H&T Hackney is hosted by Sam Berkson, Claude Barbe-Brown and Fausta Joly, with DJ CloseUpThings providing the tunes.