Fresh TOAST

Fresh TOAST brings together three of the best poets you’ve never heard of.

Selected through TOAST’s open application and development programme, these are brand-new voices with something properly exciting to say. Bold, brilliant and still a little rough around the edges, they’re the poets you’ll want to be able to say you saw before everyone else caught on.

The night is hosted by Lewis Buxton, poet, performer and co-producer of TOAST, bringing his sharp, funny and welcoming energy to the stage.

Fresh TOAST is a high-energy night of new work, new ideas and live poetry happening right here, right now. Never been to a poetry night before? Perfect. Already obsessed with the stuff? Also perfect.

Come and catch four brilliant new voices at the start of something big.

Poetry, Not As You Know It.

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Lily Fitzgerald

Lily Fitzgerald feels most at home when writing within the space of the body, considering its boundaries and multiplicities. Their work is sensorily and lyrically driven, using the tug of memories and relationships to navigate their focuses. In 2024 & 2025, Lily was awarded Highly Commended at the Young Norwich Creative Awards.

Natalie Matthews-Graves

Nat has been writing for decades and over this time has penned short stories and several 50% finished novels (thanks ADHD). Her real passion project though has always been poetry, for which is she has won and been shortlisted for many awards. Most notably she was shortlisted for the Plough last year. Spoken word and performance poetry is brand new, however, with Nat doing her first ever performance in January this year. It has quickly become a huge part of her life and she is becoming a familiar face at Norwich open mics. Nat’s performances are well known for making you laugh and then making you cry. Covering topics such as mental health, neurodiversity, queerness and women’s rights, Nat invites you all to giggle along with how silly the world can be and then asks you to be brave enough to fight for change.

Isobel Morris

Isobel is from Cambridge, studied History at UEA, and now works in environmental policy. She writes fiction and poetry, frequently set in the everyday, that reflects on the disconnection inherent to modern life, environmental degradation, and patterns in human behaviour. Her poems often use warped humour.

Nuala Motel-Casey

Nuala is a poet and translator based in Norwich. Her poems have appeared in various print and online journals, including Lighthouse and Visual Verse. Having grown up between France and Ireland considerations of place, absence and belonging run through her writing. Increasingly, her work explores how the local and global, personal and political connect and clash. She started performing her work this year and is beyond excited to be included in Fresh TOAST’s upcoming show.