Poets often feel like the bastard children of the arts; they don’t get the same adulation (or sales) that fiction writers do. They’re not vaulted in the same way as songwriters are, and compared to other art forms, written or otherwise, they’re commonly perceived as lofty and elitist. This, despite the fact that they fundamentally are just songwriters or rappers without the beats.
Essex lad Luke Wright is the complete antithesis of such stereotypes. Looking and sounding like he’s stepped straight out of EastEnders, he eschews any sense of elitist privilege. Armed with a few notes and a microphone, he gives us a whistle-stop trip through his life, sharing poems from his latest book Later Life Letter: A Story of Family, Adoption, and Love.
If you’re picturing someone standing at a podium, flicking through pages and reading to a hushed audience, think again. Wright bounds onto the stage to a backing track of dance music and launches into a narrative that’s more stand-up comedy than poetry recital. He seamlessly transitions from set-up into verse, everything flowing like a single thread.
His story is extraordinary. Adopted at five weeks after being abandoned by a birth mother who was completely unaware she was pregnant and already had two kids, Wright’s life took an almost miraculous turn when his adoptive parents adopted another child three years later – his actual brother, born to the same mother who couldn’t bring him up either.
His poems traverse the discovery of his adoption, his relationship with his parents and brother, seeking out his birth mother and the kids she kept, and his relationships with his ex-wife, current partner and his own children. It’s bizarre, fascinating and utterly compelling. Wright writes in everyday English – there’s no lofty language here – but there is real depth and emotion in his work. His words cut straight to the heart of what he’s experiencing and take you every step of the way with him.
His delivery is chatty and informal, funny and irreverent, but that only seems to heighten the emotional impact when it lands. And when it lands, it really lands. By the time Wright reaches the poem about his perception of his birth from a woman scared and alone in her East London flat, there’s barely a dry eye in the house.
He makes poetry feel vital, necessary, alive; proof that the bastard children of the arts might just be the ones doing the most honest work. This is storytelling at its rawest and most redemptive, delivered by a performer at the absolute top of his game.
Reviewed on 16 January 2026 and continues to tour
