AFLO. the poet

STATUS FLO: The Archive

Welcome to The Archive! Explore poems from STATUS FLO's past and submit your own via the form

STATUS FLO is our regular spoken word night, hosted by In House Artist alumni AFLO. the poet, where fresh local talent and special guests from across the UK are invited to pick up the mic.

At each event, we invite you - the audience - to write your own poems in the interval, using three prompt words we choose collectively, inspired by the poems you have heard so far. A handful of challengers are selected to perform their poems at the end of the night.

The Archive is here to collect and present your Challenger poems. Whether you performed them at STATUS FLO, didn't get a chance to, or if you didn't manage to attend the event but would like to write a Challenger poem anyway - your poems can be shared here.

You can submit your poem in any format: typed, a photograph, a video, and you can choose to be anonymous or named in your submission.

Welcome to The Archive: we can't wait to see it grow!

November 2025: Salena Godden & Pablo Franco

Challenger words: Mycelium, Hugging, Trees

October 2025: BIG SCOOP & Jaz

Challenger Words: Unity, Cheese, Fuck you Amy, Assimilation

May 2025: Kid Anansi & Merki

Challenger words: New Dawn, Noodle, Golden, Hope

March 2025: Miss Yankey & Nalo Solo

Challenger words: Power, Lovable, Fish, Surviving

February 2025: lisa luxx & Noah Sumptions

Challenger Words: Lemmings, Liberation, Spoons

December 2024: Roy McFarlane & Erin James

Challenger Words: God, Resistance, Dutty, Engraciate

October 2024: Ty'rone Haughton & Mally

Challenger Words: Hope, Twerk, Joy, Emergent, Decolonise

November 2025

So here I am hugging my tree but I now have to make way for a bee, one of the bees that I feel should have more rights than me, in our society that’s forgotten the world and the relationship with things. The things that matter and make our world tick. The things avoided by those called a prick. The same prick that remains hidden though runs a major facelessconglomerate

that now claims to make things tick but which sells us stuff we do not need in order to giveshareholders their feed...

But now is the time to change our network of corruption and greed for the old natural way. Leave the motorways and ailseways and vehicles of oil and death and allow the world to reclaim itself with a net work of mushrooms and trees and hug it all together with a network not of chaos and delirium

but one of trees, hugs, love and mycelium ....

Anonymous author

October 2025

Fond-unity
Fond of you all (apart from Amy)
Assimilation, barriers breaking down like microbes breaking down cheese, digestion.
Digesting the situation, so may varieties
Society, the melting pot
The fondu-niverse

Philip T

 

Crazy to think about what we’ve become
Left wondering how the hell was I so dumb
It took me time to let you go, but with reflections
I can see that we needed to go in our own directions
Honestly, it’s been a lot & I’ve leaned on my community
Don’t you remember, all those chats, predicting our future, our unity
Through all this, I was left spinning in confusion
Exasperated with it all, pure disillusion

Oh I know you played us down, spun a story for your own ease
You see, when I tell my side of the story I’ve got a wide angle lens - c’mon babe say cheese
Don’t worry though darling, I won’t shout loud about it, i’m not in the business of humiliation
But I would love to hear you admit, the things you said you wanted were just assimilation

Heard a poem recently about a situation-ship,
Had me hooked cos It could’ve been written us and our “relationship”
I know, I know you don’t like that word,
But you did admit it, so it’s time we all heard
Hearing the truth from you, now that feels impossible
So I boarded up my heart, I am making me uncrossable

But let’s get back to that poem shall we, it pricked my ears
All that talk of an ex-situation-ship that isn’t as it appears
Do you think you’ll ever feel the guilt
Thinking about all the hope you built
You haven’t crushed me, I’ve got me now.
I did have this strange feeling that you’d play foul.
It stung like a bitch, learning your character is gamey
And Jaz said it so damn well, FUCK YOU AMY!

Anonymous Author