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!
Explore the Archive
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
Micelium.
Micelium.
Micelium.
What the bloody hell is that?
Never heard that word before.
…It’s quite nice
I think I like it.
Words are quite nice int they? And I love how this one has been given,
gifted in this plum purple room
This buzzing light humming in potential
In this room we are standing over
Mycelium
Did I say that right?
Standing over
Somewhere deep under.
The potential is right under our feet the
Words are right under our feet
Under our tongues under our palms
Touching words deliciously surupticiously
A ritual full of warm letters holding hands
And hugging.
Our words hugging.
Bodies touching
Pressing
Interweaving like roots
Essential
Undeniable roots reaching through this
innumerous darkness
This lack lustre
Full combustor
Driving home for Christmas
A month early
The chocolate boxes getting smaller every year
Filling up with plastic every year
Fantastic
Fuck that shit
I want my trees back
I’ve forgotten how to talk to you
Can I come back
Is that allowed
Do you still want me
Or do we both play that stubborn game
Who’s doing it better
Who’s got there life together
Have the trees sorted it out?
Do they know the way out?
Tell me I haven’t forgotten the colour of your leaves, tell me I can still smell you
Tell me I can still touch you
Do you ever think of me?
Do you miss me?
Now Back to that word.
Mycelium
Mice cee lium
Ceeecum
Ceelium
Your lion is so proud of you
I am in awe of all of you.
Skye Mitchell Evans
@skyeandwords
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
Without Trees we would be sicker, more (sycamore...)
Hugging the bark, resting in the park, the oak soars
Mycelium, the veins running through it all
Colin T
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
Colin 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
