Midsummer sees the return of our favourite poet, Anjan Saha, with his eclectic cabaret of musicians, poets, singers and performers. To celebrate Watermans 25th Birthday Anniversary, Literature Lounge presents The Speed of Sound. Sound is a physical force which in some cultures is thought to have a spiritual force. Sound is a vibration that travels through an elastic medium as a wave. The speed of sound describes the distance such a wave travels in a certain amount of time. In dry air at 20 °C the speed of sound is 343 meters per second. This equates to about one mile in five seconds.

Spoken word artists from Chicago and London come to do justice to the vibration of sounds. Joined by rising star percussionist Taalis from Austria, Hip Hop poet Adam Levin from Chicago and blues from Robert Hokum, along with spoken artist, Coda Quashie.

Anjan Saha: Creative Director

Anjan Saha is a London writer, lecturer and cultural commentator. He has performed across the globe from the Jazz Cafe in the Czech Republic to Mumbai, India. As the director of London Literature Lounge he runs events at the Poetry Cafe, Covent Garden and other venues. His work has featured in Pulse Magazine, Kin (Renaissance One), A Storm Between Fingers anthology.

Robert Hokum

Robert Hokum has been gigging on the British Blues Circuit for several years now. The main band for his creative out-pouring is The Guv'nors, a seven piece band who play a sonic collision of hard funk, Latin and the blues (with a touch of hip hop added). In 2006 they released a new album 'Kickin'It Back' and played several Festivals including The Brecon Jazz Festival and the Ealing Blues Party (London's biggest Blues gig).

Taalis (drums & percussion)

Taalis is a drummer & percussionist bridging the rhythmical worlds of India and the West. Raised with Western drumming in Austria he has studied the Indian rhythm tradition with tablamaster, Suresh Talwalkar and percussion legend Trilok Gurtu and combines these influences to an organic drumming style. He is a progressive rhythm visionary right at the forefront of modern Indian music working with innovators like Talvin Singh, Niladri Kumar and Susheela Raman.

Adam Levin (Defcee)

Adam is a Hip-Hop artist and published poet originally from River Forest, Illinois, and now based in Madison, Wisconsin, where he attends the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a member of the First Wave Spoken Word and Urban Arts Learning Community. As a performer, Defcee has shared the stage with Saul Williams, Brother Ali, DJ Kool Herc, Little Brother, The Cool Kids, Danny Hoch, and Marc Bamuthi Joseph, performing at George Washington University, the Ann Arbor Book Festival, and competed in Louder Than A Bomb, the city-wide Chicago poetry slam, and the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational, the national collegiate poetry slam, as well as performed at Brave New Voices, the national youth poetry slam.

As an educator, Adam leads a weekly workshop at a high school in Madison, WI, and has led various workshops throughout Chicago's public school system. He is capable of leading workshops based on writing, movement, or both– meaning he can work on the craft of writing and performance, and the transition between the two.