The West Midlands is a region of hidden gems. One such gem is the City Voices poetry evening in Wolverhampton. Now in its 15th year, it has hosted visiting poets each and every month since it was first set up by organiser Simon Fletcher. In that time it boasts the proud record of having been cancelled just once, on the entirely excusable grounds that there was a riot in the city centre, and the venue rang to tell them they were closed.

On Tuesday evening we were treated to a riot of poetry, dangerous enough in the right hands, and their current venue – upstairs in the Lych Gate Tavern – was packed and attentive. As always, five writers (not always poets, though tonight they were) were given 15 minutes each to share their work.

First up was Hazel Rogers, the 17-year-old young poet laureate for Shropshire. She cited Dr Seuss and Shakespeare as influences, and didn’t shy away from difficult issues in her work. Her opening poem ‘Nervous Angel’ was a powerful piece about anorexia, and several of her poems explored our emotional relationship with food, drawing on her own experience, and closing with a piece about the transformative power of love, its ability to change our view of the world and of ourselves. “Since he first held me, that first unimaginable time ...”

Not content with starting the evening with a reading from a poet laureate, City Voices immediately brought us another. Bert Flitcroft is six months into a two-year stint as poet laureate of Staffordshire, and writes, he told us, from emotional impulse about the moments which illuminate our lives. His opening poem – about the shift in power between parent and child as time passes, specifically about his daughter teaching him to fly a kite: “I let her strong hands guide me ....” showed him well worthy of the post.

Following two poet laureates would be a big ask for many poets. Emma Purshouse, pictured, was undaunted. A whirlwind of wit and humour, she started her set with a comic poem about a partner who forgot Valentine’s Day and was split like kindling for his pains, followed that up with a piece about a young mother in a failing relationship (“I think I forgot how to smile...”), and finished her set with her contribution to the Ten Letters project, where 10 poets were each asked to write a poem to Birmingham.

“Does it have to be positive?” she asked.

“No.”

“I’m in.”

Her poem, from the Black Country to its old friend Brummagem (who’s gone up in the world and is maybe just a tiny bit above itself) was magnificent, and one you should catch if you can: “I’d like to say it’s me not you / but it ay.” It ended with the dismissive and defiant “I don’t like to brag / but I’ve got my own flag.”

A break for chat and a pint, then two more excellent poets. Romalyn Ante, from the Philippines and working in Wolverhampton as a nurse, slipped words of Tagalog into her poems about home and exile and longing, and brought us observations from the frontline of the NHS. One to watch. And finally City Voices regular Nick Pearson treated us to his wry observations on the modern world, where a golden boy enters the workplace “sporting the shiny fibre-mix of his own reputation” but still falls foul of the need for a scapegoat when things go wrong, and where the space probe Philae (the size of a washing machine, remember) has been “fly-tipped” onto comet 67p.

Five excellent poets on a Tuesday night in Wolverhampton, for just £3. City Voices will be celebrating its 15th birthday in September, riots permitting. I recommend you get there then, if not before.

Steve Pottinger