Friday 6th May, 1-2pm Northern Stage Free event, all welcome Are you an NCL student who has some poems you can’t wait to share? Then we invite you to take part in our inaugural open mic for students at this year’s Newcastle Poetry Festival. 5-minute slots are available to those who sign up via email. … Continue reading Newcastle University Open Mic
Category: 2022
Simon Armitage (in person only)
Friday 6th May, 4-5pm Northern Stage £5/£3 Simon Armitage, the UK’s poet laurate, joins us for a unique performance of his own poetry themed around the environment. Simon was born and grew up in West Yorkshire. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. He has published over a… Continue reading Simon Armitage (in person only)
John Agard, Grace Nichols, and Imtiaz Dharker
Friday 6th May, 6.30-7:30pm Northern Stage £5/£3 This evening’s reading presents three internationally acclaimed poets whose diasporic work is central to British literature. Grace Nichols’ most recent collection Passport To Here and There captures a journey that moves from coastal memories of a Guyana childhood to life in her adoptive Sussex landscape (Bloodaxe, 2020). John… Continue reading John Agard, Grace Nichols, and Imtiaz Dharker
Anne Ryland, David Spittle, and Linda France
Friday 6th May, 2.30-3.30pm Northern Stage £5/£3 Three acclaimed poets take us on a journey through ruins and wilderness to find new sanctuaries. Linda France’s The Knucklebone Floor (Smokestack) is a book about fragility and resilience, flora and fauna, people and places, the human world and the natural world; Anne Ryland, in Unruled Journal (Valley… Continue reading Anne Ryland, David Spittle, and Linda France
Born Lippy with Rowan McCabe, Georgia Bartlett-McNeil and Jonny Fluffypunk, plus Open Mic
Friday 6th May, 8-9.30pm Northern Stage Free event, all welcome Newcastle’s leading spoken word night, Born Lippy, presents a unique takeover event hosted by Rowan McCabe, with headline performances from spoken word poets Georgia Bartlett-McNeil and Jonny Fluffypunk. There will also be an Open Mic, giving you the opportunity to share your words. If you… Continue reading Born Lippy with Rowan McCabe, Georgia Bartlett-McNeil and Jonny Fluffypunk, plus Open Mic
Workshop 3: Kris Johnson
Saturday 7 May, 10.00-12.00 Percy Building, Newcastle University £20 Roots & Rootedness: weaving the ecological and the personal Roots anchor a plant, they nourish it. When we think of our own roots, we might think of those places we are bound to, the familiar, the domestic. Yet roots also draw us into that vast network… Continue reading Workshop 3: Kris Johnson
Workshop 4: Sean O’Brien
Saturday 7 May, 12.00-14.00 Percy Building, Newcastle University £20 Songs From the Drowned World Over seventy percent of Earth is covered in water. This figure is predicted to rise, and the map of globe to change, in some places beyond recognition. Whatever the outcome, poets will be compelled to address it. In this workshop we’ll… Continue reading Workshop 4: Sean O’Brien
Workshop 3: André Naffis-Sahely
Saturday 7 May, 10.00-12.00 Percy Building, Newcastle University £20 Writing About Labour Rights How do we craft class-aware poems that can fit into the notion of a social poetics? This workshop will instruct participants on how the labour movement has been written about by workers themselves, taking a specific look at the poetry written in… Continue reading Workshop 3: André Naffis-Sahely
Workshop 4: Hannah Lowe
Saturday 7 May, 12.00-14.00 Percy Building, Newcastle University £20 Breaking the Sonnet This workshop will consider the contemporary sonnet or ‘little song’ as it translates from the Italian – often described as a ‘box’ because of its visual look and tight formal constraints. We will read and discuss a range of sonnets by formal sonneteers to sonnet experimenters, looking at how… Continue reading Workshop 4: Hannah Lowe
Human Cell Atlas: ‘One Cell at a Time’ and readings by Poetry Society’s Young Poets Network competition winners
Saturday 7th May, 12-1pm Northern Stage Free event, all welcome This event showcases the outstanding work created through a partnership between the Human Cell Atlas and Newcastle Centre for Literary Arts. It includes the film screening, ‘Donor’ – a collaborative response by poets Imtiaz Dharker and Linda France, and visual artist Kate Sweeney, as well… Continue reading Human Cell Atlas: ‘One Cell at a Time’ and readings by Poetry Society’s Young Poets Network competition winners