Line-Up

We just managed to squeeze in 2020s VERVE two weeks before lockdown – and thank goodness – who knew lockdown would go for so long and we’d be forced to take a gap year in 2021! It was a great festival in yet another (and hopefully this time more permanent) home at Birmingham Hippodrome’s Patrick Studio. As in previous years, Verve 2020 was jam packed full of rowdy spoken word, thoughtful readings, workshops, music, colour life and most importantly of all a warm welcome for all! We also launched our very own Festival Bookshop which was a real step forward for us, and Beth Calverley’s Poetry Machine went down a storm and has got us thinking about having a Poetry Fayre in the Hippodrome’s roomy atrium next time!

See below for a day-by-day breakdown of all the things you saw or missed in 20120 And save the date – Feb 16-20 2022 – and book time off now to make sure you don’t miss a single thing at next year’s festival! Watch this space for more news as the summer progresses!

2019r’s Verve Poetry Festival was such a blast! It took place in our new venue in the heart of Birmingham at the Old Rep Theatre! As with previous years, Verve 2019 featured special collaborations, cross-genre performances, inspiring workshops and so much more. We also programmed brand new events, like the inaugural Verve Performance Lecture, commissioned fantastic artists and we even flew in our very first Poet of the Festival – Sumita Chakraborty!

See below for a day-by-day breakdown of all the things you saw or missed in 2019.