6:30pm - 8:00pm Our regular Friday evening poetry headline event features three incredible contemporary UK poets. Nina Mingya Powles’ debut collection, Magnolia (Nine Arches Press, 2019) was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Book of Poetry in 2020. Phoebe Stuckes, four times winner of the Foyles Young Poets Award, released her debut collection, […]
2:00pm - 3:25pm Jake Wild Hall founded digital festival OOIPP in 2021 with the aim of showcasing work from the best indie publishers from across the UK. We loved it so much, we asked them to come and be in our physical space! This VERVE special event will feature Bad Betty Press, The Poetry Business […]
5:30pm - 6:55pm Our regular Saturday evening poetry headline is always a festival highlight. This year we feature three incredible poets who are contributing ground breaking new work to the contemporary UK poetry scene. Fiona Benson's third collection, Ephemeron (Jonathan Cape, 2022) is brand new for VERVE 2022. Her previous collection, Vertigo & Ghost, […]
11:00am - 12:25pm The VERVE Competition on the Theme of Beginnings was open for entries in the Summer of 2021, and judged by the wonderful Caroline Bird. This FREE to attend event will feature all the winners and commended poets, as well as four commissioned poets, who will read their poems on our subject and […]
2:30pm - 3:55pm Join Argentinian poet Diana Bellessi and translator Leo Boix to celebrate the publication of To Love A Woman with Poetry Translation Centre. Bellessi is a groundbreaking writer who is been credited as the godmother of lesbian poetry in Latin America. Over the decades she has championed feminist and LGBTQI+ issues and […]
7:00pm - 8:30pm Our final headline event of the weekend brings three vital poets together to read and talk about their work. Pascale Petit's eighth collection, Tiger Girl (Bloodaxe Books, 2020), was shortlisted for the Forward Prize and for Wales Book of the Year. A poem from the book won the Keats-Shelley Prize. Her seventh […]
“…poems are like dreams: in them you put what you don’t know you know.” Adrienne Rich This workshop explores how embracing the unknown can challenge our preconceptions and certainties, allowing for contradictions, tensions and paradoxes. Through group discussions, writing prompts and a close reading of Adrienne Rich’s poem ‘Diving into the Wreck’, we will reassess […]
How can we as Poets approach the examination of both Space as in the galactic, and the space which occupies the small gaps or silences in between the spoken and unspoken, through the relationship between word and page? Tickets:https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/scarlett-ward-workshop-space-space-the-infinity-of-a-blank-page-tickets-395819174807
What truths are your poems telling? If not for your poems, what truths would never be spoken at all? In this workshop, we’ll chart a course for radical honesty in verse, finding stronger roots for your poems to anchor themselves. We’ll focus on work by female Caribbean poets Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné and Safiya Sinclair, drawing on […]
Gifts are often objects that are loaded with emotional weight and memory – the kind that can engender powerful lyric poetry, anchored in concrete detail. This workshop aims to harness the power of gift-giving and -receiving to enable writers to render familiar objects as fresh and surprising stimulus for uncommon poetry. Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/dzifa-benson-workshop-the-gift-tickets-395838422377
This workshop looks at the art of revising myths through poetry, exploring the approach taken by poets such as Fiona Benson, Jericho Brown and Leila Chatti. Learn to find the mythological in the mundane and use it to charge your poetry. You do not need to have an extensive knowledge of myths, just be willing […]
In this session, Kostya will guide you through the labyrinth of possibilities when translating queer experiences across borders and between languages. Are there ‘untranslatable’ words? Can we translate non-English queer language while retaining its charge? What can learn from other artforms that deal with this issue? And how can we apply historical and personal experiences […]
The Laurel Prize for eco and nature poetry is the world's largest prize for best collection awarded annually. Join Prize Founder, Poet Laureate Simon Armitage and this year's judges Glyn Maxwell (Chair), Tishani Doshi and Elena Karina Byrne, with shortlisted poets, for this year's Prize ceremony with readings and a celebration of this critical work […]
Hosted by Roy Mcfarlane, this must-see reading accompanied by *sound-system* will be a lively celebration of these two giants of poetry. Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/fred-daugiar-and-linton-kwesi-johnson-feature-performance-tickets-396720550847
VERVE Poetry Press is five years old this year! Help us celebrate at this colourful and lively event hosted by Luke Kennard and Brum Poet Laureate Casey Bailey and featuring one poet from each year of our energetic publishing programme: Amerah Saleh (2018), Scarlett Ward Bennett (2019), Jemima Hughes (2020), Golnoosh Nour (2021) and Georgina […]
Our Language is a Queer Thing project - funded by British Council and in partnership with The Queer Muslim Project (India) - pairs three queer UK poets with three queer Indian poets in a project that explores their differing experiences and ask how language can be ‘queered’ to better reflect them. Join Amani Saeed (UK) […]
What better for a poetry festival on a Commonwealth theme than an indie poetry press bookfair featuring new-to-the-UK poetry from the Commonwealth? Curated in partnership with Birmingham 2022, we welcome a selection of some of the best UK Indie Poetry Presses to Brum: Arc Publications, Bad Betty Press, Broken Sleep Books, Peepal Tree, Penned in […]
Join all 18 of the poets involved in our Across Borders – Poems from the Commonwealth project, presented by Birmingham 2022 Festival, and help them launch their Across Borders anthology of new work that has resulted from their ten week partnership. What should we learn from each other? What can we share? 18 poets, 18 […]