The Nottingham Poetry Festival is back and bigger than ever before, bringing you 10 days of captivating performances, interactive open mics, workshops, panels and events to unite people across the city. Marking its eighth year, the festival continues to shine a spotlight on Nottingham’s thriving literary scene, from Friday 7 to Sunday 16 June.
The festival is taking place in several venues across Nottingham, celebrating local, national and internationally acclaimed artists. This year, world-renowned, dub poet and activist, Linton Kwesi Johnson will headline on Friday 14 June from 7pm, at our very own live-events venue, Metronome. Widely regarded as the father of dub poetry, Johnson combines spoken verse with reggae music. Take a listen to one of his poems, to get a feel for what you can expect:
Also headlining at this year’s festival are Luke Wright, Anthony Joseph, Hollie McNish and Michael Pedersen.
Here’s what the festival’s new creative director, Alma Solarte-Tobón, shared about the vision for this year’s festival:
“Community is at the heart of this festival. We have a fantastic core of poetry lovers who tell us how much they enjoy coming each year. Now we want to reach out to those who don’t know us. We all start our journey into poetry in different ways, but it’s something that can be accessible to everyone.
“Nottingham Poetry Festival will celebrate the city at a time when it’s more important than ever for our wellbeing to have pride in where we live and what we do, no matter what turmoil the city is facing.”
Keep up to date with festival activity, line-up information and any other announcements via their website and social media channels.
