A Mini-Tour of The Nottingham Poetry Festival

For many of us, the word poetry provokes the memory of violently highlighting GCSE revision books within an inch of their life to find examples of enjambment and assonance.

For seven years now the Nottingham Poetry Festival has been showing poetry how it really should be: a living, breathing, vital art form - fun and infinitely varied. As well featuring the Big Beasts like Hollie McNish, Henry Normal and Linton Kwesi Johnson (we interviewed him here), the festival is made up of a whole constellation of events dotted around a very busy week. Our LeftLion correspondents popped to a few that took our fancy…

Photo above by Mihai Bircu.

At the new Central Library we found a gaggle of secondary school students putting many seasoned performers to shame with an astounding first performance. This year, creative writing charity First Story have been sending poets into The Kimberley School and Bulwell Academy to help develop their youngsters’ poetic chops and boost their stage confidence - and the results were clear to see.

These young stars were modest, opening their short sets with the disclaimer that their poems might not ‘make sense in any way’. And yet, they did - the images they created for us were memorable and true-to-life. Amy from Bulwell Academy convinced us that ‘happiness is a pepperoni pizza’. Cassie was ‘the alpha to [her] army of kittens’. All the poems showed a great deal of care and imagination, and were delivered with smiles and jazz hands.

Not only were these teens top notch on stage, but they demonstrated just how much difference a supportive and engaged audience can make, their loud cheers of encouragement helping to brush away any performance nerves. Compèred with contagious excitement by Derby’s Sophie Sparham, and featuring superb guest performances from pros Leanne Moden and Andrew Graves, this was one of the best evenings we’ve had at the Poetry Festival, and all involved in the project should be proud. 

Find out more about the work that First Story does here.

Photo by Chris Seddon.

If you like your poetry to explode, sparkle or just quietly sizzle, the GOBS Poetry Slam was all the fire you needed. This year twenty emerging poets were duking it out for the title - the audience clicked and clapped as the competitors bared their souls, with two going from each heat going through to the grand final. As the tension mounted, the four finalists showed their combustion of humour, passion, rhythm…it was sheer eloquence. 

People’s Choice Winner Davina Songbird won us over with her rhymes, while a stunning performance earned Rebecca Summerscales (known as Bep) the much deserved title of Nottingham Slam Champion 2024. Bep took home a £200 cash prize and a Bad Betty Press book bundle, and goes forward now to represent us on the international UNESCO Cities Of Literature stage. Set the poetry world alight, Bep!

Find out more about the GOBS Poetry Collective here.
Report by Gail Webb, photo by Mihai Bircu.

In the warm ritzy confines of the Broadway Mezzanine Bar we found the Dandelions Poetry collective - named for the flower that ‘grow in the cracks where we least expect them’ - taking command of the mic. This is a group bursting with talent who read rich and absorbing poetry, the kind you’d like to hear again immediately to unravel its web of inner meanings.

Birgit Friedrich opened with a barnstorming set. Julie Gardner held the crowd in a soft rapture with the story of how she discovered her half-sister, and Caroline Stancer’s menagerie of animal poems was endearingly enigmatic - including ‘My Life As A Giant Squid’ - which involves, we were told, ‘none of this perpetual lurking in the corner of an eye’. A wide range of open mic slots rounded off the evening, bringing both humour and white hot intensity. Like their namesake flower when lifted by the wind, this is a group that will surely go far.

You can learn about the Dandelion Poets here.

Photo by Claire Meyrick.

From Sappho to Allen Ginsberg, the world of poetry has always been a place of respite for queer people and in turn they’ve contributed many of its most essential works. In keeping with this and the fact that it’s Pride Month, The Carousel creative studio in Sneinton hosted the Celebrating Global Queer Poetry evening as part of this year’s Poetry Festival, and a top class roster of local queer poets were the main feature: Hongwei Bao, Rich Goodson and Gregory Woods.

As well as a chance to listen to some fantastic live performers, this gig doubled as a double launch event: Hongwei Bao released his new pamphlet Dream of the Orchid Pavilion, inspired by his experience as a migrant coming to the UK, which features a journey back deep into Chinese history and heritage.

And Gregory Woods’ chapbook They Exchange Glances: Gay Modernist Poems in Translation was the second release, mining themes of love and loss from a breadth of nations and queer perspectives. With the support of forty people from Nottingham’s poetry and LGBTQIA+ communities, tied together expertly by writer Anne Holloway, this was a truly rewarding evening to attend.

You can buy Dream of the Orchid Pavilion here, and They Exchange Glances here.

This year Nottingham City of Literature’s energetic Youth Board put on a unique walking tour which took in some of the most interesting nooks and crannies in the city. Led by Oli Nicols, the event saw participants load up on fascinating literary facts from essential places to visit like Lord Byron’s childhood house - but that wasn’t all, as other members of the Youth board facilitated several sensory poetry workshops too.

Each workshop focused on a different sense, the tour stopping for twenty minutes at destinations ranging from The Castle pub to the Nottingham Contemporary to help spark the imagination. The walk finished up at Pizza Pilgrims for some well-deserved circular nourishment after four hours of uninterrupted poetry. The event was a roaring success - a reminder to see and hear the poetry beyond the surface, to pay close attention to the city we live in.

Find out more about Nottingham City of Literature here.

Photo by Katy Birch.

Thanks to our contributors for this article - Gail Webb, Hongwei Bao and Mia Hagues.