Nottingham Poetry Festival 2024

About

Friday 7 - Sunday 16 June 2024
Various venues

This year’s Nottingham Poetry Festival is a supersized 10 days of blistering performances, open mics, workshops, panels and community events that will see people unite together across the city and county (7 June to 16 June 2024).

The annual celebration of words features some of the UK’s leading poets - Linton Kwesi Johnson, Hollie McNish, Michael Pedersen, Luke Wright, Anthony Joseph and Henry Normal - along with a huge array of homegrown talent, open mics, panels and workshops, exhibitions and free poetry books from the city’s independent publishers.

This year, the festival is paying tribute to the late poet Benjamin Zephaniah with a screening of films featuring his poetry made by Ben Wigley, the Nottingham filmmaker who worked with the renowned poet as he looked at the state of the world at a moment in time.

After the Broadway screening on 16 June, local poets will pay tribute to Zephaniah followed by a Q&A with Ben Wigley and producer Anna Griffin about their experience collaborating with the poet. Proceeds will go to the brainstrust charity. Tickets available now.

A number of community organisations are taking part in creative activities to bring new voices and perspectives to the festival. The groups include Nottingham Black Archive, the Young Carers Association, Big White Shed, First Story, Cultural Vibrations, City of Literature Youth Board, Young Producers and Kavya Rang.

The festival will also be working with Poets Off The Endz on their new work: Chapter 1, and Apples & Snakes on a wellbeing event with lots more to be announced. Working with one of the sponsors, It’s in Nottingham, there will also be a World Record attempt to create the longest outdoor poem.

Henry Normal will once again be embarking on his library tour around the Inspire libraries of Nottinghamshire County Council, shining a light on the vital role they play within the community. This comes at a time when Nottingham’s own library provision is under review, with fears some may close due to the budget cuts.

The festival founded by poet Henry Normal and Confetti CEO Craig Chettle MBE has become an integral part of Nottingham’s cultural offer, attracting audiences from all over the country.

The 2023 event engaged with more than 3,000 people enjoying performances, creative activities, talks and workshops across the city’s pubs, bookshops, libraries, theatres and community venues.

The festival has been awarded National Lottery Project Funding by Arts Council England and is supported by It’s in Nottingham, NTU, Confetti Media Group and Castle Rock Brewery.