Nottingham Poetry Festival 2024: 10 terrific shows you don't want to miss

Next month, Nottingham will come alive with performances, talks and workshops for the city’s Poetry Festival.

Pubs, bookshops, libraries, theatres, and community centres across the city will play host to events as part of the ‘biggest-ever’ Nottingham Poetry Festival.

The festival runs across the city from June 7th until June 16th.

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The annual celebration of words features some of the UK’s leading poets including Linton Kwesi Johnson, Hollie McNish, Michael Pedersen, Luke Wright, Anthony Joseph, and Henry Normal .

It also showcases some incredible homegrown talent, with open mics, panels and workshops, exhibitions, and free poetry books from the city’s independent publishers. 

Tickets for the headlining events are running low, but the vast majority of the festival programme is once again free. 

Here are 10 shows you don’t want to miss at this year’s Nottingham Poetry Festival:

June 8: Hollie McNish and Michael Pedersen

Where: Poppy and Pint

After a run of sold-out shows up and down the UK, Hollie McNish is back with a brand new book, Lobster and other things I’m learning to love. In Lobster, Hollie brings her much-loved style to questions of friendship, flags and newborns, clocks, cocks and volvos, shining a ridiculous and beautifully poetic lens upon all those things we have been taught to hate, and which we might just learn to love again.

Here, she will be joined by fellow poet Michael Pedersen reading from his latest brilliant books The Cat Prince and Boy Friends.

Tickets £15/10. 

June 12: Luke Wright's Silver Jubilee

Where: The Old Cold Store

Crack out the bunting! It’s Luke Wright’s Silver Jubilee. Over twenty-five years, Luke Wright has built up a reputation for being one of Britain’s most popular live poets. Thwarted in his attempts to hold a street party by the philistines on the council and unable to shift the over-ordered commemorative plates,

Wright does what a poet does best, and takes a deep dive into himself. What follows is his most confessional show to date excavating lives lived and not lived.

Tickets £12/10.

June 14: Nottingham Poetry Festival presents Linton Kwesi Johnson

Where: Metronome

Linton Kwesi Johnson is a recording artist, reggae poet and activist born in 1952 in Clarendon, Jamaica. He came to London in 1963 and went to Tulse Hill secondary school, joining the Black Panthers whilst there.

Johnson’s first poetry collection was Voices of the Living and the Dead and in 2002 he was only the second living poet and the first black poet to be included in Penguin’s Modern Classics; that book is now republished as Selected Poems. Time Come, the first collection of his selected prose, came out in 2023.

Tickets £18/£15.

June 15: Cultural Vibrations presents Anthony Joseph

Where: Antenna

Anthony Joseph, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize 2022, is a poet, novelist, academic and musician who moved from Trinidad to the UK in 1989.

As well as four poetry collections, a slew of albums, and three novels, Joseph has published critical work exploring the aesthetics of Caribbean Poetry. At the festival, he will perform alongside a dynamic lineup of spoken word artists and performers from the Caribbean & West African diaspora. 

June 8: Vice Verses

Where: St Ann’s Allotments

Hilarious, thought-provoking, and uplifting experience of poets performing each other's work plus the opportunity to write your own poem, taking inspiration from the surroundings.

Pay what you can.

June 9: Comedy in Poetry

Where: Theatre Royal & Concert Hall

Henry Normal, Hollie McNish and Michael Pederson will talk about the role of comedy in poetry.  Comic poetry is some of the most loved verse in the country.

Whether it's tight rhymes, subverting forms or hilarious observations of the everyday it can surprise and delight audiences. Comedy can also bring nuance to darker writing.

With Hollie & Michael’s performance sold out, this is likely to be popular.

Free.

10-11 June: Henry Normal’s Library Tour

Henry will be accompanied on his tour of libraries in Retford, Southwell, Kirkby-in-Ashfield and West Bridgford by four Nottingham poets; Manjit Sahota, Bridie Squires, Michelle Hubbard, and Pete Ramskill.

Free.

Henry said: “I love libraries. Without Notts libraries I would never have become a writer. In a world becoming ever more isolating, libraries are one of the few remaining safe spaces where people can interact.

“The choice offered by libraries opens up a wide world of possibilities. Libraries are a place where you can find the world and find yourself. If we lose any library we are all the poorer. We should be putting more money and resources into the libraries - they are an essential part of our community life and vital for the mental health of the nation and future generations.”

June 10: Nottingham Slamovision Heats

Where: Nottingham Central Library

Nottingham City of Literature is looking for an incredible slam poet to represent the city at the global Slamovision finale taking place in Manchester later this year.

Take part in this local heat or sit back, relax, and enjoy an evening of top slam poetry.

Free.

June 15: Cultural Vibrations presents: Pidgin, Patois & Poetry

Where: Antenna

An entertaining creative workshop exploring how dialects and slang from the Caribbean & West African diaspora has influenced British language & creativity. Free. 

Nottingham Poetry Festival Attempt A Poetry Record, 15 June

Come and join the attempt to break the record for the longest street poem in the world. Right outside Nottingham Central Library, pick up the chalk to add your own lines of poetry and be a part of history in the making. The event has been sponsored by It’s In Nottingham. Free.

June 16: Notts vs Derby, Poetry Slam!

Where: The Old Cold Store

Finish off the festival with the ultimate Slam challenge as the best of Nottingham and Derby go head to head in a battle of words. Champions from each city bring their best poems together to compete for honour, glory and a grand prize. There's gonna be fireworks!

Free. 

For more information,  go to www.nottinghampoetryfestival.com