The Lyra Bristol Poetry Festival will take place at various venues and online and feature readings, performances, walks, poetry slams, and events for young people with Michael Rosen and Daljit Nagra. The 2022 festival theme is Breaking Boundaries: New Worlds, celebrating interdisciplinary poetry across art forms and cultures. Full details, including how to book tickets, are on the website.
The festival is sponsored by Arts Council England and we are proud to offer additional financial support. Various current and former members of the Department staff and students are involved in the festival: in particular, co-director Danny Pandolfi is a graduate of our English BA, and Tjawangwa Dema, honorary senior research associate in the Department, is a member of the steering committee.
Highlights include several events organised in partnership with the Bristol Poetry Institute. The Waste Land lecture by Jim McCue will take place on Friday 1st April (now sold out), and on Saturday 9th April there will be a free panel event at Wills Memorial Building, Radical Translation, followed by a reading headlined by Diana Bellessi. On Sunday 10th April, Daljit Nagra features in a free event for children, young people and families at St George’s Bristol.
Tjawangwa Dema will also be discussing poetry and disobedience with Raymond Antrobus in an online event on Tuesday 5th April.