Burning Bright

It’s been a busy week in Liverpool for poetry.

Last Friday I attended the late afternoon session at Liverpool’s first Poetry Expo organised by the young and dynamic poet Joseph Roberts. It was great to see Dave Ward and colleagues from The Windows Project, our lovely Lord Mayor , Councillor Barbara Murray, who does so much to promote literacy, literature and skills for young people in the city. I enjoyed talking to Ali Harwood, Kemal Houghton (from Wirral Poetry Festival), Sally and Ste Porter from The New Mersey Poets and poets and organisations from London and Birmingham, as well as local people interested in poetry.

I was representing Liverpool Poetry Space – an initiative I’ve been part of for a few years, and our ambition is to build a permanent home for poetry in Liverpool. We have had some amazing poets reading here in the last 2 years (including the iconic CA Conrad ) and we are looking forward to developing LiPS further – to bring a range of poetries and poets to the city, as well as celebrating our own brilliant poets.

I was delighted to attend Coast to Coast to Coast at Open Eye Gallery on Saturday 5 July. The readings were from the winners of the latest Coast to Coast to Coast poetry competition: the winning pamphlets were Not Far From Ragged Kingdom, Jean Atkin, All that Sky – Will Kemp and Almanac by Sarah Westcott.

On Sunday 6 July Liverpool Poetry Space welcomed The European Poetry Festival for a third year in Liverpool with mad, entertaining, joyous and moving readings from Lenni Sanders and David Spittle, Tom Jenks and SJ Fowler, Lena Chilari and Michael Sutton, Endre Ruset and Stephen Sunderland, Sarah-Clare Conlon and Carolyn Hashimoto, Sarah Dawson and Andrew Taylor, Julia Rose Taylor and Alec Newman and Robert Sheppard and Chris McCabe (standing in for Thomas Ballhausen). It was a vibrant and exciting afternoon!