Celebrating the power of words on World Poetry Day

VERVE POETRY FESTIVAL

What inspired Verve Poetry Festival’s creation and how has it evolved to meet the changing needs of the poets you support?

VERVE was formed as we observed that while there was a lot of poetry activity in Birmingham our poets weren't being picked up for publication and poetry lovers in Birmingham weren't getting to see the top UKpoets reading in their city. The city itself inspired the type of festival we created. Birmingham is a youthful and multi-cultural city and a warm and enthusiastic city. We wanted our festival to reflect this diversity both in the poets we invited but also the way the festival felt - it needed to be welcoming to all, open minded, generous and most of all affordable.

We wanted poetry lovers and people new to poetry to feel like they belonged at our festival and we wanted to inspire would be poets to become poets. As we have developed over our eight years, we have adapted to add in more opportunities for joining in.. Our increasing popularity in terms of audience numbers (as well as the feedback we generate) tells us we are doing a lot of things right to this end.

Your programmes provide workshops and performances that nurture creativity by amplifying marginalised voices through mentorship and a supportive community. Can you share a recent initiative that has had a significant impact?

The young person's poetry collective that we ran last year in Birmingham brought together twelve emerging poets from the region to undergo nine months of connection, workshopping and performing as a group. Our group contained a majority of poets from marginalised communities both ethnically and in terms of gender identity, many of whom had been attending our free-to-attend monthly open mic night in the city; VERVE Open Door.

Since the collective wound up at the end of last summer, one poet, Ayan Asan has become Birmingham Poet Laureate, four - Bradley Taylor, ML Walsh and Zakariye Abdillahi and Memory Bhunu have secured publication, and Bradley Taylor also became the Roundhouse Slam Champion. More than this we have created a group who keep in touch, support each other, and add to the local quality at our festival.

How has National Lottery funding supported Verve Poetry Festival’s mission, and can you share an example of the difference it has made?

Without National Lottery funding, there would be no VERVE. Our aim to keep our prices affordable and to pay performers fairly means that (aside from workshops) the bulk of our programming is loss making, and while we generate a good amount of income from ticket sales, support from our venue and other sponsorship from local universities, this supplies less than half the funding we need to create our festival. Funding allows us to provide children's activities for free, to provide concession priced access, to streaming our festival to allow remote access and to fund the use of BSL interpreters for all our events. To be welcoming we need to be accessible, and funding has absolutely ensured that we achieve this.

What does International World Poetry Day mean to Verve Poetry Festival and how are you marking the occasion?

We LOVE International World Poetry Day - it chimes perfectly with our celebratory and open-minded approach to poetry. It is the perfect day to celebrate our successes and to embrace the audience we have created. This year we will be live on social media all day, sharing photos and reels of our recent festival and sharing our plans for the year ahead. And connecting with the wider UK and World community to learn from and share their stories.

THE POETRY SOCIETY

Could you give us an overview of The Poetry Society and its describe its mission?

The Poetry Society was founded in 1909 to open up opportunities for people of all ages to read, write, perform and enjoy poetry. They’ve been the UK’s lead organisation for poetry for over a hundred years, publishing exciting new writing, supporting poetry education and encouraging successive generations of new poets.

People participate in its programmes in every single postcode area of the UK, and more than 140 countries worldwide annually. Enabling people to find community through poetry, a network of local groups (called Stanza groups) spans the British Isles from the Highlands and Islands to Cornwall and County Down, where members meet in person and online. For younger audiences there’s an online space called Young Poets Network, which also hosts regular in person meet-ups in a series of ‘Young Poets Takeovers’.

How has National Lottery funding made a difference for The Poetry Society?

With National Lottery funding, The Poetry Society has been able to encourage even more young people to find their voice through poetry and spoken word. Under the guidance of expert poets, young people have been able to explore their thoughts and feelings about the issues that matter most to them, learning to craft their words on the page, and bring them to life on the stage. As well as honing ways with words, poetry activities can be a springboard to self-confidence, or a safe space to work through complicated emotions.

Poetry Society’s young people’s programmes create spaces where young people can connect with their peers through poetry, whether in schools or community settings. In recent events in Luton and Peterborough classrooms, young people explained the positive effect of the encounters on their wellbeing, with one describing how ‘sharing and listening to others was a euphoric feeling,’ and another shared how ‘when reading my poems I felt that the people there understood me and did not judge me.’ And who wouldn’t want to listen, when there are young poets delivering gripping lines like “dear reCAPTCHA respondent is pleased to confirm she is not a robot”, “You dumped me with a ‘sorry chicken x’, so I stole your Nando’s voucher”, and “Today has led me into wanting a tee-shirt that says: “LOVE CAN GIVE YOU THIS COOL SHARK”.

What does World Poetry Day mean to The Poetry Society?

World Poetry Day is a chance to celebrate poetry’s ability to transcend borders and strengthen human connections. The Poetry Society leads workshops in classrooms all year round, and World Poetry Day is a key date in many school calendars. So, this week there will be Poetry Society poets out and about in areas including North Tyneside, Nottingham and Wolverhampton, with a trusted repertoire of surprising ideas to help students develop their creativity.

Poetry Society social channels on the day will be showcasing new poems written by some of the young poets who’ve been participating in our programmes internationally, including recent collaborations in Malaysia and South Africa. Many of our young poets use poetry to voice environmental concerns – truly a subject that unites young people globally. As one young poet told us, ‘I want my poetry to help people remember our deep, home-like connection to nature—how it can heal and hold us—and realise why we must protect the environment at all costs’. After a lively transnational online workshop, another recently reflected: ‘creativity really is a universal language’.