WORKSHOP TURNING MOVEMENT INTO POETRY Dzifa Benson LOCATION BIRMINGHAM HIPPODROME ABOUT THE EVENT TIME Friday - 4pm PRICE £24.50 / £18.50 Book Tickets This ambitious and experimental workshop channels choreographer and dance theorist Rudolf Laban’s techniques. According to Laban, human beings move not only from place to place but also from mood to mood so his ideas can apply to the composition of embodied poetry as much as they can to choreographed movement. Laban also encouraged physical, emotional, sensual and intellectual integration which, in the workshop, will translate as poetic rhythms that can be understood and experienced by the body in motion. To this end, participants will be led through a process of writing poetry inspired by Laban’s mapping system of purposeful movement in order to write impactful poetry. ABOUT THE POET Dzifa Benson, who was born in London to Ghanaian parents and grew up in Ghana, Nigeria and Togo and is now based in London, is an award-winning artist in multiple media . Literature is her primary mode for making things but she also uses art, science, technology, the body and ritual to tell stories. She explores all this through poetry, prose, theatre, libretto, performance, curation, video, installation, immersive technologies, essays, criticism and teaching. She embraces collaboration and participation at the heart of what she does and is really interested in research-led, site-specific work that subverts the use of existing spaces. Before all this, she worked as a parliamentary assistant for a member of parliament for seven years.

SPOKEN WORD VERVE X LOUD POETRY SLAM Birmingham Heat LOCATION BIRMINGHAM HIPPODROME ABOUT THE EVENT TIME Thursday - 7pm PRICE £10 / £8 Book Tickets Book Stream Poets from West Midlands and beyond compete in one of 10 heats taking place across Scotland and England for the biggest prize in UK slam poetry. The prestigious Loud Poets Slam Series has expanded, and VERVE is hosting its first-ever Birmingham heat! Watch Birmingham's top poets compete in one of 10 heats taking place across Scotland and England for the biggest prize in UK slam poetry. The winner will take home £200 and qualify for the 2025 Grand Slam Final in Edinburgh, with a £3,000 cash prize! Don't miss this electrifying competition! SIGN UP TO COMPETE IN THE LOUD POETS SLAM I Am Loud started in 2014 as Loud Poets, a live spoken word poetry showcase. Since then they have grown into a multidisciplinary production and entertainment company while keeping live events at the heart of their work. From monthly shows to open mics, tours, and festival performances, I Am Loud showcases the best of spoken word work coming out of Scotland and the UK today.

< Back Putting together your pamphlet for submission. Sunday 4pm WHICHING AND PITCHING Hippodrome Theatre, Hurst Street, Birmingham, UK Thinking about collecting your poems into a first pamphlet? Bring your idea and join this demystifying workshop run by Birmingham publisher The Emma Press. In considering what editors are looking for in a pamphlet, we will see what we can learn from some of the best recent publications and get thinking about how to select and order your own poems. The session will explore the range of poetry publishers and consider how to pitch, how to talk about your work, and how to know your audiences. With plenty of time for questions and discussion on good practice and common pitfalls, you’ll leave with key footholds for you next steps on your publication journey. This workshop will be run by Emma Press editor James Trevelyan . WORKSHOP £24.50 / £18.50 Sunday 4pm Book Tickets

WORKSHOP A FAMILY AFFAIR Victoria Kennefick LOCATION BIRMINGHAM HIPPODROME ABOUT THE EVENT TIME Sunday - 12:30pm PRICE £24.50 / £18.50 Book Tickets Write poems that speak to the most formative relationship we will ever experience. In this generative poetry workshop we’ll explore and interrogate what family, and our subsequent attachment styles, might mean for us in our poems. How can we use this relationship to expand our understanding of communal and individual experiences? What unique and formative language did we learn from our family of origin that we can employ in our work? In this workshop we’ll read and study a wide range of poems from traditional and contemporary poets around this subject and write poems that speak to the most formative relationship we will ever experience. ABOUT THE POET Victoria Kennefick is a poet, writer and teacher from Shanagarry, Co. Cork now based in Co. Kerry. Her first collection, Eat or We Both Starve , was published by Carcanet Press in March 2021. It won the Seamus Heaney Prize for Best First Collection 2022 and The Dalkey Literary Festival Emerging Writer of the Year Award 2022. It was also shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, The Costa Poetry Book Award, The Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry and The Butler Literary Prize. It was a a Book of the Year in The Guardian , T he Irish Times , The Sunday Independent and The White Review , and was also selected as one of The Telegraph 's Best Poetry Books to Buy 2021. Her pamphlet, White Whale (Southword Editions, 2015), won the Munster Literature Centre Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition and the Saboteur Award for Best Poetry Pamphlet. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Poetry Review, PN Review, Poetry Ireland Review, The Stinging Fly, Poetry News, Prelude, Copper Nickel, The Irish Times, Ambit, bath magg, Banshee, Bad Lilies, PBLJ and elsewhere. She won the 2013 Red Line Book Festival Poetry Prize and many of her poems have also been anthologised and broadcast on national radio stations.

< Back An exciting and invigorating workshop on how to write, edit and elevate soundscape in poetry. Sunday 2:30pm SOUNDSCAPE IN POETRY Hippodrome Theatre, Hurst Street, Birmingham, UK Starting with some light terminology and a heady mixture of classic and contemporary poems to draw inspiration from, this is a workshop for anyone and everyone who is enamoured, baffled, or bewildered by the concept and significance of sound in poetry. Guaranteed to deepen your love and understanding of every syllable you give to the page, this session will give you the confidence to go deeper into the poems you love, and to make your own words sing. Not to be missed! ABOUT THE POET: Aoife Lyall is the author of 'Mother, Nature' (Bloodaxe Books, 2021), shortlisted for the Scottish First Book Award 2021, and 'The Day Before' (Bloodaxe Books, 2024), poems from which were shortlisted in the Bridport Poetry Competition and Highly Commended in the Forward Prize for Poetry. Previous accolades include an Emerging Scottish Writer residency by Cove Park in 2020 and being twice shortlisted for the Hennessy New Irish Writing Awards. She has received generous National Lottery funding through Creative Scotland to support the writing of her collections. She is reviews editor of Magma Poetry, and has worked as a guest curator and young makar mentor for the Scottish Poetry Library. She has also worked with the Saltire Society as a judge, and Butcher’s Dog as a guest editor. Her poems have inspired music, film, sculpture and artwork across the UK and Ireland. Lyall lives and works in the Scottish Highlands with her family and her work focuses on motherhood, queerness, lockdown, and emigration. Praise for 'The Day Before' ‘Her theme is ‘heaven in the ordinary’ – moments of illumination in everyday life. Written during the pandemic (chillingly evoked in the poem ‘Moss’), these moments become necessary for survival. There’s an imagist precision here, with real emotional power.’ – Graeme Richardson, The Sunday Times, on The Day Before 'There's an undercurrent of suffering to Aoife Lyall's second collection, The Day Before, much of which coheres around the disorientating days of lockdown; its odd rituals, barriers and a looming atmosphere of bureaucratic dread ... There's an elegiac tone to some of the work...and here, the use of gesture and withholding, of feeling by absence, is...effective.' – Declan Ryan, The Irish Times 'The Day Before is remarkable for the assured, luminous quality of each of its poems .... The Day Before is a deceptively complex collection - though its beautiful language and celebration of the everyday create a quiet magic, there is a pervading sense of melancholy as Lyall uncovers the loss in our lives, including the loss of childhood and innocence; the environmental losses we see around us every day; the loss of security in a world marked by pandemic.' – Rosamund Taylor, Poetry Ireland Review WORKSHOP £24.50 / £18.50 Sunday 2:30pm Book Tickets

< Back Quite simply simile in Poetry. Sunday - 9:30am THE WALL AS THIN AS A WREN's BONE Hippodrome Theatre, Hurst Street, Birmingham, UK Part of our attraction to poetry is our attraction to figurative language in the form of similes and metaphors, and here we'll focus on similes, beginning with Dylan Thomas's 'wall thin as a wren's bone'. We'll analyse what makes similes effective by looking at examples from a wide range of examples, then use our own to draft a new poem. ABOUT THE POET American expatriate Carrie Etter has published four collections of poetry, including The Tethers (Seren, 2009), winner of the London New Poetry Prize, and Imagined Sons (Seren, 2014), shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry. She also edited Infinite Difference: Other Poetries by UK Women Poets (Shearsman, 2010), a TLS Book of the Year, and Linda Lamus’s posthumous collection, A Crater the Size of Calcutta (Mulfran, 2015). Individual poems have appeared in The Guardian, The New Republic, The New Statesman, The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem, Poetry Review, and The Times Literary Supplement. She also writes short stories, essays, and reviews, and has received grants from Arts Council England and The Society of Authors. After many years teaching at Bath Spa University, in 2022 Etter joined the creative writing faculty at the University of Bristol. WORKSHOP £24.50 / £18.50 Sunday - 9:30am Book Tickets

POETRY SATURDAY NIGHT HEADLINE EVENT Theresa Lola, Victoria Kennefick, Anthony Vahni Capildeo with host Jo Bell LOCATION BIRMINGHAM HIPPODROME ABOUT THE EVENT TIME Saturday - 6pm PRICE £10 / £8 Book Tickets Book Stream Three incredible poets, all giants in their way on the contemporary UK and world poetry scene. We’re thrilled to have Anthony Vahni Capildeo back with us reading from her brilliant recent collection, Polkadot Wounds (Carcanet, 2024). Joining Anthony are Victoria Kennefick and Theresa Lola . This is incredibly Victoria's first time at VERVE. Her most recent publication, Egg/Shell (Carcanet, 2024) is the Poetry Bok Society Spring Choice 2024. Theresa joins us to celebrate publication of her second full collection, Ceremony for the Nameless (Penguin, 2024) Hosting these three amazing poets for readings and discussion is Jo Bell, renowned poet and co-author of How to be a Poet (Nine Arches Press, 2017).

< Back Bring your writing home & write the ordinary extraordinarily 🪑✨ ✍️ Saturday - 9:30am MAKING THE ORDINARY EXTRAORDINARY Hippodrome Theatre, Hurst Street, Birmingham, UK During this session we'll be looking at writing inspired by The Everyday. This is a chance to work in a close & relaxed group & mix up your writing with some lovely prompts & surprises. Perfect YOU time to get cosy & open those notebooks. All levels welcome! 🏡🥄 🍽 ABOUT THE POET Laurie Bolger is an acclaimed English poet, stand-up and presenter based in London. She was shortlisted for Young Poet Laureate of London in 2014 and won the 2023 International Book & Pamphlet Competition judged by Hannah Lowe. Bolger tours her writing, including her debut pamphlet collection 'Makeover, Spin and Box Rooms', and has performed at prestigious venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, Old Vic Theatre, and St Paul's Cathedral. WORKSHOP £24.50 / £18.50 Saturday - 9:30am Book Tickets

WORKSHOP THE WALL AS THIN AS A WREN's BONE Carrie Etter LOCATION BIRMINGHAM HIPPODROME ABOUT THE EVENT TIME Sunday - 9:30am PRICE £24.50 / £18.50 Book Tickets Quite simply simile in Poetry. Part of our attraction to poetry is our attraction to figurative language in the form of similes and metaphors, and here we'll focus on similes, beginning with Dylan Thomas's 'wall thin as a wren's bone'. We'll analyse what makes similes effective by looking at examples from a wide range of examples, then use our own to draft a new poem. ABOUT THE POET American expatriate Carrie Etter has published four collections of poetry, including The Tethers (Seren, 2009), winner of the London New Poetry Prize, and Imagined Sons (Seren, 2014), shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry. She also edited Infinite Difference: Other Poetries by UK Women Poets (Shearsman, 2010), a TLS Book of the Year, and Linda Lamus’s posthumous collection, A Crater the Size of Calcutta (Mulfran, 2015). Individual poems have appeared in The Guardian, The New Republic, The New Statesman, The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem, Poetry Review, and The Times Literary Supplement. She also writes short stories, essays, and reviews, and has received grants from Arts Council England and The Society of Authors. After many years teaching at Bath Spa University, in 2022 Etter joined the creative writing faculty at the University of Bristol.

< Back Write poems that speak to the most formative relationship we will ever experience. Sunday - 12:30pm A FAMILY AFFAIR Hippodrome Theatre, Hurst Street, Birmingham, UK In this generative poetry workshop we’ll explore and interrogate what family, and our subsequent attachment styles, might mean for us in our poems. How can we use this relationship to expand our understanding of communal and individual experiences? What unique and formative language did we learn from our family of origin that we can employ in our work? In this workshop we’ll read and study a wide range of poems from traditional and contemporary poets around this subject and write poems that speak to the most formative relationship we will ever experience. ABOUT THE POET Victoria Kennefick is a poet, writer and teacher from Shanagarry, Co. Cork now based in Co. Kerry. Her first collection, Eat or We Both Starve , was published by Carcanet Press in March 2021. It won the Seamus Heaney Prize for Best First Collection 2022 and The Dalkey Literary Festival Emerging Writer of the Year Award 2022. It was also shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, The Costa Poetry Book Award, The Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry and The Butler Literary Prize. It was a a Book of the Year in The Guardian , T he Irish Times , The Sunday Independent and The White Review , and was also selected as one of The Telegraph 's Best Poetry Books to Buy 2021. Her pamphlet, White Whale (Southword Editions, 2015), won the Munster Literature Centre Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition and the Saboteur Award for Best Poetry Pamphlet. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Poetry Review, PN Review, Poetry Ireland Review, The Stinging Fly, Poetry News, Prelude, Copper Nickel, The Irish Times, Ambit, bath magg, Banshee, Bad Lilies, PBLJ and elsewhere. She won the 2013 Red Line Book Festival Poetry Prize and many of her poems have also been anthologised and broadcast on national radio stations. WORKSHOP £24.50 / £18.50 Sunday - 12:30pm Book Tickets

< Back ‘The houses are haunted’, writes Wallace Stevens and maybe, by this, he means poetry. Saturday - 12:00pm ANCESTRY, INTERTEXTUALITY & GHOSTS Hippodrome Theatre, Hurst Street, Birmingham, UK Join Richard Scott for this workshop in which we'll consider our poetic ancestors and how they might inspire -- through intertextuality, idea and form -- our writing now. We'll be doing writing exercises and discussing poems together as we become, in the words of Lucie Brock-Broido, ‘a freak of letters crossing down a rare / Path bleak with poplars’. ABOUT THE POET Richard Scott was born in London in 1981. His first book Soho (Faber & Faber, 2018), was a Gay’s the Word book of the year and shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot prize. His second poetry collection, That Broke into Shining Crystals , is forthcoming from Faber & Faber in February 2025. Richard is a lecturer in creative writing at Goldsmiths, University of London where he also runs a poetry reading group, and he teaches poetry at the Faber Academy. His poetry has been translated into German and French. WORKSHOP £24.50 / £18.50 Saturday - 12:00pm Book Tickets

SPOKEN WORD POETRY UNBOUND SPECIAL Imtiaz Dharker with Padraig O Tuama. LOCATION BIRMINGHAM HIPPODROME ABOUT THE EVENT TIME Saturday - 4:30pm PRICE £8 / £6 Book Tickets Book Stream Poetry Unbound is an immersive exploration of a single poem, hosted by Pádraig Ó Tuama. Short and unhurried, Poetry Unbound is an immersive exploration of a single poem, hosted by Pádraig Ó Tuama. Pádraig Ó Tuama greets you at the doorways of brilliant poems and walks you through — each one has wisdom to offer and questions to ask you. Imtiaz Dharker is a recipient of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry and her most recent collection, Shadow Reader. was published to great acclaim by Bloodaxe in 2024. Padraig O Tuama's new collection is out in January 2025 and he hosts the celebrated podcast, Poetry Unbound, in which he reads and explores some of his favourite poems. What better than to bring these two together to discuss Imtiaz's poems and talk about her poetic journey to this point? And celebrate the work of one of the nation's favourite poets. Read about POETRY UNBOUND here.