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VERVE FESTIVAL of POETRY & SPOKEN WORD Experience more poetry for your money with one of our FESTIVAL PASSES . £60/£45 (cons) FESTIVAL PASS £35/£26 (cons) SATURDAY PASS £20/£15 (cons) SUNDAY PASS £50/£35 (cons) ONLINE PASS FEBRUARY 13th - 16th 2025 FULL LINE-UP & EVENT PROGRAMME BELOW ALL EVENTS POETRY SPOKEN WORD WORKSHOPS YOUNG PEOPLE YOUNG PEOPLE POETRY SOCIETY YOUNG POETS OPEN MIC Saturday - 11:00am Book Tickets More Info Book Stream

The winning May poem for VERVE Poetry Festivals monthly poetry competition, Poem of the Month. SAMUEL TONGUE MAY POEM OF THE MONTH WINNER Bone Garden If you’ve made it this far you’re winning and can take off your shoes, walk barefoot on holy ground – grass as sticky-back plastic – toast yarrow’s marshmallow puffery. It’s not a competition. Memento mori even amongst these illustrious dead. Gaze on this sandstone skull splitting slowly in each heat and freeze, heat and freeze, still living on, a seasonal breathing in its clippered bed. They say that the resurrection men hunted here, sniffing out the freshly interred to sell on like fat Chaise Longues, spilling their stuffing. But there’s more, a hungry treasure buried under these mossy crossbones. Kneel, dig your fingernails into the earth, right to the mooning cuticles, then raise them to your nose: your brain sparks bacterial and your tongue sparks bacterial, an umami muddy chemistry that is our home. Breathe deeply into this bone garden, here where the glorious perfume of the living and the dead blooms from our earthy bodies; and know that you are loved by all the creatures on the sweet breeze. SHORTLIST Stephanie Feeney - Drought Sophia Argyris - Hellbent on Starlight JP Seabright - Leaves the Grass Sylvie Jane Lewis - The Problem with AI Kathy Pimlott - The Phoenix Community Garden READ ALL SHORTLISTED ON OUR SUBSTACK The Winning Poet Samuel Tongue is a widely published poet and author of Sacrifice Zones (Red Squirrel, 2020), with three pamphlets including The Nakedness of the Fathers (Broken Sleep, 2022). His work has appeared in journals such as Poetry Wales, Magma, Gutter, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, and The Scotsman, and in anthologies including Be The First to Like This and Best British and Irish Poets 2016. He was Poetry Editor at Glasgow Review of Books for six years and currently edits Postbox: Scotland’s International Short Story Magazine. Samuel holds a PhD in Religion, Literature, and Culture, and is Project Coordinator at the Scottish Poetry Library. He regularly leads panels and workshops at major festivals and is Co-Director of Kalewater Cottage Creative Retreat.

SPOKEN WORD OUR POETRY FESTIVAL COMPETITION EVENT Hannah Lowe LOCATION BIRMINGHAM HIPPODROME ABOUT THE EVENT TIME Sunday - 11am PRICE FREE Book Tickets Book Stream This year we received more submissions than every before. The Verve Competition on the Theme of Poets and Poetry opened for entries late in 2024, judged by the wonderful Hannah Lowe. We also opened to competition up to entries from 11-17 year olds. This FREE to attend event will feature all the winners and commended poets plus ten selected from our 11-17 entries. The poets will read their poems on our subject and help launch our annual festival anthology. The event will be hosted by Hannah herself and will be a fun and lively affair, featuring poets of all kinds and levels of experience. Always a festival highlight!

The winning June poem for VERVE Poetry Festivals monthly poetry competition, Poem of the Month. MAX WALLIS JUNE POEM OF THE MONTH WINNER SHORTLIST Here’s to you by Rachael Clyne in praise of the queer minded. Refugee Handbook by Chiwenite Onyekwelu in praise of rain, and running to live. First Time by Amy King in praise of anticipation. Spring Clean by Kate Howlett i n praise of jewellery, joyous clothing and curved bodies. Cet automne-là, j’habitais au Gateau by Tina Selderholm in praise of cake and language. READ ALL SHORTLISTED ON OUR SUBSTACK The Winning Poet Max Wallis is an award-winning poet writing from survival. After spending 2024 in bed with complex PTSD, he founded The Aftershock Review, funded by Arts Council England for radical, resonant poetry. His poetry has appeared in Vogue, The Rialto, Poetry Scotland, and he came 3rd in the Michael Marks Environmental Poet of the Year Award 2024. His debut, Modern Love was shortlisted for the Polari Prize a decade ago. www.max-wallis.com

< 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

WORK IN POETRY *submissions closed* (ALL APPLICANTS WILL HEAR FROM US BY 28 FEBRUARY 2026. WE'LL INTRODUCE THE SELECTED POETS IN MARCH AS PART OF THE OFFICIAL LAUNCH OF OUR FULL VERVE 2026 PROGRAMME) As part of our 2026 festival programme, VERVE Poetry Festival is excited to launch WORK IN POETRY — an open call for emerging experimental works in live poetry and spoken word. This showcase is a space for scratch performances, works-in-progress, and interdisciplinary pieces exploring the possibilities of poetry on stage. What We Asked For. We invited proposals from poets, performers, and artists working in and around poetry developing: Scratch performances or works-in-progress Experimental or interdisciplinary approaches Performance poetry that incorporates sound, movement, visuals, digital media, or audience interaction Projects that are part of a DYCP or other development process New voices pushing the boundaries of poetry on stage Old voices with new material. What We Offer. A professionally produced slot at VERVE Poetry Festival 2026 A £300 fee per performance (solo or group) Basic technical support and rehearsal time An opportunity to perform in front of a live audience and gather feedback Promotion as part of the official festival programme This is a testing ground, not a finished product. We welcome risk taking, raw edges, and creativity in development. When's the scratch event? Date: Friday 8th May 2026 Time: 2:30 PM – 5:00 PM Location: Birmingham Hippodrome Fee: £300 per artist/group Number of commissions: 4 Event type: Scratch performance showcase WORK IN POETRY is part of our wider programme celebrating bold, innovative, and experimental voices in poetry and live literature.

THANK YOU Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback. Your insights are incredibly valuable in shaping the future of VERVE Poetry & Spoken Word Festival. We deeply appreciate your participation and hope that the festival has been a rewarding experience for you, both creatively and professionally. If you have any further thoughts or ideas, feel free to reach out to us—we would love to hear from you! We hope to see you again at VERVE in the future. Until then, keep creating, keep performing, and keep inspiring. With gratitude, The VERVE Festival Team

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.

POETRY MAGMA MATTERS: Past, Present and Future Various Magma Regular and Specific Issue Editors LOCATION BIRMINGHAM HIPPODROME ABOUT THE EVENT TIME Saturday - 2:30pm PRICE £8 / £6 Book Tickets Book Stream Join us for a live version of the magazine with editors and poets who have been part of the Magma journey. This LIVE version of Magma looks at recent issues, including Obsidian and Performance, and the current Grassroots issue, and explores what future issues aim to achieve through a dynamic showcase with audience interaction. A great line-up of poets will share their work and link it to Magma features. Elontra Hall and Sim Pereira-Madder will discuss performance poetry, taking their lead from the exchange in the Performance issue. Co-editor Josiane Smith will lead the discussion and take questions from the audience. The Reviews element of Magma, delivered by reviews editor Aoife Lyall, pays tribute to Gboyega Odubanjo’s Adam, his posthumous collection published by Faber. Gboyega was Magma’s co-Chair and is now its Presiding Spirit and while Magma misses a dear friend and colleague, we celebrate his legacy and urge people to support the Gboyega Odubanjo Foundation for low-income Black writers. Magma’s Inspired Feature will be performed by Amy Acre - a good friend of Magma and Judge of this year's annual competition. She will share insights into what she looks for in competition-winning poems and take questions from the audience as well as reading from her celebrated first collection, Mothersong (Boomsbury Poetry). Magma is proud to make Nafeesa Hamid our Selected Poet for the Verve Poetry Festival.

< Back Bring your roses and your thorns to this unashamed workshop. Sunday - 12pm VALENTINES HOT & COLD Hippodrome Theatre, Hurst Street, Birmingham, UK What is love? Still unsure? Love your pet? Love being alone? Unleash the language your heart speaks: queer joy or winter blues, tricksiness or comradeship, sweet and bitter foolishness Sometimes silence or stumbling words can be the most expressive, and just how can we love in dark times? We'll dip in and out of sad, glad, and in-between moods, inspired by ancient and modern material. You might find yourself writing a letter to St Valentine in prison, or changing the mottos on love heart candies. The creative prompts in this workshop will encourage you to rethink your definition of love, where to find it, and how to express it. ABOUT THE POET Anthony Vahni Capildeo FRSL is a Trinidadian Scottish writer of poetry and non-fiction. Currently Professor and Writer in Residence at the University of York, their site-specific word and visual art includes responses to Cornwall’s former capital, Launceston, as the Causley Trust Poet in Residence (2022) and to the Ubatuba granite of the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds (2023), as well as to Scottish, Irish, and Caribbean built and natural environments. Their numerous books and pamphlets, from No Traveller Returns (Salt, 2003), Person Animal Figure (Landfill, 2005) onwards, are distinguished by deliberate engagement with independent and small presses. Their work has been recognized with the Cholmondeley Award (Society of Authors) and the Forward Poetry Prize for Best Collection. Their publications include Like a Tree, Walking (Carcanet, 2021) (Poetry Book Society Choice), and A Happiness (Intergraphia, 2022). Their interests include silence, translation theory, medieval reworkings, plurilingualism, collaborative work, and traditional masquerade. Recent commissions include research-based Windrush poems for Poet in the City and for the Royal Society of Literature. Capildeo served as a judge for the Jhalak Prize (2023). WORKSHOP £24.50 / £18.50 Sunday - 12pm Book Tickets

The winning July poem for VERVE Poetry Festivals monthly poetry competition, Poem of the Month. Minal Sukumar SHORTLIST Nesting Grounds by Milla Van Der Have . Progress Log by Kadie Newman. Dead 8 launch hunting No 1 by Rish Dastidar . Opposites of ghosts by Dillon Jax. Place to Call Home by Denni Turp. READ ALL SHORTLISTED ON OUR SUBSTACK