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WORKSHOP SOUNDSCAPE IN POETRY Aoife Lyall LOCATION BIRMINGHAM HIPPODROME ABOUT THE EVENT TIME Sunday 2:30pm PRICE £24.50 / £18.50 Book Tickets An exciting and invigorating workshop on how to write, edit and elevate soundscape in poetry. 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

< Back Shame has always had the potential to shape the lyric tradition, to produce poems more ambitious and daring for their uncertainty of self. Friday - 3:30pm LYRIC SHAME Hippodrome Theatre, Hurst Street, Birmingham, UK “My hunch is that there’s something about working in poetry (above all in lyric writing) which is inherently bound up with shame. Indeed, shame may act as a driving ‘motor’ of lyric.” Denise Riley Over the course of the 20th century, lyric poetry underwent a kind of crisis of identity, sparked by the American academy’s incremental disdain for what were termed ‘epiphany poems’. As a consequence of this scathing diagnosis, much lyric poetry became more self-aware, more self-critical, more ashamed of itself. That said, for those poets who have spent their careers writing on the fringes, shame was not a new feature, for shame has always had the potential to shape the lyric tradition, to produce poems more ambitious and daring for their uncertainty of self. At a historical moment in which we have much to feel ashamed of, it is vital that poetry reflect the messy contradictions of existence. In this workshop, writers will read and discuss some of the poems most emblematic of the lyric shame movement, including work by Sylvia Plath, Claudia Rankine, Maggie Nelson, and Robert Hass. There will also be writing exercises designed to harness negative affect in ways that can render the resulting poems more powerful. WORKSHOP £24.50 / £18.50 Friday - 3:30pm Book Tickets

< Back This imaginative poetry workshop invites writers to explore the landscapes, places, and people that call to them. Saturday - 2:30pm FINDING MARY: IRISH ANCESTRY Hippodrome Theatre, Hurst Street, Birmingham, UK Drawing on Helen’s own poem, ‘Visiting Mary’, which details her Irish ancestry, we will identify and creatively excavate those, as-of-yet, unmet spaces and faces that we long to journey into and understand. Through the magic of language and the mind, writers will immerse themselves in this experience, and in parallel, observe the shape and terrain of their inner worlds, and why this soulful part of us seeks connection with these external spaces. Poets are encouraged to come lightly prepared with a few ideas around familial history, but this isn’t essential. ABOUT THE POET HELEN Calcutt is a choreographer, dance aritst, and award-winning poet. Her pamphlet ‘Somehow’ (Verve Poetry Press, 2020), was a PBS Winter Bulletin Pamphlet & Poetry School Book of the Year (2020). Her anthology ‘Eighty-Four’ (Verve Press, 2019), was a Saboteur Award shortlist, and a Poetry Wales Book of the Year, 2019. Her full-length collection ‘Feeling All the Kills’, a verse account of assault, and recovery, was published by Pavilion Poetry, April 2024. Her notable research into text-to-dance translation has been supported by Arts Council England, the Birmingham REP Theatre, and One Dance U.K. She has received awards from the Society of Authors, and her writing appears in the Guardian, the Huffington Post, Poetry Ireland, Poetry London, Poetry Wales, Wild Court, and MPT Magazine, amongst others. Helen was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters by Loughborough University for her outstanding contribution to the arts in 2023. She is currently creating and touring a dance adaptation of Max Porter’s ‘Grief Is the Thing with Feathers’ with her company Beyond Words. WORKSHOP £24.50 / £18.50 Saturday - 2:30pm Book Tickets

FESTIVAL PASSES Experience more poetry for your money with one of our FESTIVAL PASSES FESTIVAL PASS >> Includes entry to all events throughout the festival (excluding workshops and the Schools Slam Final on Wed 12 Feb). £60 (concessions £45) SATURDAY PASS >> Includes entry to all events on Sat 15 Feb (excluding workshops). £35 (concessions £26) SUNDAY PASS >> Includes entry to all events on Sun 16 Feb (excluding workshops). £20 (concessions £15) ONLINE PASS >> his pass gives you access to each and every one of our streamed events, to watch live or enjoy for up to four weeks afterwards. £50 (consessions £35)

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.

The winning September poem for VERVE Poetry Festivals monthly poetry competition, Poem of the Month. P. A. Erskine This Business of Size I became so small once I was as small as the pages I started essays on and crumpled up, crumpled up so by the end of the night the floor was littered with clenched fists of paper. I looked all the time like a girl but all the time I was pieces of paper. I still rode my bike to the market or to lectures, in a red knitted cape, or in a blue denim jacket, and I looked like a girl but the whole time I was paper and unfinished sentences or a silver pill box with a green stone in the lid very hard to open and the whole of my head was inside it. I looked like a girl and could see leaves turning yellow and the mist drifting up from the river but all that time I was trying to find where my mind was and where was everyone else? SHORTLIST The Business of Size P. A. Erskine my poetry tutor breaks up on Zoom talking about white space — Suzanna Fitzpatrick After Jessie — Beth Punnett Samurai Orchid — Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana Totem Pole / White Gloves — Mariah Whelan She’s in a Better Place — Syd Meats READ ALL SHORTLISTED ON OUR SUBSTACK

POETRY LAUNCHING THE NEW CARTHAGINIANS Nick Makoha LOCATION BIRMINGHAM HIPPODROME ABOUT THE EVENT TIME Sunday - 1pm PRICE £8 / £6 Book Tickets Book Stream We are thrilled to have exclusive early copies of this wonderful new title. One of the most exciting publications of 2025 will be Nick Makoha's The New Carthaginians (Penguin, Feb 28th 2025). We are thrilled to have exclusive early copies of this wonderful new title and to feature an extended reading from Nick along with a short interview to discover more about this wonderful book! The interview will be conduncted by Isabelle Baafi whose own debut full collection, Chaotic Good, comes out from Faber this year! Concerned throughout with flight and falling, the sample and the loop, The New Carthaginians is a poetry collection of staggering originality: a work by an author at the height of his powers, in which the familiar Western canons of art, history and philosophy are prised apart and reassembled in a new configuration. ‘In this book, Nick Makoha has found an otherworldly, visionary voice and diction that arrest you from the first page and never let you go.’ Jason Allen-Paisant. Don't miss this thrilling and unique event.

WE'VE GOT YOUR POEM/'S Thank you for sending us your poems! We will read all poems once the competition has closed on the 20th of the Month. If you are shortlisted or WIN, we will contact you before the end of the month. Take care! VERVE x WRITE, CONNECT and GROW in our POETRY WORKSHOPS JOIN OUR SUBSTACK COMMUNITY DISCOVER BOLD, BRILLIANT POETRY IN OUR BOOKSHOP

introducing VERVACEOUS To celebrate ten years of VERVE Poetry Festival, and to help us bridge the gap between pockets of funding, we are thrilled to announce a brand new heavy weight anthology of contemporary poetry launching this October in a strictly limited hardback edition .* *[The hardback is limited to 75 copies only and will only be on sale until end August 2026, will be priced at £50.00 plus £2.99 P&P and is only available from this website page. The book will be on general sale in a single print run paperback from Dec 3rd for £14.99 via vervepoetrybookshop.com and all good bookshops .] Containing poems donated by over 160 poets who have appeared at, workshopped for or are otherwise connected with our festival. Many of the poems are brand new and previously unpublished, while others are hidden gems or fan favourites. The poems may be as beautifully varied as the poets themselves, but all of them speak to the qualities of our festival - open hearted, high quality, colourful, VERVACEOUS. CLICK HERE TO SECURE YOUR HBK COPY THE BLURB: VERVACEOUS isn’t a word, but it should be. What better way to describe the poetry, the feel, the community that has sprung up over the last ten years in Birmingham UK around VERVE Poetry Festival? Celebrating 10 years of roof-shaking spoken word sets, readings and workshops by award-winning poets, boundary-pushing poetry/theatre performances, lively children’s events, competitions and open mics in a welcoming, open-hearted and celebratory environment – this anthology contains brand new poems and old favourites from poets who’ve held us and enthralled us at the festival in the last decade. And what a fine list of poets they make – a veritable who’s who of contemporary UK poetry with the odd international poet thrown in for good measure. VERVACEOUS isn’t a word. But what else could you call this era defining anthology of astonishing contemporary poetry!? Celebrate with us! Dive in! This book, like our festival, has something for everyone! Full list of poets included so far (A-Z): Amy Acre – Sanah Ahsan – Katie Ailes - Yousef Alawi - Rachael Allen – Deborah Alma - Moniza Alvi - Anthony Anaxagorou – Romalyn Ante – Raymond Antrobus - Sophia Argyris – Mona Arshi - Neil Astley – Isabelle Baafi – Casey Bailey - Debmalya Bandyopadhyay – Khairani Barokka - Elaine Beckett – Jo Bell - Dzifa Benson - Fiona Benson – Liz Berry - Caroline Bird - Hera Lindsay Bird – Leo Boix – Natalie Linh Bolderston - Laurie Bolger - Helen Bowell – Alison Brackenbury – AV Bridgwood - Nia Broomhall - Judy Brown – Jane Burn - Hannah Burrows - Troy Cabida – Helen Calcutt - Anthony Vahni Capildeo - Roberto Salvador Cenciarelli – Sumita Chakraborty - Mary Jean Chan – Chen Chen – Tim Tim Cheng - Kayo Chingonyi – Jenna Clake - Courtney Conrad - Jack Cooper - Hannah Copley - Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana - Fred D’Aguiar – Rishi Dastidar – Olga Dermott-Bond - Imtiaz Dharker – Susannah Dickey – Elle Dillon-Reams – Kat Dixon - Tishani Doshi – Betty Doyle - Afshan D'Souza-Lodhi - Ella Duffy - Sasha Dugdale – Ian Duhig – Lily Dyu - Jonathan Edwards – P. A. Erskine - Giovanni Esposito - Carrie Etter – Kit Fan – Louise Fazackerley - Linda France - Suzannah Evans Furnass - Jay Gao - Toria Garbutt – Jasmine Gardosi - Elizabeth Gibson - Rebecca Goss – Will Harris - Roma Havers – Maz Hedgehog - Gustav Parker Hibbett - Alice Hiller – Sarah Howe – Ian Humphreys - Shagufta Iqbal – Keith Jarrett - Anthony Joseph – Leyla Josephine - Gayathiri Kamalakanthan - Jaspreet Kaur - Lisa Kelly - Luke Kennard – Victoria Kennefick - Sean Wai Keung – Suhaiymah Manzour-Khan - Prerana Kumar – Zaffar Kunial - Vanessa Lampert - Wendelin Law - Gregory Leadbetter – Mukahang Limbu - Theresa Lola – Rachel Long – Marjorie Lotfi – Hannah Lowe – Rona Luo – Aoife Lyall - Nick Makoha – Rachel Mann - Roy McFarlane - Andrew McMillan – Cynthia Miller - Kim Moore – Helen Mort - Daljit Nagra – Katrina Naomi – Golnoosh Nour – Pey Oh - Padraig O Tuama – Ruth Padel - Alvin Pang – Astra Papachristodoulou - Sandeep Parmar - Pascale Petit – Heather Phillipson – Muneera Pilgrim - Kathy Pimlott – Alycia Pirmohamed - Nina Mingya Powles – Ilisha Thiru Purcell – Emma Purshouse - Helen Quah – Shivanee Ramlochan - Vidyan Ravinthiran – Yvonne Reddick - Deryn Rees-Jones – Zain Rishi – Roger Robinson - Ruby Robinson – Jacqueline Saphra - Denise Saul – Peter Scalpello - Richard Scott – Nicole Sealey - Hannah Silva – Phoebe Stuckes – Hannah Sullivan - Ellora Sutton – Bradley Taylor - Joelle Taylor – Jessica Traynor - Jennifer Lee Tsai – Kostya Tsolakis – Max Wallis - Rupinder Kaur Waraich - Julia Webb - Natalie Whittaker – Rushika Wick - Antosh Wojcik - Jennifer Wong – Gregory Woods - Karen McCarthy Woolf – Luke Wright – Jane Yeh – Eric Yip – Fathima Zahra Pub: 03/10/2026, Hardback, 240 pages, min 150 poems, 216 x 138mm CLICK HERE TO SECURE YOUR HBK COPY CLICK HERE TO SECURE YOUR HBK COPY about THE PRICE WE ARE AWARE that £50 is a lot of money for a hardback book of poetry. The money we raise from this anthology will go to fund our community projects and keep us going while we secure the funding we need to hold our 10th festival in February 2027. We are limiting this hardback to the first 75 people who pre-order. All purchasers will have the option of having their name appear inside BOTH editions of the book. All purchasers will receive their copy two months before the paperback appears. The paperback, while being lovely, will be a lot less lovely. Having said that, everyone who orders the hardback will also receive a copy of the paperback for FREE to give to a loved one or friend. Hardback purchasers will also have the option of entering up to three poems to our Poem of the Festival annual competition (with judge Sarah Howe) for FREE in October/November 2026. We dearly hope you are tempted to support us and treat yourself or a loved one to a copy of this wonderful anthology! CLICK HERE TO SECURE YOUR HBK COPY

POETRY SUNDAY HEADLINE EVENT Helen Calcutt, Carrie Etter, Ruth Padel, Padraig O Tuama LOCATION BIRMINGHAM HIPPODROME ABOUT THE EVENT TIME Sunday 2:30pm PRICE £10/£8 Book Tickets Book Stream Our final headline event of the weekend brings not three but four wonderful poets together to read and talk about their work. Birmingham's very own Helen Calcutt will read from her break out collection, Feeling All The Kills (Pavilion, 2024). Carrie Etter will read from her fifth full collection, Grief's Alphabet (Seren, 2024). Poetry royalty, Ruth Padel's most recent collection, Girl (Chatto, 2024) is a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. Joining them, host of Poetry Unbound Padraig O Tuama will read from his brand new collection, Kitchen Hymns (Cheerio, 2025). This amazing line-up, a real treat, will be hosted for us by Jonathan Davidson from Writing West Midlands and founder of Birmingham Literature Festival.

SPOKEN WORD BIG GAY POETRY NIGHT Joelle Taylor, Kandace Siobhan Walker & Sanah Ahsan LOCATION BIRMINGHAM HIPPODROME ABOUT THE EVENT TIME Saturday - 8pm PRICE £10 / £8 Book Tickets Book Stream Don your fishnets, stick your lippy on and get out your gayest poems for a celebration of all things queer poetry. Hosted by your favourite (and biggest) gays on the Birmingham poetry scene Bradley Taylor and M L Walsh. Featuring headline performances from Joelle Taylor, Kandace Siobhan Walker and Sanah Ahsan - as well as an open mic – this will be an evening that showcases some of the very best and most influential voices in poetry today.

The winning November poem for VERVE Poetry Festivals monthly poetry competition, Poem of the Month. Naoise Gale Bulimia as Viral Sensation Thin is in again, product of a twenty-year trend cycle and I must be getting old or sick because, nostalgia, that suspicious pop-up, turns the forums nobler, edgier, in my memory than what followed. Sick or old, I remember early-internet days of blog post and frenzy: the supermarket’s aisles gleamed to porcelain; desire persistent as a knife tugging at meat. I remember scrolling the buffets of bulimics — bursting fondant, cheese pull so erotic — years of hungry photographs and later the sticky-lipped Mukbangs of wet chew and cut before swallow, the obvious chew-and-spit of it, dribbling orgasms of bloodshot edits, viewers pausing their hunger with sensory distraction. Profitable bulimia; self-funding bulimia – and the unspoken change as they flipped to restriction: fat oozing cream-cakes; golden spills of butter; violent-pink lobster claws replaced with sugar-free jelly slurped up like molluscs. And of course everything delicious- best-ever-got-to-try-it, licking salt from frosted lips as they groaned like pornographic mattresses. Meanwhile, viewers in the pulsing dark of their rooms, alone, hunger lodged in their throats like fishbones. SHORTLIST the rules of the marshmallow experiment Julie Runacres indigestion Liam Bates Raised on the tail-end of heroin chic Abbie Day Cut Scenes Suyin Du Bois Everything Ice Cream Liz Lefroy READ ALL SHORTLISTED ON OUR SUBSTACK