A Lovely Poetry Festival for Liverpool this summer

A new poetry festival comes to Liverpool this summer promising nine days of top local and national creative talent including award-winning Hollie McNish.

A Lovely Poetry Festival, running from July 1-9, is a collaboration between A Lovely Word and Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse.

It aims to celebrate writing, different voices and showcase the city’s creative community and spoken word scene through a week of performances, workshops and other events including a poetry slam.

The first pair of headline names to be announced are Ted Hughes Award winning poet and playwright Hollie McNish, and prize-winning Scottish poet and author Michael Pedersen who will both appear at the Everyman on Tuesday, July 5.

Along with headline names the festival will also work with local poets including Lyndsay Price, Olive Yoxall and Gerry Clarkson as well as A Lovely Word artist in residence Amina Atiq.

And members of the public will be invited to pop into the Everyman and write a poem which will form part of a collection of verse on the building’s ground floor.

A Lovely Word host and director Alex Ferguson said: “Anyone can do poetry. You don’t need any materials more than a pen and paper, and sometimes you don’t even need that.

“As we still feel the aftershocks and trauma of the pandemic, it’s important to find multiple ways for people to use poetry to reflect and find joy in creativity and coming together.”

A Lovely Poetry Festival runs from July 1-9. More details and tickets HERE