Welcome to the sixth successive edition of Lyra - Bristol Poetry Festival, taking place from 12th - 21st April 2024 at 10 venues. This year’s festival theme Poetic Futures explores both technology and the future through the lens of poetry and words, and the imaginative power of language in shaping and reimagining new worlds.
This year’s headline poets include Alice Oswald, Raymond Antrobus, Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa, Nikita Gill, Simon Armitage, Salena Godden and many more of the most exciting names in contemporary poetry, including three winners of the recent Forward Prize for Poetry: Momtaza Mehri, Malika Booker and Bohdan Piasecki.
We’re delighted to be exhibiting technologically ambitious installations including the Bonds audiovisual poetry exhibition at Bristol Beacon, the Cancer Alley poetry film hologram exhibition at Watershed, and Deanna Rodger’s Poetic Fortune Teller. There will be a panel and performance on AI and poetry (part of Lyra’s new Page Against the Machine project), an AI and poetry writing workshop, a poetry and technology film screening, and other expansive, genre-pushing activities.
Poetic Futures will be explored through a Queer Futures event, a workshop and new show from Joelle Taylor, a multimedia Hot Poets talk on poetry, climate and saving the world, and activities which contrast the past and future such as our Caribbean Nights film screening, poetry and archives workshop, a Beyond Poetry panel discussion (with Vanessa Kisuule, Travis Alabanza and Cecilia Knapp), and historical walking tours. On the centenary of American writer James Baldwin, a workshop led by US writer Danez Smith and panel led by Bristol-based Edson Burton will reflect on his legacy and Baldwinian futures. Our closing event, City of Words, will be a celebration of Bristol in its many perspectives and histories, and a collaboration with the inimitable Bristol Ideas as part of their closing activity. Many community groups commissioned by Lyra in 2024 will also showcase their work, as well as newly commissioned Bristol poets Asmaa Jama, Stephen Lightbown, Deborah Harvey, Lawrence Hoo and Sukina Noor.
We’re thrilled to welcome four poets from Ghana for an exclusive performance at Lyra this year, including acclaimed poet Gabriel Awuah Mainoo. A huge welcome to our friends who are travelling all this way to Bristol and curating ‘Back Stories of the Afro Wind’, an evening of West and East African poetry. Thank you to Bath Spa University for funding this exciting cultural exchange.
This year we have more live streamed events than ever before, so you can watch along at home or even take part in a workshop even if you’re unable to attend in person. We also have numerous BSL interpreted events across the two festival weekends. There are over 10 free activities in this year’s 30+ strong programme. Specific information about accessibility across our various venues can be found on our website homepage, which will also take you to an Access Form if you’d like to let us know in advance about anything we can help you with.
Check out our full programme of performances, workshops, exhibitions, walking tours, family activities, film screenings, poetry slams, open mics, wellbeing activities, multilingual events and much more!
Lyra Festival is co-directed by Professor Lucy English and Danny Carlo Pandolfi.
A special thanks to all our key partners who have helped to make this programme possible, including Arts Council England, Bristol University’s Poetry Institute, Bath Spa University, Bristol Ideas, Apples and Snakes, Super Culture, Renaissance One, Poetry Translation Centre, Hot Poets and Speaking Volumes, as well as all our event collaborators and venues. We hope you enjoy April’s dynamic programme of poetry in Bristol, and we look forward to seeing everybody, both online and in-person.
The full programme of events is now live at www.lyrafest.com, where you can find tickets to all individual events, as well as Festival Passes.
2024 Festival Poet: shakara
Our 2024 Festival Poet is shakara, who will be running a workshop and performing new work at the festival, as well as taking part in a discussion panel and running community outreach activities across March and April. shakara is a Jamaican-born artist who embodies a fusion of technology and creativity, weaving together poetry, spoken word and filmmaking with AI. They seamlessly blend their academic background with their creative practice, incorporating coding and AI-inspired creations. shakara is intrigued by AI’s potential to uplift global majority voices and is dedicated to centering the narratives of black queer women. They will be exploring the intersection of art and technology, paving the way for technologies rooted in human-based ethics.
Related
Comments
Comments are disabled for this post.
