Join the celebration at Lyra Poetry Festival

Lyra - Bristol Poetry Festival returns in 2025 with an ambitious and immersive 10-day programme of events from 25 April to 4 May, hosted across leading arts venues in Bristol.

Showcasing poetry in diverse forms, from readings and slams to digital media and walking tours, ensuring accessibility with BSL, captioned events, and wheelchair-friendly venues. The festival will feature a dynamic mix of readings, workshops, poetry slams, family activities, walking tours, open mics, panel discussions, and a poetry and performance retreat, welcoming both local talent and world-renowned poets. Events will be available both in-person and live-streamed, ensuring wide accessibility for poetry lovers everywhere. 

Now firmly established as a major literary festival in the UK, Lyra’s 2025 theme, ‘Weird and Wild,’ will invite audiences to explore Bristol’s natural landscapes through innovative themed readings, workshops, and walking tours. The theme will encompass wild nature, celebrating difference, otherness, and utopias, as well as poetry inspired by wild animals. The festival will also mark significant literary anniversaries, including 130 years since Coleridge and Wordsworth met in Bristol and 225 years of Lyrical Ballads Volume II, with activities that connect Romantic poetry to contemporary environmental themes.

With a commitment to ‘poetry for everyone’, Lyra Festival will deliver over 30 participatory and inclusive events, embracing writers at all stages of development. Through poetry, the festival seeks to entertain, inspire, promote wellbeing, connect communities, and nurture professional skills, creating a truly transformative experience for all attendees.

A Stellar Lineup of Headliners
Lyra 2025 boasts an impressive lineup of headline performers, including:

• Harry Baker, Brian Bilston, and Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan – beloved internet sensations and spoken word powerhouses

• Jackie Kay, Pascale Petit, Joelle Taylor and Fran Lock – award-winning and widely published poets

• Ilya Kaminsky – Ukrainian-Jewish-American poet, and author of The Deaf Republic, delivering an exclusive UK performance

• Arielle Cottingham – Berlin-based spoken word artist, and former Australian Poetry Slam Champion, headlining the festival’s poetry slam

Slam Poetry, Exhibitions, and Community Engagement
In addition to individual performances, Lyra 2025 will host:

• The South West Slam, featuring teams from Weston, Gloucester, Exeter, and Clevedon

• The highly anticipated Lyra Bristol Poetry Slam, open to competitors from across the South West

• A poetry and performance retreat, led by Apples and Snakes

• A poetry exhibition curated by Raise the Bar at Arnolfini

With a focus on accessibility and engagement, Lyra Festival ensures that participatory activities—including open mics, slams, and workshops—welcome writers of all styles, backgrounds, and levels of experience in a supportive and inclusive environment.