Thank you Mark - it is always a joy to have you on board - we love your poetry. And eager open micers - please visit www.ticketsource.com/cheltenhampo...

One of the most basic human experiences is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve in this non-stop, 24/7 connected world. All the more reason then to remember the value of solitude. #WritingCommunity

Tomorrow night! 7pm-9pm, Old London Road Cafe in Kingston. We’ll be sharing poems, chatting about our work, and there’ll be opportunity to take part in the open mic (DM me). Tickets are still available online (link in comments), or come along on the night if you’re nearby!

@cheltpoetfest.bsky.social director @annasaund.bsky.social is running a workshop on the theme of titles. If you would like yours to do a little more heavy lifting, then this is for you. You will come away with new poems. You can read more and book by visiting www.ticketsource.com/cheltenhampo...

A compelling speech by @nataliegreenpeer.bsky.social on BBC Parliament right now putting forward the case for her Nature's Rights Bill in the Lords. Now Lord Lebedev (Yes, HIM!) is making a powerful case for supporting the bill!! Time for a Green Magna Carta. Bravo Natalie 👏 💚

@annasaund.bsky.social is offering an on-line workshop on the theme of Persona poetry this Wednesday. Persona poetry involves leaping into other selves in order to write potent, innovative and often surprising poetry. To book just click the link in the @cheltpoetfest.bsky.social bio.

We are seeking a #sponsor for the 15th @cheltpoetfest.bsky.social Slam - this is a great opportunity for anyone who would like to enjoy some superb marketing and promotional activities AND support the arts! Please message Zoe and Anna at [email protected] for more details...

Out today! ⬇️

Kingston friends - we’re looking forward to reading at the Old London Road Cafe on Friday 10 July from 7pm 🎙️ Join us for poems, conversation & open mic. Want a slot? DM me! Looking forward to sharing new poems in this brilliant venue. Tickets below. Great poster by @parlyareepress.bsky.social ✨

@annasaund.bsky.social is offering a workshop on the theme of 'Persona in poetry' on June 17 Join poet Anna Saunders to explore the difference between the subject and the persona of the poem, and to write your own fire cracker persona poems. Read more www.ticketsource.com/cheltenhampo...

In our next zoom workshop we look at final lines in poetry. Tutor @annasaund.bsky.social will offer samples of great last lines, including those in #JaneHirshfield's potent and deeply affecting self-referential poem - Poem with Two Endings. Read more and book www.ticketsource.com/cheltenhampo...

What are your favourite final lines of poems ? Please @ me.. At my next online workshop we will be exploring how to make a dramatic exit and taking a dive into the poetic end line. My classes include tutorial, writing triggers, feedback on your work. www.ticketsource.com/cheltenhampo...

For those who fear what the future holds …. Glasgow, Manchester, Norwich dates in the next week www.robinince.com shows will be upbeat and energising and full of love

Our international Single Poem Competition is now open, and we welcome your entries from anywhere in the world ! The competition judged by @rosiegarlandwriter.bsky.social is a fundraiser for the 2027 festival. Please visit our website to read more and enter. www.ticketsource.com/cheltenhampo...

Thank you for joining us and for sharing this lovely and deeply affecting poem, Mark !

Our international Single Poem Competition is now open, and we welcome your entries from anywhere in the world ! The competition judged by @rosiegarlandwriter.bsky.social is a fundraiser for the 2027 festival. Please visit our website to read more and enter. www.ticketsource.com/cheltenhampo...

Join us tonight for a reading by acclaimed poet Sarah Howe, and sets by the winners of our 2025 poetry competition judged by @gregoryleadbetter.. We also reveal the judge of our competition tonight. www.ticketsource.com/cheltenhampo...

Jo is a @cheltpoetfest.bsky.social Favourite. Jo is the perfect chair for our events and has talked to our guests about many subjects in a well informed and engaging way. Nothing is beyond Jo be it psychics, metaphysics, myth, legend or Shakespeare's first Folio.

Robin is a wonderful, warm, witty and entertaining speaker and a charismatic performer. We wish we would be there tonight.

A few tickets left for event in Berkhamsted Bookshop tonight - 7pm start theberkhamstedbookshop.co.uk

Tomorrow's online lounge features internationally acclaimed poet #SarahHowe along with the winners of our 2025 Single Poem Competition. We also launch this year's comp, and reveal our judge! Join us from 7pm. Tickets www.ticketsource.com/cheltenhampo...

The Festival's competition is now closed. All entries will now be passed over to the judge, Gregory Leadbetter. We will be announcing the results of the competition in January 2026. They will be published on our website: cheltenhampoetryfestival.co.uk , on this page and on other social media.

Online sales for this evening's event are now closed. There will be 5 tickets available for purchase at St Andrew's from 6.30pm. The online box office is open for other non-Slam Festival events at www.ticketsource.co.uk/cheltenhampo... Slam tickets from: cheltplayhouse.org.uk/CheltPlayhou...

The Festival begins tomorrow with an event in which Ruth Padel, Pat Edwards & Lucy Heuschen share work that explores the representation of women and girls in myth, legend and history. Just 4 tickets left from www.ticketsource.co.uk/cheltenhampo...

Getting closer! I’ll be reading at @cheltpoetfest.bsky.social’s emerging showcase in a beautiful @uniofglos.bsky.social chapel on Sat 17th May. If you’re free & haven’t got a ticket yet, come & see Tess Biddington & I and hear some great university voices: www.ticketsource.co.uk/whats-on/onl...

Join me at @cheltpoetfest.bsky.social for a workshop that celebrates the beauty of restraint. Learn to craft concise, powerful poems with precise details and effectively use white space. May 27, 7pm online. Read more and book www.ticketsource.co.uk/cheltenhampo...

There's just 1 ticket left for the talk Walking Gloucestershire with Ivor Gurney by Eleanor Rawling You need to act fast if you want to come: www.ticketsource.co.uk/cheltenhampo...

The line-up for this year's Cheltenham Poetry Festival Slam has to be the best yet - with slam champs from across the county (together with some locally sourced talents) going head-to-head in this feast of spoken word! Get your tickets from Cheltenham Playhouse: cheltplayhouse.org.uk/CheltPlayhou...

We are so excited about our next online lounge! It has long been a dream of ours to host Fran Lock and she reads for us next Tuesday -29th April 7pm with Tom Branfoot. If you like startling, fierce, and incredibly original poetry grab your ticket from www.ticketsource.co.uk/cheltenhampo...

On the 8th May we welcome to the Festival one of our greatest living poets and the author of eight collections, Michael Symmons Roberts. Tickets from www.ticketsource.co.uk/cheltenhampo... Joining him will by @annasaund.bsky.social and JLM Morton

At the opening event of the Festival (7th May) Ruth Padel will be reading from her dazzling new book Girl, in which she takes a fresh and questioning look at girlhood and its icons, unraveling millennia of myth woven around girls. Tickets from: www.ticketsource.co.uk/cheltenhampo...

As Anna Saunders says please join us for exquisite poetry from Sean Borodale on May 10th. Tickets for all events from www.ticketsource.co.uk/cheltenhampoetryfestival

Two tickets have come available for this previously soldout workshop with prize-winning poet Vanessa Lampert. Explore what happens when you l let go of your expectations about where you think your poems should go and by what means. Tickets from: www.ticketsource.co.uk/cheltenhampo...

We are thrilled to have @robinince.bsky.social join us at @cheltpoetfest.bsky.social this year! Robin will be performing some of his astonishing # science-inspired poems and chatting to Jo Durrant . @zoebrooks.bsky.social You can read more and book here - www.ticketsource.co.uk/cheltenhampo...

We will be celebrating the life and work of Ivor Daniel at this year's Festival. Ivor was due to read at Poetry and Pythagoras on May 10, and we have now adapted the event so it will include readings of his work by poetry friends. www.ticketsource.co.uk/cheltenhampo...

Here's another of our amazing slammers - Samuel L Cohen, WOMAD slam 2023 champion, high-octane lyrical raconteur of the hilarious, the unbelievable and the downright outrageous. Get your ticket from: cheltplayhouse.org.uk/CheltPlayhou....

Two tickets have become available for each of the May Festival workshops. These workshops - a Slight Emergency of the Senses with Sean Borodale and Freeing Your Verse with Vanessa Lampert - had sold out quickly. So if you want to come, head over to www.ticketsource.co.uk/cheltenhampo....

It is with great sorrow that we have learned of the untimely death of Ivor Daniel. Ivor was a tremendous friend of the Festival and of the wider Gloucestershire poetry scene. More importantly he was a really lovely man, who will be sorely missed. Our heartfelt condolences go to his family.

Don't miss this showcase of spoken word and poetry from University of Gloucestershire’s Creative Writing Programme and special guests: Chris Campbell & Tess Biddington (winner 2000 Forward Poetry Prize for Best Single Poem) www.ticketsource.co.uk/cheltenhampoetryfestival

Slaminal Farm ! The 15th Cheltenham Poetry Festival Slam Saturday 17th May 2025 Get ready for the bardic battle of the year when 15 of the UK’s most exciting spoken-word artists go head-to-head for the coveted title of 2025 Slam Champion. cheltplayhouse.org.uk/CheltPlayhou...

#BBC Head of History Robert Seatter joins us this year to talk about The House of Words which brings to life Kelmscott’s fascinating history - setting for the tormented triangular relationship between William, and Jane Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. www.ticketsource.co.uk/cheltenhampo...

Here's the list of events! @ruthpadel.bsky.social opens the festival. Among the many highlights are @robinince.bsky.social, Michael Simmons Roberts, Robert Seatter, @josephpconlon.bsky.social, Sean Borodale, Fiona Benson, & the 15th Festival Slam. www.ticketsource.co.uk/cheltenhampo...

The programme for the fabulous Cheltenham Poetry Festival is now available online. Talks, workshops and performances are open for booking, also lots of 'local' poetry pals (including me!). Get booking! cheltenhampoetryfestival.co.uk @annasaund.bsky.social @cheltpoetfest.bsky.social

I’m delighted to be returning to @cheltpoetfest.bsky.social in May, hosting 2 in conversation events with @robinince.bsky.social and Joseph Conlon, all about science and poetry! Tickets are now on sale, you won’t want to miss these!

It's tonight - the poetry party of the year - please join us from 7pm. In a world of devalued language and hatred, let some beauty, and wisdom in through poetry and community.

Well, what splendors we have lined- up for our online lounges. We hope these dazzling, inspiring poets will carry you through until spring and offer some light in the darker days. This truly is an all-star program. Join us, from your own homes. www.ticketsource.co.uk/cheltenhampo...

Work with poet @annasaund.bsky.social at this workshop on line breaks. Suitable for experienced poets. This class will take you a little deeper into the subject and craft of lineation. Read more and book www.ticketsource.co.uk/cheltenhampo...

Niall's work is an absolute delight - witty, wry and often - very affecting. Niall is reads at our eagery awaiting poetry party next week - as part of a poet's dozen😄 - i.e 7 superb, critically acclaimed writers.

Fran Lock reads with Tom Branfoot - this spring and it's never too early to book. We are thrilled to have such a ground breaking poet join us, and Fran is paired by an exciting, emerging voice. www.ticketsource.co.uk/cheltenhampo...

Incredibly excited to have Fran Lock join us online on April 29. She is fiercely original, her poems set fire to the page. www.ticketsource.co.uk/cheltenhampo...