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Tag: poetry

Exploring Literature, Creative Writing and Poetry in Creative Health

This lunchtime networking and afternoon workshop invites anyone interested in the power of words to explore the role of literature, creative writing and poetry in creative health.  

 

Bringing together people from across communities, health and social care, and the arts, the session will offer space to share lived experiences of how reading, writing and poetry can support health, wellbeing and connection in everyday life. 

 

Speakers will include:  

  • Nick Barley, Director of the National Poetry Centre 
  • Professor Rowan Bailey, Strategic Lead for Research (Arts and Humanities) and Principal Investigator of Creative Health HUB (University of Huddersfield) 
  • Luise Marino, University Hospital Southampton 
  • Darren Henley, CEO of Arts Council England?? 

 

Come and explore the benefits of literature for wellbeing, lived experiences of using creative writing and poetry in health and social care settings, and the personal practice of reading and engaging with literature as part of daily life. We invite you to share your thoughts and ideas about the role of literature, creative writing and poetry in creative health. 

 

The workshop will also introduce the work of the National Creative Health Hub (based at the University of Huddersfield), which is leading a consortium project with a range of external partners and West Yorkshire Combined Authority. This work sits within the wider ambitions of the West Yorkshire Creative Health System, which aims to support creative health in making people’s lives healthier and happier. 

 

No prior experience is needed — just curiosity and a willingness to explore the creative health benefits of literature, creative writing and poetry together. 

 

Refreshments will be provided.

 

Thursday 14 May 

1pm-4pm (1pm-2pm networking lunch, 2pm-4pm workshop)

University of Huddersfield, Queensgate, Huddersfield HD1 3DH (Room details to be provided closer to the event date.)

Free 

Age guidance: 16+ 

Access Guide: https://students.hud.ac.uk/help/disability/accessibility/  

 

Book tickets

 

Access: if you have specific access needs or seating preferences, please contact our Admin team at [email protected] with your request.

Concession & Carers: For further information on concession and essential carer tickets, please visit our FAQ’s page. 

Eventbrite note: When purchasing tickets please download the Eventbrite ‘app’ or ‘create an Eventbrite account’. This will facilitate quicker access to your tickets.

Huddersfield Voices Open Mic

Join Serendipity Creative Writers for a poetry Open Mic: Huddersfield Voices: Reflections of Life, Love, Light & Laughter – “The WRITE Way to Better Mental Health”. 

 

This year is the National Year of Reading 2026, so whether you are an avid writer, a novice or just want to listen, all are welcome to this event in a safe, warm, friendly space, to celebrate creativity and self-expression. 

 

Venue located opposite the Town Hall. Free event and free cake! 

 

Serendipity Creative Writers is a well-established small mental health charity (reg. no. 1201197) founded in 2018. Based in Huddersfield Serendipity serves the surrounding Kirklees area. The charity’s whole ethos is to bring people from all walks of life together through the love, enjoyment and inspiration of poetry, storytelling and the spoken word. Through writing and sharing we can improve our mental health, build friendships and stronger communities. Serendipity runs free weekly workshops in Huddersfield, Dewsbury and Batley, thanks to funding from the National Lottery. 

 

www.serendipitycreativewriters.org/ 

www.facebook.com.serendipity.creative.writers.charity 

 

 

Sunday 10 May 

5pm-7pm 

Café Life, 42 Victoria Lane, Huddersfield HD1 2QF  

Free: donations welcomed on the night 

Age guidance: 16+ 

Radical Georgian Women Writers

Mary Lister inherited five volumes of largely unknown letters collected by her great-great-grandmother Theresa Lister/Lewis, herself a novelist historian and campaigner against Slavery.  

 

The collection included letters from Thomas Chatterton, the doomed poet, Byron, David Hume, George III and George IV, and the royal princesses. But one whole volume contained letters to Theresa from women writers such as Maria Edgeworth, Harriet Martineau, Lady Caroline Lamb, Lady Byron, Susan Ferrier, Joanna Baillie and Mary Somerville, the scientist who discovered Neptune.  

 

Mary will give an illustrated talk, with portraits and extracts of their letters. 

 

Mary Lister is a poet and artist, and an author of nine books, including Complete Twerks and her latest, It’s Mythic up North. 

 

 

Thursday 14 May 

6pm-8pm (6pm doors for 6.30pm start)

Porter Hill Tea Company, Westgate (next to Byram Arcade front entrance), Huddersfield HD1 1NN 

£3, free for Essential carers accompanying a ticket holder (Limited tickets, early booking recommended)

Light refreshments available on the night. 

For access information, contact the venue via their website at:  https://porterhill.co.uk/pages/contact

 

Book tickets

 

Access: if you have specific access needs or seating preferences, please contact our Admin team at [email protected] with your request.

Concession & Carers: For further information on concession and essential carer tickets, please visit our FAQ’s page. 

Eventbrite note: When purchasing tickets please download the Eventbrite ‘app’ or ‘create an Eventbrite account’. This will facilitate quicker access to your tickets.

Spoken Here: Voices from West Yorkshire & Beyond

Spoken Here is an inclusive, collective poetry showcase bringing together poets from West Yorkshire and beyond for an evening of live performance, conversation, and creative connection. 

 

Featuring the poets: Sharena Lee Satti, Mohamed Saloo, Jamie H Scrutton, Lence, Lauren and Jodie. 

 

Step into a space where poetry is shared, heard, and celebrated. Experience powerful performances, ask the poets questions about their work, and take part in gentle, interactive activities. Whether you’re a seasoned writer, a first-time listener, or simply curious, there’s room here for everyone. 

 

This is a friendly, welcoming space to listen, learn, and maybe even discover your own voice. Come as you are, leave inspired. 

 

Sharena Lee Satti is a Bradford-based poet, mentor and festival curator with more than 10 years of experience working across schools, community organisations and cultural programmes. She is the founder of Sisterverse Festival and champions inclusive spaces where creativity and connection thrive. 

https://www.sharenaleesatti.com/ 

 

Friday 15 May 

7pm-9pm 

Amped, 29 Zetland St, Huddersfield HD1 2RD 

£5, free for Essential carers accompanying a ticket holder, free for University of Huddersfield staff and students 

Age guidance: 16+  

Access Guide: contact the venue on: [email protected]; 01484 361932 

 

Book tickets

 

 

Access: if you have specific access needs or seating preferences, please contact our Admin team at [email protected] with your request.

Concession & Carers: For further information on concession and essential carer tickets, please visit our FAQ’s page. 

Eventbrite note: When purchasing tickets please download the Eventbrite ‘app’ or ‘create an Eventbrite account’. This will facilitate quicker access to your tickets.

Out + Loud Queer Open Mic

An open mic night for queer performers of all kinds, hosted by poetic comedian Zee and drag king singer-songwriter, Ding Frisby.  

 

From music to poetry, comedy to cabaret, email [email protected] or message on Instagram @OutAndLoudTogether to reserve a five-minute slot, or sign up on the night! Allies welcome to cheer on.  

 

Out + Loud is a Huddersfield-based queer arts collective that aims to build local queer community and platforms for emerging talent.  

 

Saturday 9 May 

7.30pm-9pm 

Attic, Lawrence Batley Theatre, Queen Street, Huddersfield HD1 2SP 

Free (booking recommended) 

Age Guidance: 16+ 

Access Guide: https://www.thelbt.org/your-visit/access/  

 

Book tickets

 

Access: if you have specific access needs or seating preferences, please contact our Admin team at [email protected] with your request.

Concession & Carers: For further information on concession and essential carer tickets, please visit our FAQ’s page. 

Eventbrite note: When purchasing tickets please download the Eventbrite ‘app’ or ‘create an Eventbrite account’. This will facilitate quicker access to your tickets.

Golden Thread of Seva – Sikh Heritage in Huddersfield

Golden Thread of Seva – Sikh Heritage in Huddersfield is an exciting multidisciplinary presentation that brings together performance, visual art, photography, and spoken word to explore the lived history of the Sikh community in Huddersfield. 

 

The presentation features a performative unveiling of five large-scale banners, each representing a different chapter of Sikh migration, labour, family life, faith, and community building in the UK. These visual works are accompanied by original poetry that reflects on memory, identity, Seva, and growing up between cultures. 

 

Alongside the performance, a photographic talk traces the social and cultural history of the Sikh community in Huddersfield, drawing on archival material, personal stories, and contemporary images. Together, the banners, photographs, and poems create a layered narrative that honours overlooked histories while celebrating resilience, contribution, and intergenerational legacy. 

 

Presented by multidisciplinary artist and academic Hardeep Sahota, this work offers audiences an immersive and reflective journey through heritage, place, and belonging, connecting past and present through art, story, and collective memory. 

 

Hardeep Sahota is a British South Asian performing arts practitioner, academic and cultural producer based in Kirklees. With over three decades of experience across dance, music, visual arts, and community-based practice, his work weaves together scholarship, creativity, and cultural heritage. Rooted in collaboration, cultural exchange, and innovation, he leads ambitious interdisciplinary projects that bring professional artists and communities together, nurture emerging talent, and create inclusive pathways into the cultural sector, while connecting local stories to global cultural conversations.  

 

Saturday 9 May 

6pm-7pm 

Attic, Lawrence Batley Theatre, Queen Street, Huddersfield HD1 2SP 

£7 (£5 conc), free for essential carers accompanying a ticket holder (Early Bird tickets £6 (£4) to midnight on Monday 6 April. )

Age Guidance: 16+ 

Access Guide: https://www.thelbt.org/your-visit/access/  

Book tickets

 

Access: if you have specific access needs or seating preferences, please contact our Admin team at [email protected] with your request.

Concession & Carers: For further information on concession and essential carer tickets, please visit our FAQ’s page. 

Eventbrite note: When purchasing tickets please download the Eventbrite ‘app’ or ‘create an Eventbrite account’. This will facilitate quicker access to your tickets.

Open Mic With Talking Zebras

A friendly and welcoming open mic hosted by the Talking Zebras Spoken Word Group. 

Drop in for a listen or sign up on the night to perform your own poetry. 

Talking Zebras Spoken Word Group is a long-established poetry group that meets on the 1st and 3rd Saturday of every month. Note: this special Festival Open Mic will be held at Amped, 29 Queensgate, Huddersfield, but the usual meetings are held at The Liversedge, 64 Leeds Road, Liversedge WF15 6HX. For more information and contact details visit the Talking Zebras website: https://www.talkingzebras.co.uk/  

Friday 8 May 

7.15pm-8.45pm 

Amped, 29 Zetland St HD1 2RD 

Free  (no booking required)

Age guidance: 16+  

Access Guide: contact the venue on: [email protected]; 01484 361932 

Access: if you have specific access needs or seating preferences, please contact our Admin team at [email protected] with your request.

 

Live Podcast with Rose Condo & Nick Barley

Join us for a live podcast recording with award-winning poet Rose Condo and Director of the National Poetry Centre Nick Barley. 

 

Have a Kind Word With Yourself is a podcast that explores how we can keep kind, creative and connected. Now in Season 2, in this podcast series host Rose Condo speaks with fellow creatives about their work and some of the things that help to keep them well along the way. In every episode she uses the letters in the word KIND to frame her conversations.  

 

For this live recording, Rose will speak with Nick Barley, Director of the National Poetry Centre. The event will include a Q&A with the audience. 

 

Rose Condo is an award-winning Canadian performance poet. Based in Manchester, she has performed throughout the UK and internationally. She runs workshops for people of all ages, exploring wellbeing through creative writing. Her poetry and her solo shows have been published by Flapjack Press. 

www.rosecondo.net @rose_condo_poet 

 

Nick Barley is the founding Director of the National Poetry Centre in Leeds – a new organisation to support and champion poetry across the UK. He is also a Professor in Practice at Durham University, working on Readerbank – a multidisciplinary research project into reading and the imagination. He was Director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival from 2009-2023 and a trustee of the Booker Prize Foundation from 2018-2024. He was a judge of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and was the chair of the judges for the 2017 International Booker Prize.  

 

Saturday 16 May 

4pm-5pm 

Amped, 29 Zetland Street, HD1 2RA 

£4, free for University of Huddersfield staff and students and for essential carers accompanying a ticket holder 

Age Guidance: 16+ 

Access Guide: contact the venue on: [email protected]; 01484 361932 

Book tickets

Access: if you have specific access needs or seating preferences, please contact our Admin team at [email protected] with your request.

Concession & Carers: For further information on concession and essential carer tickets, please visit our FAQ’s page. 

Eventbrite note: When purchasing tickets please download the Eventbrite ‘app’ or ‘create an Eventbrite account’. This will facilitate quicker access to your tickets.

The Walk of Green Hope

A creative walk featuring poetry, Indian dance and hopeful thoughts. With 6 million+ and Balbir Singh Dance Company. 

 

We will look closely at nature, listen to poetry that celebrates refugees who have come to Huddersfield, watch beautiful dancing set against the architecture of the park and explore words of hope. 

 

1pm-2pm Picnic with music, weather permitting 

2pm-3.30pm The creative walk, whatever the weather 

 

Meet by the Visitor Centre and Refreshment Rooms, near Beaumont Park Road entrance. 

 

6 million+ and Balbir Singh Dance Company have been working together for the past three years in Huddersfield on creative arts projects like Unmasking Pain and Wear and Share, that integrate refugees and local people in exciting ways. 

 

6 Million + delivers creative arts projects with an extended family of refugees and local communities. The organisation exchanges and expresses stories of the Holocaust, genocides and contemporary persecution at home and abroad, while challenging discrimination and working towards a kinder future. 

 

Balbir Singh Dance Company (BSDC) was founded by Balbir Singh MBE in 2005, creating a platform to bring Kathak and contemporary dance together. Based in Leeds, BSDC works across the UK and in internationally. Over time, the company’s projects have become far more than just performances: they are spaces of dialogue, transformation and healing. 

 

Sunday 17 May 

1pm-3.30pm 

Visitor Centre (meeting point), Beaumont Park, Beaumont Park Road, Huddersfield HD4 7AY 

Free (Booking required)

Age guidance: all ages (U16s should be accompanied by an adult) 

Book tickets

Concession & Carers: For further information on concession and essential carer tickets, please visit our FAQ’s page. 

Eventbrite note: When purchasing tickets please download the Eventbrite ‘app’ or ‘create an Eventbrite account’. This will facilitate quicker access to your tickets.

Simon Armitage

Your chance to hear performance poetry, insights and stories from Poet Laureate Simon Armitage in his home town.  

 

Simon will read from several of his poetry books which include Magnetic Field: the Marsden Poems, two recent illustrated Sunday Times bestsellers, Blossomise and Dwell, and New Cemetery, a highly imaginative and wide-ranging major new collection in which the Poet Laureate makes peace with the dead. He will also read new unpublished poems. 

 

The hour-long performance will include an audience Q&A and will be followed by a book signing. 

Book now

 

 

 

Simon Armitage was born and grew up in Marsden, West Yorkshire. His numerous prizes and awards include the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry and an Ivor Novello Award for his song writing. He has published over a dozen poetry collections, including Magnetic Field: the Marsden Poems and two illustrated Sunday Times bestsellers, Blossomise and Dwell. His latest major poetry book New Cemetery is out now.  A regular broadcaster, who also writes for television and radio, Armitage presented the popular BBC Radio 4 series The Poet Laureate has Gone to his Shed. His brand new podcast series The Shed is available now on Apple, Amazon, Podbean and Spotify.  

 

Armitage also writes, records and tours with the band LYR. Last summer LYR performed their commission with Ulster Orchestra for the Proms: 100 years of the Shipping Forecast.  His book Never Good with Horses features his song lyrics and celebrates his ear for the music of language. An award-winning dramatist, his plays The Last Days of Troy and a contemporary spin on Hansel and Gretel were performed at Shakespeare’s Globe. He is also the author of two novels and three memoir bestsellers: All Points North, Walking Home and Walking Away.  

 

Armitage is Professor of Poetry at the University of Leeds. A Vertical Art brings together the vibrant and engaging lectures from his tenure as Oxford Professor of Poetry (2015-2019). He was appointed Poet Laureate in 2019.  

www.simonarmitage.com 

Photo © Paul Stuart Photography Ltd 

 

Sunday 17 May 

7pm-8pm 

Lawrence Batley Theatre, Queen Street, Huddersfield HD1 2SP 

£22 (£20 conc) 

Age guidance: 14+ (U16s should be accompanied by an adult) 

Access Guide: https://www.accessable.co.uk/huddersfield-literature-festival/access-guides/lawrence-batley-theatre  

Book now

 

 

 

Please note: booking for this event is via the Lawrence Batley Theatre box office: 01484 430528; [email protected]; https://www.thelbt.org/  

NOTE: all ticket prices include a £2 theatre levy.  

Early booking recommended to secure your preferred seats. 

 

Access: if you have specific access needs or seating preferences, please contact our Admin team at [email protected] with your request.

Concession & Carers: For further information on concession and essential carer tickets, please visit our FAQ’s page.