Cardiff Poetry Festival announces programme

The Cardiff Poetry Festival, organised by independent publisher Seren, has published the programme of this year;’s event which runs from Friday 29^th to Sunday 31^st July 2022.

After a successful online event in 2021, the festival is going hybrid this time around, with a range of events taking place in person at The Atrium and also being streamed online.

Centred on the theme of wellbeing, the 2022 programme is being curated by Seren’s new poetry editors Rhian Edwards and Zoë Brigley.

Including workshops on mindfulness, meditation, and therapeutic writing, discussions on empowerment, grief and the climate emergency, the programme explores how poetry can help us take care of ourselves in today’s busy and complicated world.

There are plenty of poetry readings too, with a particular focus on authors published during the pandemic.

A free online event ‘Poetry & Lockdown’ on the 20 July will see poets Daniel Sluman, Mab Jones, Hannah Hodgson and Polly Atkin question what wellness has meant to them in times of isolation and illness, and how it relates to creativity.

There will be appearances by leading poets like Kim Moore, Sascha Akhtar, Ben Wilkinson, Eric Ngalle Charles, Robert Minnhinnick, Hannah Hodgson, Sarona Abuaker, André Mangeot, Peter Finch, Isabelle Baafi and many more.

There are also three headline events: ‘Desert Island Poems’ with Leanne Wood, the First Thursday showcase presented by former festival director Amy Wack, and a concert by Welsh musician Kizzy Crawford.

This year’s programme also features a number of Welsh language and bilingual events.

Bilingual concert

Siân Melangell Dafydd will be running two Welsh language workshops, Angela Graham will chair ‘Barddoniaeth a Noddfa’ a bilingual panel discussion on Poetry and Sanctuary, and Kizzy Crawford will close the weekend with a bilingual concert in Welsh and English.

Pre-festival, during the week beginning 11^th July, there will bethree online workshops for teachers led by award-winning poet Jonathan Edwards, Connor Allen, Wales’s current Children’s Laureate, and a session in Welsh with former Bardd Plant Cymru Eurig Salisbury. These sessions will focus on creative and fun ways to teach poetry to children of all ages, and help maintain their wellbeing.

Streamed live

During the festival weekend, there are many ways to be part of the audience with all of the in-person events (apart from workshops) being streamed live on the Welsh content platform amam.cymru, produced by Culture Colony and an online pass gives flexible access to the stream for all three days.

The Welsh charity partner for the event will be Daring to Dream which supports the emotional health and wellbeing of patients living under the care of hospital clinics across Wales.

They will be around at the festival talking about their work and how poetry, and writing, can play a key role in boosting emotional wellbeing. All proceeds from the sale of Leanne Wood’s Desert Island Poems pamphlet will be donated to the charity.

Tickets for the festival are on sale now and the full programme can be found on the Seren Cardiff Poetry Festival website

As well as tickets for individual events, there are options for Day and Weekend passes which are perfect for longer trips.