Michael Rosen to appear at Morecambe Poetry Festival’s ‘Raucous Celebration of Words’

A stellar line up has been announced for Morecambe's annual celebration of the spoken word in September.

Michael Rosen, Clare Ferguson Walker, Henry Normal, Nigel Planer, John Hegley, Jan Brierton, Robin Ince and Luke Wright will be leading the ‘raucous celebration of words’ at the Morecambe Poetry Festival this September 12-14.

Now in its fourth year, the seaside town’s festival will deliver three nights of wall to wall poetry with the nation’s favourites along with grassroots performances, family activities, workshops, poetry takeovers and open mics.

A packed programme is already confirmed, with weekend passes giving guaranteed access to every single event and performance, including the pre-festival ‘Best of Morecambe’ showcase event on Thursday. 

Festival founder Matt Panesh said: “I’m so excited for this year’s festival. We’ve finally managed to get Michael Rosen, which is a big coup for the festival, along with many of our poets coming back for the third or even fourth time!

‘’I’m always amazed at how quickly we’ve grown with the bill being filled earlier than ever this year.''

Matt Panesh

“Of course, the great thing about poetry is that it’s for everyone, and everyone can have a go. You don’t even need to spell or use grammar.

‘’And the festival celebrates that by bringing together the local and the national, the amateur and the professional to create something really quite special.”

Michael Rosen will take to the stage with Clare Ferguson Walker. Michael is one of the best-known figures in the children’s book world, he is renowned for his work as a poet, performer, broadcaster and scriptwriter, while Clare already has a string of awards after she began performing her own poetry a couple of years ago. 

Poetry royalty John Hegley, on his third visit to the festival, and Jan Brierton, the Irish poet who has just supported Dr John Cooper Clarke on his stadium tour, are the next pairing. 

Henry Normal returns for a fourth year, bringing with him Nigel Planer, infamous Young One. A regular performer at the festival every year, Henry calls it ‘the biggest and best new poetry festival in the country, possibly the world, maybe even the universe.’

Robin Ince returns after making a big impact last year with his honest and candid poetry about his autism/adhd diagnosis leading a wave of celebration of neurodiversity as poet after poet embraced and reclaimed the term.

A selection of legendary film work of Britain’s leading theatre and film poet Tony Harrison will be screened. Created during his long collaboration with BBC director and producer Peter Symes, it will be followed by a Q&A with the director sure to offer a fascinating insight into their creative process. 

The Hovis Presley Memorial will mark the 20th anniversary of the death of the  legendary Bolton poet. It includes an exhibition of artworks from his collection Poetic Off Licence and a reading of the play Hovis in Wonderland by Dave Morgan.

The UK’s leading poetry publisher Bloodaxe Books will be in attendance as the festival continues to build its reputation for high quality literary content. It follows the BBC leading spoken words shows - The Verb and Loose Ends - broadcasting from the festival last year. 

A pedal powered stage outside the library will invite children to pedal and perform their own poetry, created during free poetry workshops in local primary schools with Northern poet Louise Fazackerly, a font of family fun and word-smithery. As part of the festival’s increased schools offer, the workshops will see the children learn a flash mob poem which can be performed at the festival as well as writing class and individual poems. 

The tradition of takeover events at the festival by out of town collectives continues with Speech Therapy, Nottingham’s longest running spoken word night, as well poetry takeovers from London, Wordsworth Grasmere and Manchester poets remembering poet and friend Jackie Hagan. 

Write Out Loud, the national poetry organisation with a passionate belief in the power of poetry to bring enjoyment, fulfillment and positive change to people’s lives will be celebrating its 20th anniversary at the festival. 

Best of Morecambe showcase will take place on Thursday 11 September featuring work from the monthly poetry night run by festival director Matt Panesh, Big White Shed publisher Anne Holloway, Big Charlie Poet and Bryan Griffin, Carnforth's first poet laureate.

Morecambe Poetry Festival is supported by Waterstones, T S Eliot Foundation, Eden Project Communities, Wordsworth Grasmere and Morecambe Town Council. 

Keep up to date on Morecambe Poetry Festival Facebook.

Tickets are available from Skiddle.