We're edging ever closer to Derby Poetry Festival 2024, which runs from October 2nd - 6th, and we think it's set to be the best one yet. Of course, we would think that, but once you've seen the quality of the line-up we've got booked for this year, we reckon that you will too.
With that in mind, we thought it was time to start announcing some of the poets who are going to be performing at this year's festival - namely, the four who are going to be taking to the stage at the Wardwick for our headline event on Saturday October 5th.
We'll have more announcements in the coming weeks, and tickets will be going live soon as well, so make sure you're following us on our socials and keeping an eye on the website. Derby Poetry Festival 2024 is going to be an incredible event, and we can't wait to see you all there.
Without further ado, here are the artists performing at our headline event.
Photo Credit: Matthew Thompson
Roger Robinson is the critically acclaimed author of A Portable Paradise, a stirring collection which won both the T.S. Eliot Prize and The Royal Society Of Literature Ondaatje Prize in 2019 and 2020 respectively.
His most recent collection Home Is Not A Place, published by William Collins, was shortlisted for the British Book Awards in 2022. His book The Butterfly Hotel was shortlisted for the 2014 OCM Bocas Poetry Prize, The Oxford Brookes Poetry Prize and was highly commended by the Forward Poetry Prize in 2013. His second poetry collection, Suckle, won the Peoples Book Prize in 2010. He has been chosen by Decibel as one of 50 writers who have influenced the black-British writing canon.
He has received commissions from the National Trust, London Open House, BBC, Tate, the National Portrait Gallery, V&A, INIVA, MK Gallery & Theatre Royal Stratford East. His workshops have been shortlisted for the Gulbenkian Prize for Museums & Galleries and were also part of the Barbican’s Webby award winning Can I Have A Word. Roger has toured extensively with the British Council and is a co-founder of both Spoke Lab & the global writing collective Malika’s Kitchen.
Photo Credit: Adrian Pope
Mary Jean Chan is the author of Flèche (Faber & Faber, 2019), which won the Costa Book Award for Poetry. Bright Fear (Faber, 2023). Chan's second book, was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection and the Writers' Prize, and is currently shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize.
In 2022, Chan co-edited the acclaimed anthology 100 Queer Poems with Andrew McMillan. Chan is currently the 2023-24 Judith E. Wilson Poetry Fellow at the University of Cambridge.
Photo Credit: Hassan Ul-Haq
Jasmine Gardosi is the Birmingham Poet Laureate and Honorary Doctor of Letters. She is a multiple slam champion, beatboxer, winner of the Out-Spoken Prize for Poetry and winner of the Saboteur Award for Best Spoken Word Performer 2023. Her work exploring identity, LGBTQ issues and mental health has appeared on Button Poetry, at the Tate Modern, Glastonbury Festival, Symphony Hall and BBC. She was featured on Sky Arts' BAFTA-winning show Life & Rhymes and her poem about the pandemic, filmed on a rollercoaster, was broadcast across America on PBS. She has performed and run workshops across Europe, including at Romania’s Transylvania International Spoken Word Festival, and Estonia’s historical, first-ever queer poetry slam for Baltic Pride.
She is a previous Writer in Residence at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, Poet in Residence at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and BBC Arts Young Creative. Her poetry/beatbox/Celtic dubstep show Dancing To Music You Hate explores gender identity and was commissioned by Warwick Arts Centre. After premiering to standing ovations, it won Best Spoken Word Show in the Saboteur Awards and its titular track was performed with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, broadcast on BBC Four. Following a sold-out show at Symphony Hall, the show toured the UK in the summer of 2023. Jasmine has recently been commissioned to write a new rock anthem for Birmingham, which will be performed by a mass collective of musicians this summer.
Suhaiymah is a poet and writer whose work disrupts assumptions about history, race, violence and knowledge. She is the author of Seeing for Ourselves; Tangled in Terror and the poetry collection Postcolonial Banter; a co-author of A FLY Girl’s Guide to University; and a contributor to the anthologies Cut from the Same Cloth? and I Refuse to Condemn.
Her writing has also featured in The Guardian and Al Jazeera, and her poetry has been viewed millions of times online. She is a co-founder of the Nejma Collective, a group of Muslims working in solidarity with people in prison. She is based in Leeds and is currently writing for theatre.
Derby Poetry Festival is supported by Arts Council, England and Derby City Council
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