Newcastle Poetry Festival returns this weekend and that’s good news for poetry lovers who feared they might have seen the last of it.
The festival didn’t happen last year due to a funding hiatus but it’s back with a busy two-day programme of readings, discussions and mentoring sessions.
This time, though, the action has crossed the river to Gateshead.
It’s all happening at St Mary’s by the Tyne, as the former St Mary’s Heritage Centre has been called since a public vote instigated earlier this year by Tyne & Wear Building Preservation Trust, which signed a 99-year lease on the former church in 2024.
Should the event therefore be renamed Gateshead Poetry Festival?
Linda Anderson, festival founder, poet and emeritus professor of English literature at Newcastle University, says it’s an interesting point but the intention is for the festival to run events throughout the year at various locations.
A festival event took place at The Common Room in June and the hope is to run more at the Lit & Phil, both of which are in Newcastle.
“I like the idea of being nomadic and the concept of Newcastle-Gateshead,” says Linda.
“In truth St Mary’s were very keen to run the event and Northern Stage, the traditional venue, were fully booked for the dates that might have worked.”
The important thing is that enough people considered the festival too good to lose, not least Linda who began it in 2015 at Newcastle University which has hosted it for most of its existence.
The funding problems began in 2023 when the festival didn’t get Arts Council England funding.
The university picked up the tab for the 2024 edition but, impacted by the funding crisis in higher education, decided it couldn’t support the festival in 2025.
Linda’s response was to gather supporters and establish the festival as a registered charity.
Newcastle University is one of the sponsors of this year’s festival but the principal funder is Scott Griffin, the Canadian publisher and philanthropist who set up his country’s valuable Griffin Poetry Prize.
“He’s paid for some poets and Griffin Prize trustees to come and read at a big gala reading on Saturday night and he’s coming across himself to introduce it, so we’re very grateful to him for doing that,” says Linda.
That Griffin Gala, at 6pm on Saturday (October 3), features readings by Rachael Boast, Carolyn Forché, Sarah Howe, Roger Reeves and Aleš Šteger.
The latest publication by American poet Carolyn Forché, Otherwhere: New and Selected Poems 1976-2026, is to be published in October by Bloodaxe Books, one of the festival sponsors.
A Griffin Poetry Prize trustee, she has read at Newcastle Poetry Festival on previous occasions and has been a keen supporter.
Celebrated poets reading on Friday include Imtiaz Dharker, chancellor of Newcastle University; multi-award-winning (and Newcastle-based) Sean O’Brien; and Daljit Nagra, vice-president of the Royal Society of Literature.
Martina Evans, award-winning poet and poetry critic for The Irish Times, will also read along with former Scottish Makar Jackie Kay in a Poetry Book Society Showcase (the PBS being based in Newcastle and another festival sponsor).
On Saturday you can attend a poetry reading by Kym Deyn, Olivia McCannon and Anita Patti that’s followed immediately by a session with Clementine Ewokolo Burnley, Nadine El-Enany and Roshni Gallagher, joint winners of the 2024 James Berry Prize for young or emerging poets of colour, whose respective collections were recently published by Bloodaxe.
But there should be keen local interest in the return of The Poetry Virgins (Friday, 6pm) – Charlie Hardwick, Kay Hepplewhite, Fiona MacPherson and Ellen Phethean; and present in spirit, you’d like to think, the great Julia Darling who died in 2005.
Discussions across the two days include Why I Read Poetry (Newcastle novelist Gráinne O’Hare), Writing to Commission (Imtiaz Dharker and John Challis), The Work of a Poetry Publisher/Editor (Neil Astley, Sarah Howe, Jo Colley and Julie Hogg) and Sing Me Something: Caedmon in Northumbria (Carl Kears and Clare Lees).
The Friday programme begins with a Poetry Live! event aimed at GCSE students (but open to all) led by Imtiaz Dharker, Daljit Nagra and examiner Tony Childs..
Places for Friday’s open mic event, New Voices in Poetry, and Saturday’s mentoring session for new poets have already been snapped up – which suggests the poetry scene in the North East is good and healthy.
Linda Anderson promises next year’s festival will definitely go ahead.
And as further incentive to attend this year’s, she points out that a café will operate at St Mary’s on the Tyne during the festival (10am to 5pm) while a bar will be open on both evenings.
See the full programme on the Newcastle Poetry Festival website.