Manchester Poetry Library Spring / Summer Season 2024  

We hope you’ll join us for a fascinating Spring / Summer series of events at Manchester Poetry Library at Grosvenor East Building. Just off Oxford Road, the library is open to all and free to join for anyone interested in poetry.  

Our season centrepiece, Landscapes of Change, brings together poetry and science to explore the impact of the climate emergency, with a stunning exhibition and events series from the team of scientists, Kathryn Adamson and Iestyn Barr and poet, Professor Helen Mort. Alongside conducting research on climate warming in Narsaq, Greenland, they also created a poetic dialogue with the local community about this important topic. Join us for a special exhibition launch night in June, or bring the kids along to our Family Day.   

Our panel event, The Great Waking Up! continues the theme, bringing key climate change writers’ groups together for the first time to discuss the literary world’s response to the climate emergency – and why writers need to be awake and active in this current crisis. 

This season, we’re also thrilled to be launching Jos Charles’ new poetry collection, a Year & Other Poems, described by Kaveh Akbar as ‘a masterpiece,’ as part of her residency with us – and to host an exceptional poetry reading series with prize-winning poets Jason Allen-Paisant, Liz Berry and Luke Kennard. 

The launch of Out of Sri Lanka, the first-ever anthology of Sri Lankan and diasporic poetry, promises to bring to light long-neglected national literature for an evening that is set to reshape our understanding of migrational poetics and the poetics of atrocity. 

We will celebrate both the cultures and heritage of BSL as part of Manchester British Sign Language Festival 2024, featuring a performance by the first BSL Poet Laureate, Kabir Kapoor. We’ll also play host to The Kylie Minogue (Poetry) Olympics - an open mic of wonder in honour of ‘poetic’ spoken word renditions of classic song lyrics. 

Join us later in the season for the Poets of Colour Incubator Scratch Performance of ‘poetic responses’ to global challenges, and a showcase of artwork from the It Started with a Seed International Storytelling Festival (IS WAS), which in its inaugural year will share five unique new art commissions by current students and alumni, inspired by Manchester Met at 200. 

If you’d like to get more involved with the day-to-day life of Manchester Poetry Library, you can find out more from our website and social media channels for regular events, reading groups, poetry drop-ins and more. 

Full details of our upcoming season can be found in our season brochure and online events listings.