Current projects
Find out what's going on at the Poetry Library. There’s lots to get involved with.
Discover what's currently going on at the Poetry Library
Call out for new artist commissions
It Started with a Seed: IS WAS Festival 2024
The It Started with a Seed International Storytelling Festival(IS WAS) is set to launch in June 2024. It’s a collaborative effort between our Arts and Humanities faculty, Manchester Poetry Library, and Manchester Histories.
The partnership team is actively seeking to commission four artists to create new work inspired by Manchester Met at 200. Welcoming diverse artistic expressions, including poetry, film, audio, art, storytelling, and performance, the commissioned works will be featured at the Manchester Histories Festival 2024.
This opportunity is open to all artists based in Greater Manchester, as well as our current students.
We put people and community first in our advocacy for storytelling and aim to push the boundaries of storytelling and the people who tell them.
The commissions have been made possible by funding from Manchester Met and in-kind support from partners.
Poets of Colour Incubator 2023-2024
This is a 12-month programme offering mentoring, change agency opportunities and creative development to three talented and emerging poets of colour who are over 18 and living in the North of England at a crucial stage of their practice.
An additional five shortlisted poets will receive career signposting, and professional guidance. They’ll also become part of a community of practice.
A collaboration between Manchester Poetry Library and Words of Colour, the incubator aims to provide vital support to emerging poets of colour to develop new work that speaks to their lived experience and authentic selves and their ability to build sustainable careers.
Each of the three successful Incubator poets will receive a £6,000 Creative Action Bursary to innovate their practice and create dynamic new work in response to a global challenge they want to explore.
They will also have access to professional mentoring support and masterclasses on topics including:
- How to develop a Creative Wellbeing Audit
- Creative Entrepreneurship and Having a Sustainable Career
- Poetry, Resilience and Change Agency
- Interrogating your Craft and Performance
- Digital Inclusion for Live Events
Alongside receiving creative wellbeing and creative entrepreneurship coaching, poets will have the opportunity to:
- test, develop and perform their poetry through artistic co-production
- work with the public on idea development through Incubator drop-ins and scratch performances
- co-develop a live, end of programme showcase
Writer, educator and TS Eliot Prize winning poet Roger Robinson will be the Incubator’s professional mentor with masterclasses led by Brunel International African Poetry Prize winner Nick Makoha; poet, resilience and success coach Shamshad Khan; and BSL interpreter and digital access specialist Nakisayi Musungwa.
Tailored mentorship will be provided by Incubator project manager Joy Francis and change agency specialist Suzanne Lyn-Cook.
Award-winning poets Malika Booker and Kit Fan will be part of the Incubator’s selection panel and serve as project advisers.
Incubator partners include Contact, HOME, Manchester UNESCO City of Literature and New Writing North.
The Poets of Colour Incubator is funded by Arts Council England’s National Lottery Project Grants programme.
Write where we are now public archive
Carol Ann Duffy DBE (UK Poet Laureate 2009-2019) and the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Met have brought together poets from around the world to write new poems during the Coronavirus crisis.
Write Where We Are Now invited poets to write directly about the pandemic or about the personal situation they found themselves in during lockdown. We invited the public to share their creative responses with the Write Where We Are Now archive.
In 2022, the Poetry Library commissioned poet Romalyn Ante to be the first reader of the many contributions we received. We look forward to making further announcements soon.
Mother tongue other tongue
This Laureate Education Project is a multilingual poetry competition that celebrates cultural diversity and the many languages spoken in schools in the UK, led by Professor Carol Ann Duffy DBE (UK Poet Laureate 2009-2019).
Regional competitions and events take place throughout the year. The competition is coordinated nationally by the Manchester Poetry Library. In 2019, Mother Tongue Other Tongue won The Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education.
Made in Manchester
The Made in Manchester poem celebrates 200 languages spoken in Manchester. A living poem, it has verses in 74 different languages and counting.
With your help, it aims to include as many of Manchester’s languages as possible, including those not spoken here yet.
The poem can be viewed in a dedicated installation at Manchester Poetry Library or read online.
Manchester Children’s Book Festival
The Manchester Children’s Book Festival was devised by Professor Carol Ann Duffy DBE when she was made Poet Laureate in 2009. The Festival worked with partners from across the city and nationally to deliver an annual programme of events, projects and competitions that engaged more than 10,000 young people from families and schools each year. This legacy of the Manchester Children’s Book Festival continues, as we continue to work with publishers, poets and illustrators through the Poetry Library’s Learning programme.