Hosted by Litfest’s Poet in Residence, Hannah Lowe, this event will bring together up to 15 talented poets in a very special gala event, in which they will read their poems on this year’s theme of ‘Histories’, and Hannah will read her own work on the theme together with poems by other poets, old and new.

Curated from submissions to this year’s Litfest Poetry Map, our selected poets and Hannah will provide an evening of shared community, storytelling and, above all, histories – whether they’re personal or public, political, moving, profound or satirical, or all of the above.

Hannah Lowe is a poet, memoirist and academic. Her latest collection, The Kids, won the Costa Poetry Award and the Costa Book of the Year, 2021. She undertook her AHRC-funded PhD in Creative Writing at Newcastle University, and is now Reader in Creative Writing at Brunel University. Her latest collections are two little chapbooks, Old Friends and Rock, Bird, Butterfly.

Hannah Lowe's books will be available to purchase from our online bookshop soon.

Histories Gala Poetry Reading MC’d by Hannah Lowe