In less than two weeks, the Nottingham Poetry Festival returns, bringing with it live performances, slam nights, talks and workshops across the city’s pubs, bookshops, libraries, theatres and community venues.
Friday 7 June – Sunday 16 June 2024
We are chuffed to be supporting Nottingham Poetry Festival again this year. In keeping with tradition, the festival kicks off with the launch party at the Fox & Grapes. Join us for plethora of poetry fun: it’s free and everyone is invited! Pop your name down for the open mic or pull up a pew and enjoy a a sneak preview of the amazing talent on show at Nottingham Poetry Festival. Hosted by the NPF team, this event will get you up to speed ahead of ten amazing days of words.
This year’s festival features some of the UK’s leading poets – Linton Kwesi Johnson, Hollie McNish, Michael Pedersen, Luke Wright, Anthony Joseph and Henry Normal – along with a huge array of homegrown talent, open mics, panels and workshops, exhibitions and free poetry books from the city’s independent publishers.
Tickets for the headlining events are running low, but the vast majority of the festival programme is once again free, and there’s loads on offer.
From 6-16th June, over Nottingham Poetry Festival, festival goers can get 10% off every purchase in Castle Rock pubs. All you need to do to redeem the offer is download the free Castle Rock App and enter the promo code, which can be found in the NPF brochure.
Those that redeem the promo code will automatically be granted 20% off an additional purchase in our pubs once the festival is over. A thank you from us for visiting us over NPF (and a small sweetener while we all eagerly await the arrival of next year’s poetry festival!). Make sure you use your 20% off before the end of July 2024 as it expires at the end of the month.
If your new to the app, or have any questions, full details can be found here.
We’ve listed a few events taking place in our pubs below, but with almost 40 community events in the packed programme, they are just the tip of the ice burg.
Fancy a sneak preview of the amazing talent on show at Nottingham Poetry Festival? You’re in the right place. Expect writing opportunities, live illustrations and much more. Hosted by the Nottingham Poetry Festival team, this event will get you up to speed ahead of ten amazing days of words. Free entry, from 7-11pm.
After a run of sold out shows up and down the UK, Hollie McNish is back with a brand new book, Lobster and other things I’m learning to love. In Lobster, Hollie brings her much-loved style to questions of friendship, flags and newborns, clocks, cocks and volvos, shining a ridiculous and beautifully poetic lens upon all those things we have been taught to hate, and which we might just learn to love again. Here, she will be joined by fellow poet Michael Pedersen reading from his latest brilliant books The Cat Prince and Boy Friends. Tickets will be available here, please note there is a waiting list currently in place. £15/10.
Crack out the bunting! It’s Luke Wright’s Silver Jubilee. Over twenty-five years, Luke Wright has built up a reputation for being one of Britain’s most popular live poets. Thwarted in his attempts to hold a street party by the philistines on the council and unable to shift the over-ordered commemorative plates, Wright does what a poet does best, and takes a deep dive into himself. What follows is his most confessional show to date excavating lives lived and not lived. Tickets available here. £12/10.
Finish off the festival with the ultimate Slam challenge as the best of Nottingham and Derby go head to head in a battle of words. Champions from each city bring their best poems together to compete for honour, glory and a grand prize. There’s gonna be fireworks! Free.
On the 15th June, NPF welcomes everyone to join the attempt to break the record for the longest street poem in the world. Right outside Nottingham Central Library, pick up the chalk to add your own lines of poetry and be a part of history in the making. The event has been sponsored by It’s In Nottingham. Free.
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