Poetry Live

Poetry Live, also known as Poetry Live! for GCSE, is a series of annual events in venues across the UK where poets perform their poetry to English school children.

Poetry Live! has its origins in large conferences Simon Powell used to organize in the UK for A-level English students. At first, distinguished academics and critics gave talks about novels, plays and poetry but then the idea emerged that it might be better to have the writers themselves talking about their work. Soon after, large audiences of A-level students were seeing and hearing regular contributors such as Beryl Bainbridge, Hanif Kureishi, Martin Amis, Jim Crace, Andrew Davis, Doris Lessing, Edna O’Brien, Richard Eyre, Willy Russell, Arnold Wesker, Alan Bleasdale, Melvyn Bragg, Germaine Greer, Peter Hall and Margaret Drabble. However it was the poets who really struck a chord with the huge (2000 plus) audiences. The next step was to offer days with poets such as Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott, James Fenton, Tony Harrison, U A Fanthorpe, Benjamin Zephaniah, Simon Armitage, Glyn Maxwell, Gillian Clarke, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Carol Ann Duffy, Liz Lochhead and Andrew Motion.

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