STAINSBY FESTIVAL STARTS NEW NATIONAL POETRY COMPETITION

Stainsby Festival today announced its inaugural National Poetry Competition to be held at this year’s event. Known primarily for its music, the festival has previously featured spoken word performances by Longfella (aka the Manchester poet Tony Walsh), the former Derbyshire Poet Laureate Mat Black, the stand-up poet Liv Torc as well as numerous aspiring local poets. This is a bold next step in expanding our poetry offer.

Festival President Tony Trafford said “We’re exceptionally pleased our new competition will be judged by Roger McGough who’s also appearing at the festival himself. The voice of poetry on Radio 4’s Poetry Please for over 25 years, he’s known for his work nationally and internationally, as well as being a bit famous in Liverpool”.

Shortlisted poets will be invited to read their work (or have it read) at this year’s festival in Roger’s presence. Three winning poems will be published online and (possibly) in this year’s festival programme. The overall winner will be invited to a paid residency at the 2027 festival.

Stainsby Festival has been an entirely volunteer run, not-for-profit event since 1969 (a year before Glastonbury) and became a charity in 1979. Throughout that time it has spread appreciation of the arts, particularly  live music in the British singer/songwriter tradition. At various times in its extraordinary and long history it’s also featured book launches, street theatre, poetry readings, light painting and philosophy debates.

In 2022 it successfully completed a 10 year fund raising campaign to buy its venue fields. In 2023 it won the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service and in 2024 funded and built a permanent oak framed barn as aworking base. On the back of these achievements it now has plans to extend the range of arts it supports, starting with this new national poetry competition – entries4 now open until May 31st.