Litfest Autumn Weekend Launch: National Poetry Day with Clare Shaw

To celebrate National Poetry Day 2022, for which this year’s theme is ‘Environment’, we invite everyone to submit a poem to the Litfest Environment Poetry Mosaic. We invite you to beyond Litfest 2022’s ‘This Place, This Planet’ poetry map and respond to all the different environments we inhabit, from the natural and human-made, through towns and workplaces, play spaces and social media, to the health and mental health environments and all the spaces in between. You can submit a poem to the ‘Environment’ Poetry Mosaic here.

In the days leading up to National Poetry Day, Clare Shaw will curate a selection of 12 outstanding poems from those submitted to the Litfest ‘Environment’ Poetry Mosaic by the deadline of midnight on 30 September. Then on 4 October Litfest will contact those poets to invite them to read their work in person or online at this special event!

MC’d by poet Clare Shaw, the event itself will feature Clare’s own poetry, poems from the past, and the 12 selected poets’ work. After the event, all submitted and accepted poems will remain online in the ‘Poetry Mosaic’.

‘Clare Shaw writes rawly and brilliantly’ –Jackie Kay

Clare Shaw is a poet and performer. They have published four poetry collections with Bloodaxe, most recently Towards a General Theory of Love. Clare is co-director of the Kendal Poetry Festival, a poetry tutor, and a mental health educator. Their work is grounded in place, and underpinned by a deep faith in language – the belief that words have the power both to harm and to heal at an individual and societal level.