Simon Armitage reading to open inaugural poetry festival

The poet, from Marsden in West Yorkshire, will read from both a selection of his poems and his version of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”

Rob Hindle, chairman of Sheffield Poetry Festival, said: “We are delighted that Simon Armitage, one of our patrons, is leading the opening reading of Sheffield’s first dedicated poetry festival.

“As one of the most important poets in the UK, and with his recent appointment as professor of poetry at Sheffield University, it is great that he is playing so prominent a role in the festival.”

The three-day Sheffield Poetry Festival is the first festival of its kind in the city and will include a series of workshops, readings and performances.

There will also be a “University Poetry Challenge” in which literary names from the city’s two universities will be pitted against each other.

Professor Adam Piette from Sheffield University’s English department said: “Sheffield University is one of the major stakeholders in the new Sheffield Poetry Festival and we have worked hard to provide a good show.

“This will be a big weekend in the history of poetry in Sheffield for poetry is, more perhaps than any other art form, a mode of intense and emotionally charged engagement with communities at the heart of their imagination, striking each reader along lines of communication with their own language.”

Friday’s launch event will take place from 8pm at The Workstation.