Summit Festival
Summit Festival
Poetry School presents Summit: A Landmark Ecopoetry Festival in collaboration with YSP, University of Leeds Poetry Centre, National Landscapes Association and The Laurel Prize.
Summit’s ethos is centred around poetry, community, and action. It will provide a vital space to consider how words, and worlds, are deeply connected, and what role poetry plays as we face up to immense biodiversity losses, habitat destruction, rising carbon emissions and warming temperatures. Summit is more than a festival; it’s a call to action. As we face the escalating climate crisis, we’ll explore the powerful role poetry can play in fostering community, sparking change, and envisioning a sustainable future.
The festival brings together some of the UK’s most celebrated writers and ecological thinkers for two days of performances, workshops, poetry surgeries, and panel discussions at YSP and Leeds University Poetry Centre.
On Saturday 19 October, Summit Festival comes to YSP with a series of bookable poetry workshops, a drop-in family workshop and readings from 2024 Laurel Prize judge Caroline Bird, and poets from the 2024 Laurel Prize long-list.
For details of events on Sunday 20 October at Leeds University Poetry Centre, click here.
Summit Festival Pass
For those wanting to attend more than one workshop, the Summit Festival Pass is available for £55. This gives discounted access to all three adult poetry workshops, including entry to YSP. Book here.
Explore Summit Festival events
- Event
Summit Festival: Starting to write nature poetry with Antony Dunn
Find out how naturally poetry can come to you in a series of fun, informal games and group conversations with acclaimed poet Antony Dunn. - Event
Summit Festival: Family Poetry at the Park
Join YSP favourite Nat Bellingham for a family friendly workshop, using nature’s wonders to explore the power of words. Expect poetry, laughter, and lots of joining in! - Event
Summit Festival: Cyclical Worlds
Enjoy an afternoon of autumnal poetry readings from Ella Duffy and Matthew Hollis, hosted by Sara Hudston, Editor of Hazel Press. - Event
Summit Festival: Petro-Politics with Yvonne Reddick
Join author Yvonne Reddick for a generative and informed writing workshop, centred on the creation of petro-poetry. - Event
Summit Festival: Laurel Prize Long-list with Caroline Bird
Introduced by a performance from Laurel Prize 2024 judge Caroline Bird, enjoy excerpts from the year’s most innovative and thought-provoking eco-poetry collections. - Event
Summit Festival: Mingling Bodies with Caleb Parkin
Led by poet Caleb Parkin, in this seriously playful workshop, meet around an otherworldly pool to ‘contaminate’ each other’s writing.