LYRA’S POETRY COMMISSIONS
Lyra has led numerous projects commissioning new works of poetry. You can read all of the poems below.
Bristol Ideas (2024)
In 2024, Lyra commissioned 5 Bristol-based poets to write a new poem about the city. This was funded by Bristol Ideas as part of their closing activity. The works were performed at a ‘City of Words’ event to close Lyra Festival 2024.
The five poets commissioned were Sukina Noor, Deborah Harvey, Stephen Lightbown, Lawrence Hoo and Asmaa Jama.
Totterdown Rising (2023)
In 2023 Lyra Festival commissioned four poets, in collaboration with Word of Mouth, to respond to the theme ‘Totterdown Rising’.
Poets Beccy Golding, Anita Karla Kelly, Agata Palmer and Angie Belcher each wrote a piece inspired by the destruction of Totterdown in the 1960’s.
Here + There: The Waste Land (2022)
In 2022 Lyra Festival commissioned four UK poets, in collaboration with Bristol Ideas, to respond to T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land on the centenery year since its publication.
Aké Arts Festival in Nigeria and Toronto International Festival of Authors in Canada also commissioned four poets each, and all 12 poems were anthologised together in an online zine.
Lyra’s UK based poets, Alycia Pirmohamed, Gboyega Odubanjo, JR Carpenter and Yomi Sode, all wrote new poems responding to The Waste Land.
Working Class Writers: Poetry Postcards (2021)
In 2021 Lyra Festival teamed up with Working Class Writers Festival and Bristol Ideas to commission 12 poets from working-class backgrounds to write a new poem, 6 from Bristol and 6 from across the UK.
These poems were printed onto postcards and distributed all over Bristol, including public spaces and all of the city’s libraries.
The commissioned poets were: 1990’s Chris, Bertel Martin, Casey Bailey, Deanna Rodger, Helen Sheppard, Joelle Taylor, Laurie Bolger, Louisa Adjoa Parker, Malizah, Muneera Pilgrim, Tierney Elliott and Wendy Pratt.
A Poetic City: Thomas Chatterton (2020)
2020 marked the 250th anniversary of death of the Bristol-born poet Thomas Chatterton.
Lyra Festival teamed up with Bristol Ideas to commission 12 poets, 6 from Bristol and 6 from around the UK, to respond to Henry Wallis’ painting ‘Chatterton.’
The poems were anthologised and distributed around Bristol and beyond.
You can click the link below to read the anthology, and to watch videos of a selection of poets reading their work next to the original copy of the painting which was on loan at RWA in Bristol
The commissioned poets were: Anthony Anaxagorou, Caleb Parkin, Chris McCabe, Emily Berry, Fran Lock, Josie Alford, Keith Jarrett, Malaika Kegode, Rachael Boast, Rebecca Tantony, Theresa Lola and Tom Sastry.