Medway River Lit
Rainham Poetry Festival
28 and 29 April 2023
(Associate Event)
We are delighted to be associated with Rainham Poetry Festival. St Margaret’s Church, Rainham, will be the venue for this brand new poetry festival coming to Medway in April 2023.
The event is presented in association with Renaissance One.
Headlining the festival is world renowned poet John Agard (Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, BookTrust's Lifetime Achievement Award) who will be familiar to many students who will have studied his poems ‘Half-caste’ and ‘Checking Out Me History’ which have featured on the GCSE syllabus since 2002! John appears courtesy of Renaissance One.
Supporting John, will be be poets Jessica Mookherjee, whose book ‘Tigress’ was shortlisted as best second collection in the Ledbury Munthe Prize in 2021, and Charlotte Ansell, whose book ‘Deluge’ was a 2019 Poetry Book Society Winter recommendation.
Saturday 29 April will see a performance from 'The Four Poets' - Bill Lewis, one of the legendary Medway Poets Group, Maggie Harris, winner of Wales Poetry Award 2020, Sarah Hehir, poet, playwright and TV/radio writer and Barry Fentiman Hall, the co-director of the festival.
There will also be readings from the winners of Wordsmithery's 2022 Rosemary McLeish Poetry Prize, and the launch of the 2023 Prize. Jane Burn who judged the prize is also a guest reader.
Friday, 28 April, 7-9pm
Saturday, 29 April, 6-9pm
Free. Just turn up.
Venue: St Margaret's Church, Rainham High Street, ME8 7JH
St Margaret's Church is fully accessible to wheelchair users.
Refreshments will be available to purchase