Voiced & IMLD26: Opening Event

  • DATE

    20 February 2026

  • TIME

    7:00 pm to 8:15 pm

  • AGES

    All ages welcome

  • PRICE

    Free | Booking Link Coming Soon. 

  • VENUE

    Manchester Poetry Library
    Manchester Metropolitan University, Cavendish Street, Manchester, M15 3BG

  • WEBSITE

    mmu.ac.uk/poetrylibrary/

  • THEME

    History

    Languages

    Poetry

    Read

  • ORGANISER

    Voiced Festival and Manchester City of Literature

Voiced, the UK’s first creative festival for endangered languages, comes to Manchester.

Join us for the opening event to discover writers and poets working to keep their languages alive through their work. Hear from Rachel Lichtenstein, who has been learning her heritage language of Yiddish to inform the book she is writing, a journey she will share at this event. And if you have never been in the presence of an Archdruid, now is your moment as Mererid Hopwood performs her work and talks of her role in activating the Welsh language through poetry. All performers will take part in a Q and A exploring questions at the heart of the Voiced festival: how can creativity help keep a language alive? What is the role of the young in language activation? And how might we think of the relationship between language and landscape?

This event will have British Sign Language (BSL) interpretation available.

Booking Link Coming Soon. 

About Voiced 

This event is part of the Voiced Festival of Endangered Languages. Through poetry, performance, talks, live events and visual art, the festival brings together a remarkable line-up of artists whose work marks the vast impact art has on language and language has on art. Co-Curated by Sam Winston and Chris McCabe, please see the full programme on the pages below.