Poets and Players returns on 25 April to the International Anthony Burgess Foundation with a wonderful line up of poets and musicians.

The event is free, with no need to book. Performers often bring along books and CDs to to sell – please note: we only accept cash payments.

Find out more about the line up below.

Ian Duhig

Ian Duhig has published nine collections of poetry, held fellowships including at Trinity College Dublin, won the Forward Best Poem Prize once, the National Poetry Competition twice and his New and Selected Poems was awarded the 2022 Hawthornden Prize for Literature. His latest book, An Arbitrary Light Bulb, was the Winter 2024 Poetry Book Society Choice.

Duhig has worked on a wide range of artistic collaborations, recently with the painter Christopher P. Wood on a Grimms’ series and social projects including with the David Oluwale Memorial Association and  Leeds Irish Health and Homes.

Safiya Kamaria

Safiya’s debut poetry collection Cane, Corn & Gully (2022) was curated using the movements of enslaved Barbadian women. It was shortlisted for the 2023 Rathbones Folio Prize and Felix Dennis Forward Prize for best first collection. A copy of the collection resides at the National Museum of Barbados; it also won the 2023 Barbados’ ‘Gine On’ People’s Choice Awards for best book. Notable journal publications include: POETRY, Callaloo, Wasafiri, Poetry London, and The Caribbean Writer. In 2025 became the first Obsidian Foundation Alumni. Safiya is currently preparing to finishing her PhD in Cultural Studies.

Day Mattar

Day Mattar is a queer poet from Liverpool. Their pamphlet Springing from the Pews (Broken Sleep Books 2021) was praised by Andrew McMillan as ‘utterly singular’. Their work appears in The Rialto, Magma, Poetry Wales, Rattle, The Tangerine, and Synaesthesia, and has been commended in the Magma Poetry, Ledbury Poetry Prize, Poets&Players, and Café Writers competitions. They co-founded the Queer Bodies Poetry Collective and perform widely at UK festivals.

Plus… Musicians from the Royal Northern College of Music yet to be announced.