Voiced, the UK’s first creative festival for endangered languages, presents an unmissable evening of Queer poetry and performance.

Presenting Polari, a hidden language of Queer experience, which will come to life in performance with Jez Dolan. Rosie Garland performs poems from Polari Prize-shortlisted What Girls do in the Dark and her recently published This Is How I Fight, an Observer Poetry Book of the Month. And poet afshan d’souza-lodhi
explores Queer language through her mother tongue Konkani, a minority and national language in India. Join us for this electric evening exploring the intersections of Queer languages, poetry and performance.

About Voiced

This event is part of the Voiced: The 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.

About the performers

Jez Dolan is an artist and theatre-maker living and working in Manchester (UK). His practice underlines the intersections between queerness, sexuality, identity and memory. He works across multiple art-forms including drawing, film, performance, printmaking and painting. He has exhibited across the UK and internationally, and his work is held in public and private collections including: the British Museum, Bury Art Museum, the (UK) Government Art Collection, Manchester Art Gallery, the Leslie Lohman Museum NYC, the Parliament Art Collection, Soho House, the Schwules* Museum Berlin, the Walker Art Gallery Liverpool and others.

Rosie Garland has a passion for language nurtured by public libraries. An award-winning poet, novelist and short story writer, she is frontwoman for post-punk band The March Violets. Her four historical novels include The Night Brother, described by The Times as “a delight…with shades of Angela Carter” & The Fates, her queer retelling of Greek myth. Latest poetry collection This Is How I Fight was Observer Poetry Book of the Month. Val McDermid named her one of the UK’s most compelling LGBT+ writers, & in 2023 she was made Fellow of The Royal Society of Literature.