Curated and hosted by poet Kim Moore, our online contemporary poetry reading series continues throughout 2025.

We will be listening to what poets have to say about our turbulent times, and how poetry can cross borders to challenge, delight and inspire us. Each event in the series is part reading, part open mic – and the theme of the open mic changes every time!

Our next event will feature the poet David Morley. David will be reading from his latest collection Passion published by Carcanet in 2025. David’s weaving of Romani and English, his portrayals of women scientists and the birds that flit in and out and around these poems make for an exciting and thought-provoking collection. William Wordsworth once asked ‘O Cuckoo! Shall I call thee bird? Or but a wandering voice?’ and often associated ideas of freedom with the birds he heard and wrote about – it’s exciting to think that many years later, poets are still writing about birds and bird song.

Open mic

Our open mic theme this month is to bring along a poem with a bird in it – whether it is addressed to a bird, a description of an encounter, or if a bird merely flies in and out again – as ever feel free to interpret this theme widely!

Open mic slots are limited and must be booked in advance.  Each open mic poem should be no longer than two minutes. Email Kim Moore at wordsworthreadingseries@outlook.com for a slot. Slots do book up quickly, so don’t leave it to the last minute!

How to book and attend

When attendees book a ticket they will receive a confirmation email which includes the Zoom registration link for this event: please use this link to sign up.

This event is a Zoom webinar and the audience will not appear on screen. If you have bought a ticket and signed up to the open mic your audio and video will be enabled during the open mic.

Five free places are available for those experiencing financial hardship that would otherwise not be able to attend. You can select this option during online checkout. If you have booked a free place and find that you can’t attend, please let us know so that we can make this available to someone else.

Automatic live captions will be provided.