Join two powerful poets in our June Online Poetry Lounge along with our wonderful open mic maestros.

“Yousif M. Qasmiyeh’s Writing the Camp is a profound meditation on time, family and language, set in his native Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon by a poet with a rare gift for universal imagery and reflection."  Bernard O'Donaghue 

Born and educated in Baddawi refugee camp in Lebanon, Yousif M. Qasmiyeh is a Palestinian poet and translator whose DPhil research at the University of Oxford’s English Faculty explores containment, the archive and time in ‘refugee writing’ in English and Arabic. He is the author of Writing the Camp and Eating the Archive and co-author of The Southern Eye. Writing the Camp was a 2021 PBS Recommendation; selected as one of the Best Poetry Books of 2021 by  The Telegraph and the Irish Times; highly commended by the 2021 Forward Prizes; and shortlisted for the 2022 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize. He is the Creative Encounters Editor of Migration and Society.

"Divorcee Disco Music, the debut collection by Christopher Crawford, lays bare the fractures and fissures within contemporary relationships and in the sensibilities with which we’ve sought to understand theworld, society, nature, and the people who come close to us."

Christopher Crawford’s work has appeared in The Scotsman, Agenda, Magma, The  Rumpus Online, Plume, Puerto del Sol, Rattle, The Cortland Review, and elsewhere. A Glasgow native and former offshore oil worker, he lives in Prague, where he edits the literary journal B O D Y(bodyliterature.com). His debut poetry collection, Divorcee Disco Music, was published by BlueDiode Press in 2024. His work has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and a Best of the Net award.

There is an open mic at this event - to get a slot (1 poem lasting not more than 2 minutes) please buy an Open Mic ticket (note there is no need to buy a general admission ticket as well). Open mic slots are limited, if they are showing as sold out, please buy a general admission ticket for a minimum of £3 and then  email zoebrooks@cheltenhampoetryfestival.uk and ask to go on the reserve list. 

Please note the Festival receives no grant aid, and so is reliant entirely on ticket income and donations. Please give generously.