yep – Leeds Poetry Festival is returning for a second year and so is LIVEwire! this time around, our line-up features Louise Fazackerley, Carla Mellor and Taiwo Ogunyinka. tickets are available here for £7 plus booking fee.

introducing poet-extraordinaire and theatre-maker, Louise Fazackerley! coming to you fresh from the exotic Northern streets of Orwell’s Wigan. she tells darkly humorous stories of hope and hurt. with work rooted in word-witchery and the working class, Louise explores the synergy between poetry and movement in a way that makes the ugly beautiful and the mundane fantastical.

winner of BBC Radio 3 New Voices, European Slam Finalist, and she’s been on tour with John Cooper Clarke. Louise is excited to share work from her new, darkly humorous dystopian book The Lolitas and poems from Bird St. – a collection sharing the last ten years of her performance poetry.

Carla Mellor is a Wigan-based Yorkshire poet who writes ‘poetry for the people’; accessible, down-to-earth, and relatable poems for the everyday. her debut poetry collection SCRAPS was published in 2021 by Wrecking Ball Press.

Taiwo Ogunyinka is a poet and collective arts organiser, and project researcher of Nigerian heritage based in Leeds. he is a founding member of the Say It With Your Chest Arts collective, which is a Black-led, Leeds-based creative platform. we believe in the necessary and world-changing power of creativity for community building, wellbeing, social justice, and racial equity.

the event will be hosted by Matt Abbott.