We’ve been involved with Wolves Lit Fest since it first started, and it’s been joyous to watch it establish itself and go from strength to strength. As this year’s festival slips away into the rear view mirror, here’s our thoughts on it. This is going to be a long post, so make yourself a cuppa and settle in…
The 2025 festival built on the success of previous years, bringing loads of visitors here to enjoy our city, and giving those of us who live in Wolverhampton something they can be massively proud of. There was a perfect blend of events – big names to bring in the crowds, and plenty of opportunities for local creatives to get up behind the mic and share their work with the public, too. That’s massively important as far as we’re concerned – and we’ll talk more about that later. For now, here’s a review of all the stuff we enjoyed and curated over the last weekend…
Friday
Each year, well in advance of the festival, we recommend a headline poet we think would be a great addition to it. Then we leave them and the festival organisers to hammer out an agreement, and hope they can make it happen. This year, we’d suggested Hollie McNish – who is absolutely brilliant – and we were delighted that her Friday night show in the city’s Art Gallery sold out way before the festival weekend. There are few poets who can hold an audience of over 140 in the palm of their hand, but Hollie is definitely one. We laughed far more than poetry audiences normally do, and the queue for signed copies of Hollie’s book ‘Lobster’ stretched all the way back up the gallery stairs at the end of the night.
Saturday.
We’ve run a Fringe Room at Wolves Lit Fest for several years now. It started in the upstairs room of the Lych Gate, moved to the Purity Bar after the pandemic, and has now found its home in the Tilston at the city’s Arena Theatre. In the tradition of Fringe, the shows are free for the audience to come and watch, but they have to pay to leave. More accurately, they lob into the hat whatever they think the show was worth, with all the money going direct to the performer. We always put on five shows, each of them roughly fifty minutes long. It’s a full-on day, but it is absolutely worth it, and the audience numbers speak for themselves – the room was packed! Huge thanks to our performers Susan Murray, Naomi Paul, Robin Ince, Date Night (Autumn & Hannah), and Lee Nelson.
Those of you who were there will know that Robin asked for the money in his hat to go to a local charity. We have now donated all £225 to Base 25, who work with young people across Wolverhampton. Thank you, Robin.
At some point in the afternoon, Steve sloped off to MC the event for the poetry competition winners – and shortlisted poets – in the Arena’s main room (you can see videos of the winning poems here, if you haven’t already) Our thanks to all the poets who came along to this, and a special mention to Wolverhampton poet John Woodall, who read his 2nd prize poem and hotfooted it down to the Molineux to watch Wolves-Villla. The actions of a man who loves misery, we all thought. And how wonderfully wrong we were proved to be!*
With the Fringe Room wrapped up we just had time to head to a noodle bar for a bite to eat, and then it was time for Stars of Slam. One event; five brilliant poetry slam winners. This was an evening of poetry to savour – no headliner, just five excellent poets sharing equal billing – with a rapt audience thoroughly entertained from the first moment to the last. If you get the chance to see Ben Davis, Brenda Read-Brown, Prince Acquah, Morgan Birch, or Bradley Taylor wherever you live, we recommend you grab it with both hands.
We went home absolutely buzzing.
Sunday
This is always a quieter day for us (hallelujah!) but a really important one. We curate the Writers’ Hub at the city’s art gallery. It’s a really important part of the festival programme, giving dozens of local writers the opportunity to share their work in public. For some of them, it’s the first time they’ll have got up behind (or is it in front of?) a mic, and it’s always wonderful to see how doing that changes their perception of what they can do with their work and what’s possible for them. This year, ten different writers’ groups from across the city and beyond gathered together to share their work. That’s maybe ninety local writers actively participating in the city’s arts scene, from first timers like Tettenhall Writers (hope we see you again!) to veterans like Bridgnorth and Coachhouse Writers.
And then, in the blink of an eye, it was Sunday evening, and time to retire to the pub for the traditional –and much-needed – debrief. We’ve spent years perfecting that, too.
Now, for reading this far, a little bonus: over the past few months Emma’s been busy working with a choir in Shrewsbury (the Mere Singers) writing a poem on a subject they wanted, after which a composer turned it into a choral piece for the choir to sing. The poem and song were finally released today, and you can watch and listen to them here. Enjoy. These are utterly magnificent.
And finally….
*We’re not saying that the positive effect of Lit Fest is exactly why Wolves beat Villa 2-0 on Saturday evening, we’re just saying that any reasonable person would recognise the part the Lit Fest played.