Sheaf Poetry Festival and Poets Yield Power present:
A POETRY SOCIAL
3rd July 2025, The Beaten Track at the Wig & Pen, Campo Lane Sheffield 6.30pm
Do you like poems? Do you want to meet more people to talk about poems with?
Everyone is welcome to join Sheaf Poetry and PYP at our June poetry social – drop in for as long as you like. We’re joining forces to explore what we can continue to offer in Sheffield, and we’d love to meet you. We’d really love to hear what kind of poetry events would inspire and excite you most, or the poets you’d like us to bring to the City for events and workshops. Whether you want to have a nice chat or call it networking, we’d love to see you there.
Sheaf Poetry Festival is a charitable incorporated organisation that exists to promote the fantastic poetry that Sheffield has to offer, as well as developing writers and bringing poets of national acclaim to our events. Our last festival was in 2023 and featured poets such as Yomi Sode, Jen Hadfield and Inua Ellams.
Since February 2024 PYP, a grassroots organisation, has been pushing poetry and integration of different creative disciplines within Sheffield. PYP was created with the aim of creating more exposure and visibility for local creatives, providing them with more performance opportunities. Additionally the development and nurturing of new and upcoming creatives.
Access: The venue has two steps and staff are able offer some assistance- please contact us with any queries sheafpoetryfestival@gmail.com beforehand if possible.
A Statement from Sheaf Poetry Festival
Festival Update and Opportunities for the Future
Following the cancellation of this year’s festival due to lack of funds, the Creative Directors and Trustees of the festival have been working to find solutions with which to move forward. Unfortunately we still find ourselves without funding and those of us working for the festival are unable to continue to do so on a voluntary basis. We have therefore taken the difficult decision to place the Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) into a state of dormancy.
However we do not wish for this to be the end of the Sheaf Poetry Festival and we know there are solutions and exciting futures to be explored by new volunteers who do have the capacity for this work. Given this, the Trustees have voted to delay dormancy until late January and to use the intervening time to open this callout and invite conversations with anyone who wishes to take the festival forward.
We have an incorporated organisation, current balance of approximately £2,000 and a wealth of experience, contacts and documents ready to hand over. There is an opportunity for a person, or group of people, with a passion for poetry and live literature who have the energy and time to work towards reinvigorating and reimagining this wonderful festival. The current directors and trustees will be happy to have conversations with and offer help and support to anyone who would like to take this forward and step into a ready-made charity and project.
More information and to chat about where we are right now please contact us by the end of January 2025, when we will initiate dormancy procedures if we have received no interest.
We know this is disappointing news but we truly believe it is also an opportunity for the festival to return stronger than ever, more vibrant and with fresh, new passion. Thank you so much to everyone who has supported this wonderful festival since its very first days in 2011, we hope very much to see you all again soon.
Our Partners
We’re proud to be working with local organisations including Dead Women Poets Society, Hive South Yorkshire, Sheffield Flourish, and the Longshaw National Trust estate, and to be supported by Arts Council England, Graves Charitable Trust and Sheffield Town Trust.
