An appeal for help from Cheltenham Poetry Festival

Does poetry matter to you? Have you enjoyed being part of our warm and friendly poetry community?

We need your help to ensure we can offer more opportunities for budding and established writers to read via our on-line lounges.

Having lost public funding and been unable to secure corporate sponsors, we face the risk of being unable to run these events in 2024 without financial support.  Whilst our team works long hours as volunteers, we do need funding to pay each headline poet an honorarium.  Can you help us?

Poetry can be a life saver. It can offer light at the darkest times, solace, improve health and wellbeing and empower those who write and read it. Cheltenham Poetry Festival has offered this literary balm to audiences for over 14 years. The Festival has staged events featuring some of the greatest poets and performers in the UK in venues throughout Cheltenham and in addition and since 2020 has offered a rolling programme of online events.

Our on-line events enable the whole community to enjoy the power of poetry, even those who are unable to attend in-person – for physical, or logistical reasons, can participate in lively and inspiring activities. Our readings offer a platform to up-and-coming writers as well as internationally acclaimed poets. The readings enable vulnerable and isolated individuals to feel a sense of community and afford them the chance to share their stories through literature and to meet fellow writers.

Our events have been described as  ‘a great way to feel less alone’, ‘incredibly empowering’, ‘a life saver’, ‘a tonic to the troubles of the world’, ‘ confidence boosting’ and ‘inspiring’.

Will you help us ensure everyone has the chance to enjoy poetry?

Even just a small pledge will help us get closer to our target and enable us to continue running our ‘life saving’ events.

We want to ensure we can continue offering a platform to more and more up and coming names – will you help us?