The Lyra Bristol Poetry Festival is due to begin on 12th April.  Do check out our full programme as we have so much going on!

We have two poetry film events which I would love you to be able to see.

If you can’t be in Bristol many of our events, including the Zebra screening, will be live-streamed. Our ‘festival digital pass’ is only £15 and you will be able to view the events online.

The first poetry film event is Cancer Alley, the poetry film immersive hologram which is going to be screened at The Watershed 18-21st April from 10-5pm.

Cancer Alley is an immersive poetry film hologram which features environmental destruction in ‘Cancer Alley’, Louisiana, the heart of the Global petrochemical industry. The project draws attention to the need for multinational companies to take more responsibility for their impact on the environment and the growing public awareness of how people’s lives are affected by extreme pollution. Cancer Alley is free, and is available to view at the Watershed 17-21st April on a continuous loop.

Cancer Alley has been created by poet Lucy English, US filmmakers Pamela Falkenberg and Jack Cochran, and Bristol based company Holotronica.

The second is the curation of films by the Zebra Poetry Film Festival on Saturday 20th April at The Watershed 3-4pm. Haus für Poesie presents a selection of the best films from the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival. The programme shows short films on the subject of “Poetry and Technology”. On the one hand, the poetry films are technically extremely sophisticated or deal with topics such as artificial intelligence, algorithms and social media. The films are based on poems by Jörg Piringer, Raed Wahesh and Yehuda Amichai, among others.

Presented by Thomas Zandgiacomo Del Bel, who will join us for a special in-person Q&A all the way from Berlin.

I look forward to seeing you at the festival in person or virtually! Here’s the link.