Manchester Literature Festival and Manchester Poetry Library present a night of exciting and compelling LGBTQ+ poetry.

Join poet and Manchester Metropolitan University Professor Andrew McMillan for this intimate event with readings from world-leading poets from 100 Queer Poems, the anthology he co-edited with Mary Jean Chan. The book was dubbed “the year’s most notable anthology” by The Guardian in their best books of 2022 roundup and was shortlisted in the poetry category of the British Book Awards.

About the Poets

Toby Campion is an award-winning poet, performer and playwright. His debut collection, Through Your Blood (Burning Eye Books) was longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize and highly commended in the Forward Prizes 2018. Recent poems have been published in The London Magazine, 100 Queer Poems and Magma.

Amaan Hyder’s first book of poetry is At Hajj (Penned in the Margins, 2017). His poems have appeared in The Guardian and Poetry Review, and as a Ledbury Poetry Critic he has reviewed for the TLS, the Poetry School and Poetry Birmingham. In 2021, his short story ‘Postpositions’ was shortlisted in the 4thWrite Prize. He is a doctoral student and Visiting Tutor at Royal Holloway.

lisa luxx is a poet, performer and activist of British and Syrian heritage. Her work has been broadcast on Channel 4, BBC Radio 4 and TEDX. luxx is winner of the Outspoken Prize of Performance Poetry 2018, Apples and Snakes and Jerwood Arts Poetry in Performance 2021. Her debut collection is Fetch Your Mother’s Heart (Outspoken Press, 2021).

Andrew McMillan is the author of three poetry collections. His debut, physical, was the first ever poetry collection to win The Guardian First Book Award. His second, playtime, won the inaugural Polari Prize and was a Poetry Book of the Year in The Sunday Times. His third collection, pandemonium, was published in 2021 to wide acclaim.

Clare Shaw (they/them) has four poetry collections with Bloodaxe: their 2022 collection Towards a General Theory of Love was a Poetry Society Book of the Year. They are Co-Director of the Kendal Poetry Festival; a Royal Literary Associate; and a regular tutor for Wordsworth Grasmere and the Arvon Foundation. Grounded in natural landscapes as much as social activism, Clare’s work is fuelled by their faith in the transformative, redemptive power of language.

Dorothea Smartt FRSL is a literary activist, poet and live artist. Since the 1980’s she’s contributed widely to Blacklesbian/Blackfeminist activism. Her two collections of poetry are Connecting Medium and Ship Shape, published by Peepal Tree Press. Her most recent pamphlet is Reader, I Married Him & Other Queer Goings-On. For the 60th anniversary of Barbados Independence she was nominated for a Golden Jubilee Award, for her contributions to British culture.