Writing the North: Laureates, Laurels and Legacies – Column

Bradford 2025, CSL Poetry Gala Part One. Image Credit: Rich Bunce.

Each month Keith Fenton, a Leeds-based performance poet, broadcaster and host of Poets Talking Bollocks podcast, explores the events, people and debates shaping literary culture in the North. This month, he reflects on a season of poetry, pride and community spirit in Bradford — a city that continues to surprise, inspire, and raise the bar.

Bradford, bloody hell. Every time I come over – which has been even more often than most years – the proud City of Culture ramps it up a notch. And when I say “proud” this is not just an abstract throwaway word. The pride is palpable, in every line of every smiling face that says both “Welcome to Bradford” and “No, we can’t believe it either, this is reet brilliant!”

By the time my column went to press last month, I had enough material already to have sent in another, having spent the three days since submitting it at the BBC Contains Strong Language festival. Like so many events at Bradford 25, including the opening ceremony, the featured artists here reflected our community back to us, just as a City of Culture should. It is my understanding that not every city has this experience when chosen.

Bradford 2025, CSL Poetry Gala Part One. Image Credit: Rich Bunce.

First up, I joined an audience full of people I mostly knew at the Alhambra Studio for the launch of the National Young Poet Laureate Programme, one of National Poet Laureate Simon Armitage’s legacy projects, and which was piloted here in West Yorkshire. One of the previous Young Laureates, Isabelle Walker, was a regular on our poetic circuit, and one of the new incumbents, 9-year-old Max, appeared at an event with me at Piglove by the River back in the spring. Again, reflecting us back to ourselves. Afterwards, I met Ayan Aden, the Laureate for Birmingham, who is doing wonderful things for the local scene there, building a poetry map of the city and devising an “anti-clash” calendar, ideas I think we should brazenly pilfer (but also give credit for, obviously!)

A quick trot across Centenary Square, and some of us were upstairs in the library for a special Contains Strong Language open mic hosted by Mohamed Saloo and “Cloth Cap Rapper” Kevin Flaherty. Shareena Lee Satti – who had been at the Laureate event in her capacity as Project Manager at the National Literacy Trust, and whose immense community work in Bradford’s poetry scene is legendary – was one of the notable performers in a night that brilliantly showcased the immense talent in and near Bradford.

CSL Bradford Open Mic hosted by Mohamed Saloo. Image Credit: Rich Bunce.

The Poet Laureate has other outlets for his legacy, and the following day in the Banqueting Suite at the City Hall, he presented his Laurel Prize for Eco-Poetry, the winner sloping off with a prize consisting of Armitage’s honorary salary for the role. This year it was for Katrina Porteous’ Rhizodont. There were sumptuous readings from her and the other shortlisted poets, three of whom are on the roster with Shearsman Books, whose owner Tony Frazer was present and very happily – for both of us – flogged me their collections! The room was a Who’s Who of northern poetry – one well-aimed bomb and our whole scene would have been finished.

One of the judges for this year’s prize was the eminent poet Daljit Nagra. The following day I attended his wonderful Laurel Prize workshop, where a strong field of poets studied “Eco-Poetry’s Cutting Edge”. But not before an earlier workshop with the record-breaking beat-boxer, rapper and playwright Testament. This was followed by the illustrious first instalment of the Contains Strong Language Poetry Gala, featuring ten poets at the top of their game. The line-up included Bradford spoken-word legends Kemmi G and Kirsty “Bratfud” Taylor, Written Off’s Emma Conally-Barklem, Harehills hero Saju Ahmed (who turns out, like me, to have family from Birr in Ireland) and no fewer than three Poets Talking Bollocks podcast victims guests in Antony Dunn, Andrew McMillan and Kim Moore. Once again, reflecting us back to ourselves.

CSL Poetry Shorts: Music & Lyrics. Image Credit: Rich Bunce.

I only scratched the surface of Contains Strong Language, and missed the whole of the final day. Instead I was at the Leeds Irish Centre for the annual open day, where I saw a young lad hold 250-odd souls in the palm of his hand with his version of the Finn McCool story. Speaking to him and his Mum afterwards, he turned out to be just 7 years old, and he is the UK’s storytelling champion in the u-12 category. It just so happened that my friend El Parnham was running a storytelling session at Kirkstall Valley Farm the following evening, and Myles not only came along (with his Mum) and wowed us with his storytelling, but he even mucked in and helped build the fire for us to sit around at the start!

With the Myles’s and Max’s of this world still counting their years in single figures, I would like to think they are part of the creative legacies our communities are trying to leave behind. With awards and titles to their names, they are representing the rest us on the regional and national stages, and this is how we reap the collective rewards of our creative efforts. By reflecting us back to ourselves.

‘Ourselves Reflected Back’ cover. Image Credit: Keith Fenton.

My cultural life has been rich and varied since then, taking in the Africa 4U awards (also in the Bradford City Hall Banqueting Suite), Kristina Diprose’s book launch at the Rhubarb night in Shipley, Joe Williams‘ Chemistry at The Chemic with Jamie Thrasivoulou and Elisabeth Sennitt Clough, Poetic Off-licence, the incredible Voices of the Black Atlantic at the Armouries and my own Poets Talking Bollocks Presents open mic at The Chemic. But I will leave you with an anthology launched at Rotherham Civic Theatre on 2 October 2025, with no fewer than 137 poems (including two of mine) to celebrate the burgeoning Rotherham poetry scene. The title?

Ourselves Reflected Back. Of course.

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To find out more about BBC Contains Strong Language, you can read Millie’s preview of the Festival here.