Writing the North: Poetry as Resistance – Column

Ann Hamilton, ‘We Will Sing’. Image Credit: Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture.

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. In this month’s article, Keith shares how poetry continues to be a powerful form of resistance – not just against political and social injustices, but against isolation, disconnection, and silence. Through festivals, open mics, and spontaneous moments of solidarity, he explores what happens when we say “Yes”  to community, to creativity, and to each other.

Since Thriddingfest just over a month ago, I have continued to sow those seeds – make connections, individually and communally, and to say “Yes” to things. Lots of people have advocated the value of always saying “Yes”, indeed our podcast with Ian McMillan owes its title to the practice. There may be an irony in the claim, as yielding to an idea seems the opposite of resistance, but resistance does not seem to me to come from shutting oneself off to possibilities. A few years ago, on a Carcanet poetry course, editor John McAuliffe advised our class strongly to maintain our community. We didn’t, much, but those words have stayed with me, and I have come to realise that any resistance works best when rooted in community.

Or communities. I find myself in many, and I like to try to connect those too. Resistance needs a common purpose. The weekend after Thriddingsfest was a busy one. The monthly Poets Talking Bollocks Presents event at the Chemic filled the afternoon of 10 August, our grassroots community in fine form as usual – stroppy, funny and eloquent. The day before, I had found myself hosting at Unity Day on Woodhouse Moor. I introduced poetry from several people I know well from the circuit, as well as a Nyabinghi band, a ceilidh outfit and an Indian dance act. I then handed the stage over to the amazing talent collective United Through Music, founded by the magnificent John Webster in memory of his late son, before using my free evening to dance badly to effervescent performances by my pals Dannyella and D3. The power of saying “Yes”, the power of community and connection, the power of solidarity, the energy behind everyday resistance. 

Unity day. Image Credit: @hydeparkunityday on Instagram.

The Monday was the regular monthly poetry meeting Soundbites at the HEART Centre in Headingley, where the headliner was my friend Faye Marshall, showcasing her debut pamphlet Throwing Sugar on the Fire (it includes a banger about the overturning of Roe v Wade called Sisters of America). Others gave disturbing insights into body dysmorphia, sexual abuse and living with disability. My friend – and Faye’s – Tim Brookes read his tense and grimly beautiful poem about a 6-year-old girl in Gaza. These words, along with those from my Sunday event and from Saturday’s Unity Day, churned around in my mind as I travelled south to London later that week.

The following week, still in London, I read at three open mic nights. On Wednesday, The Poetry Society’s open mic at the Poetry Café. Later that week, I read at Billie Jeyes’ open mic near the Elephant and Castle, and then at a joint music/spoken word open mic at John the Unicorn in Peckham. At all three, I ran into new connections and quickly formed a mini-community, which I hope will grow. While I met some proud resisters in each place, it was at the final event where something particularly striking happened. A young poet named Emmanuel, a lad of Ghanaian heritage, explored the way so much of that heritage was cut off from him. His words stayed with me, and it moved me to change my set when I came on, because I had response poems to what he’d explored which only felt right to share. Being inspired by other poets like this, especially one nearly 40 years one’s junior, is extremely powerful and connective.

United Through Music CIC, Leeds Producers Night. Image Credit: @utm_studio on instagram.

Back in Yorkshire, there was no let-up.  Joe Williams hosted a fantastic event at the Chapel Allerton Festival with the sublime Wendy Pratt, proudly showcasing her rural working-class identity. Then came Rhubarb at the Triangle in Shipley with the extraordinary TS Eliot-nominated Hannah Copley. She explored addiction and grief in ‘Lapwing’ and the assaults of science on the female body in ‘Speculum’. Spread the Word at Grimm and Co. in Rotherham, hosted with great verve and humour by local champion Ray Hearne, included a powerful reading from a passing visitor. From a hundred miles away in Peterborough, they shared a raw piece on domestic abuse, which led to an emotional breakdown at the mic. Another poet standing with her helped the passerby bravely finish her important piece. Finally, a lovely youth-led night at the Hop Hideout in Sheffield on Friday completed four consecutive days at the poetic coal-face.

Chapel Allerton Arts Festival. Image Credit: @chapelallertonfestival on instagram.

The following Wednesday saw an evening of protest poetry (and music and film) at Ponden Mill near Haworth. Organised by Anne Caldwell, and featuring Nick Allen, Lydia McPherson and the stupendous Clare Shaw, it protested plans to plonk a wind-farm on the rare peat-bogs of Walshaw Moor – a catastrophic piece of ecological vandalism. While the best poets tend to find language that seeps between the cracks and illuminates the parts normal speech can’t reach, that doesn’t mean they are beyond direct action.

Last week, those of us who had been on Chapel FM’s now-defunct Deli show, met to discuss a new poetry show. For when one line of resistance disappears, another must replace it. The following day I started drafting this piece after arriving home from Tim Brookes’ Under the Lobby Lights in Wakefield. The headliner was poetry godfather Ralph Dartford, with a raw and confessional set about his addictions and some bad choices they have led him to in the past.

Readers Booth at Salts Mill. Image Credit: Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture.

Poetry is my thing, and it’s where most of my connections are made, but when you say “Yes” to things, you quickly find yourself in other creative spaces. Last Saturday was the second annual Poets Talking Bollocks Festival at the Chemic, with an afternoon of amazing poetry and an evening of incredible music. Elsewhere, I have been reading poetry on Friday mornings of late in a booth up in the roof space of Salt’s Mill. This is part of an ambitious and meditative installation by Ann Hamilton called ‘We Will Sing’, a gentle but powerful resistance drawing on the architecture and history of wool in the region. It expertly weaves together sound, voices, textiles and space, interpreting the past but more than that, imagining a future – for local communities, and by extension, for all communities.

Say “Yes”, connect, inspire and be inspired by, and always resist a world designed to oppress so many. Creating without connecting is a very poor relation.

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For more information about any of the groups, events or people Keith mentions, please follow the links in the article. 

Ann Hamilton’s exhibition ‘We Will Sing’ is available to view at Salts Mill for free until 2nd November.