When The Gloucestershire Poetry Society was founded it became a success over night. Poets came out of every darkened shadow with the hope of sharing their work. They were overjoyed with opportunities to share but something was missing. A stage, a platform, that everyone could get behind. Something ostentatious and different. Something that would show the world how prolific Gloucester is for creative writing and performance.
There are fantastic local events but they are specialist. So, the Gloucestershire Poetry Society determined that they would honour the amazing poetry being created in Gloucester and build upon local events. The Gloucestershire Poetry Society has set out to do what has never been done before, create an international platform for poets to perform and an opportunity for all poets of every level to be involved.
The Gloucester Poetry Festival was created by The Gloucestershire Poetry Society soon after and plans were made to create a staging ground for spoken word artists and page poets to perform. Everyone pulled together as a team. In keeping with the ethos of the Gloucestershire Poetry Society, all are welcome.
Ziggy Dicks, the ‘Gloucestershire Poet Laureate’ became the Director of the Gloucester Poetry Festival in October 2016 and the festival is now set to become a major attraction for poets and spoken word artists across the UK.