Listen to the world’s best poetry read out loud.
Celebrating the 20th anniversary of our first recording this new, contemporary collection will showcase the poets writing today so their poetry can be preserved and shared with the millions of people who visit and love the Archive - let your voice be heard!
Capture your poetry.
We want you to have the opportunity to join the Poetry Archive collections by recording yourself reciting or reading your poem out loud and sending it to us to care for and share.
Be part of a unique digital collection.
Each year, 20 poets will be chosen to join the Poetry Archive WordView 2020 Collection whilst hundreds more will be curated, archived and shared in collections with the millions of people who visit and love the Archive.
Connect with new audiences.
Poetry offers a vital reflection of the age we live in. We would love you to join our collections to offer inspiration, comfort and the sheer lift-of-spirits which listening to fantastic poetry being read out loud can bring.
How to get involved
Record and recite your poetry.
From April 10th to September 10th 2020 we would love you to make a video/film recording of yourself reading or reciting a single poem you have written. You'll find some great tips on making home videos through your phone or computer in our FAQ's. When you are ready, simply complete the submission form and send your recording to us.
Your poetry published for all to hear and see.
From April 20th onwards we will begin publishing the poems to our new Poetry Archive YouTube channel where the millions of people who visit the Poetry Archive each year can hear them and know the poets who created them.
Poetry Archive WordView 2020
After the deadline a panel led by the poet and film-maker Imtiaz Dharker will select their 20 favourite entries for a special Archive Collection for 2020 to be celebrated on our website. Plus, hundreds of other poets will be published to our YouTube and other channels where we will curate a series of special profiles, poetry festival events and publicly curated collections to ensure your work is shared as widely as possible with poetry lovers around the world.
Here’s some examples for inspiration:
UK Poet Laureate Simon Armitage shows how it’s done – he made this video for us from his garden: Lockdown
“Home-made film (daughter on phone-camera) of me reading Lockdown, in the garden, in the West Yorkshire Pennines, on a fresh spring day. First day proper of the emergency measures, but the blue tits and the buzzard in the background obviously hadn’t heard about the restrictions on movement, gatherings and vitality. And the sun was reliably in its proper position at the given hour.”
Winner of the T. S. Eliot Prize 2019, Roger Robinson reads his unpublished poem called ‘A Conversation About Meat During The Plague’.