Poetry with intention: a workshop with Yomi Sode
In partnership with Sheaf Poetry Festival 2023
FREE | limited tickets | 11.30 – 1.30pm at Theatre Deli, Sheffield
(followed by a Yomi Sode & Hive showcase reading for those who want to join us!)
Hive have teamed up again with the brilliant Sheaf Poetry Festival this May to offer an exciting workshop with award-winning Nigerian British writer and performer, Yomi Ṣode. The workshop will explore language, the intention behind why we write, what we write, and whether it reaches its desired outcome. Through the workshop, you’ll explore poems, narrative practices, and the use of communal dialect through poetry exercises.
We are pleased to be working in partnership with Sheaf Poetry Festival to bring you this workshop FREE of charge. Open to young writers aged 15-30 of all levels & interests. Warm, supportive & relaxed. Places are limited so we ask anyone signing up to let us know if anything changes so that their place can become free for someone else to benefit from.
Note: after the workshop, there will be a reading with a selection of Hive poets, including Sheafd Festival Young Poet in Residence, Luke Worthy, and Yomi Sode. Participants from the workshop are welcome to stay with us over lunch and come to the reading free (pay as you feel). Let us know if you’d like to come to the reading too.
Please sign up with your name, town & date of birth to: [email protected]
Sheaf Poetry festival has grown and changed over the years, but its priorities have remained the same – to celebrate all the brilliance Sheffield’s poetry scene has to offer whilst also bringing exciting contemporary poets from the UK and beyond to Sheffield to perform. Our festival aims to develop poetry readers, writers and listeners through our wide variety of workshops and events. Our programme celebrates the best in UK poetry, spoken word and lyrics, taking place 21-28 May 2023 in venues across Sheffield and the Peak District, with live-streaming for online audiences and live-captioned events. Our festival themes are Activism, Access to the Outdoors, and Brains and Consciousness. Events range from reading and talks to poetry walks, music and workshops. www.sheafpoetryfestvial.com
Yomi Ṣode is a Nigerian British writer. His debut collection ‘Manorism’ explores family, survival, generational trauma and the complexities of belonging (Penguin 2022) and is published alongside a stage adaptation at the Southbank Centre. It was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2023 and the T S Eliot Prize 2022. Yomi was shortlisted for the Brunel International African Poetry Prize 2021 and received the Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowship in 2019. His acclaimed one-man show COAT toured nationally to sold-out audiences, including at the Brighton Festival, Roundhouse Camden and the Battersea Arts Centre. In 2020 his libretto Remnants, written in collaboration with award-winning composer James B. Wilson and performed with Chineke! Orchestra premiered on BBC Radio 3.
In 2021, his play, and breathe… premiered at the Almeida Theatre to rave reviews. Yomi is a Complete Works alumnus and a member of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen. He is the founder of BoxedIn, First Five, The Daddy Diaries, and mentorship programme, 12 in 12. yomisode.com