Seren Cardiff Poetry Festival is an annual celebration of live poetry, workshops, panel discussions and debate, based in the heart of Wales’s capital city.
Run by our small team at Seren, our aim is to create a space where poets, writers and performers, especially from Wales, can come together and share their work with new audiences.
Since our first festival in 2018, we have welcomed hundreds of guests from across Wales, the UK and beyond under the excellent curatorship of our festival director and former poetry editor Amy Wack. In 2022, Amy handed the baton over to our new joint poetry editors at Seren, the multi-award-winning poets Zoë Brigley and Rhian Edwards.
Our History
The Seren Cardiff Poetry Festival (formerly Seren Cornerstone) was founded in 2018 as a partnership between independent Welsh publisher Seren and Cornerstone Arts Centre in Cardiff.
In 2020 we moved to the Temple of Peace near Cardiff city centre. This beautiful venue was the setting for our last in person event before the Coronavirus pandemic.
Supported by our sponsors the Rhys Davies Trust, we were able to run a free online festival in 2021. This four-day event was our most ambitious yet, featuring performers from across the world.
In 2022, driven by our passion to ensure the Seren Cardiff Poetry Festival is accessible to everyone, we are hosting our first hybrid festival, which will be a mixture of online, in person and live streamed events.
Watch this space for more details.
Our Venue
Our home for 2022 is Atrium at the University of South Wales.
Getting There
There is an NCP car park on Adam Street, directly opposite the entrance to Atrium. The St David’s Centre car park is also nearby (6 minute walk).
Rail connections run regularly into Cardiff Queen Street (7 minute walk) and Cardiff Central (12 minute walk).
Our Sponsors
The Rhys Davies Trust was founded in 1991 by Meic Stephens, with funds generously provided by Lewis Davies, brother of the writer Rhys Davies (1901-78). The Trust is a registered charity whose objectives are to promote the writer’s work and foster Welsh writing in English, especially in the valleys of south Wales and in the genres in which Rhys Davies wrote.
Founded in 1981, Seren is Wales’ leading independent literary publisher, specialising in English-language writing from Wales. Our aim is not simply to reflect what is going on in the culture in which we publish, but to drive that culture forward, to engage with the world, and to bring Welsh literature, art and politics before a wider audience.