Allie Esiri with Simon Armitage, Gillian Clarke, Damian Lewis, Theresa Lola, Nina Sosanya, Juliet Stevenson and Joelle Taylor

​A star-studded line-up of poets and performers read from Allie Esiri’s uplifting poem-a-day collection in this gala event. Award-winning curator and poetry host Esiri introduces each segment.

Simon Armitage is Poet Laureate, author of Blossomise and Dwell. Gillian Clarke was National Poet of Wales, 2008–16, and is author of The Silence. Actor Damian Lewis is well known for his performances in Homeland and Billions. Theresa Lola is a British Nigerian poet and writer. As the Young People’s Laureate for London, 2019–20, her poem ‘Equilibrium’ was added to OCR’s GCSE English Literature syllabus. Nina Sosanya is a British Nigerian actor with many credits to her name, including His Dark Materials and Baby Reindeer. Actor and activist Juliet Stevenson is well known for her film roles including Truly, Madly, Deeply and Bend it Like Beckham. Joelle Taylor is a queer, working class author whose collection C+nto & Othered Poems was winner of the TS Eliot Prize for Poetry and the Polari Prize. She founded the national youth poetry slam championships, SLAMbassadors.