Is poetry dying? Why Newcastle Poetry Festival matters in 2026

Last month, Newcastle Poetry Festival celebrated its 10th annual event since its creation in 2015. In the wake of this, let's briefly look at why poetry festivals are more important than ever in 2026, and how this one in particular is working to bring recognition and celebration to an all-too-often underappreciated art form.

It's hard to argue against the fact that poetry just doesn't have the same recognition it once had in society. It's been 200 years since the Romantics were running the scene, 100 since the Irish Literary Renaissance brought us W.B. Yeats, and roughly 70 since the work of Beat Poets like Jack Kerouac and the New York School's Frank O'Hara first graced bookshop shelves.

Of course there are still great poets, and famous ones at that, but the art of poetry itself now seems to fly relatively under the radar in an age where social media dominates both leisure time and attention spans, leaving us at risk of what can, frankly, only be defined as a poetic crisis.

So, how is Newcastle Poetry Festival working to change that?

This year's festival took place over two days and championed the work of poets from all over the North East and the wider world. There were live poetry readings, discussions with masters of the craft, open-mic opportunities, and even free mentoring for new poets. Offering such events makes it impossible to ignore the kind of impact this organisation (and organisations like it) has and will continue to have on handing the reigns to a new generation of poets and writers.

While cultivating a fresh generation of poets, the festival also maintains a deep admiration and respect for the history of poetry in the North East. In 2024, they ran an event welcoming a new generation of artists to Morden Tower, one of the most recognised poetry venues in the world (where the likes of both Seamus Heaney and Allen Ginsberg have read), in order to connect a new world of writers to the vibrant literary history rooted here in Newcastle.

Their website describes the relocation of T.S. Eliot's Poetry Book Society to Newcastle in 2016 as "less like a move and more like a homecoming", making it abundantly clear that for them, poetry belongs in the North East and isn't going anywhere any time soon.

With society facing such a literary-crisis landscape, isn't this exactly what we need to keep poetry alive for future generations to write, worship, and pass on the way we have for thousands of years?