

News and Events
In the Company of Poems
Wednesday 21st February 2023
We are delighted to be hosting our third edition of In The Company of Poems, our celebrated online reading event.
“Simply a standout event, best online poetry I’ve ever attended ."
This is your chance to hear some of the best voices of today reading some of the world’s greatest poems. The line-up of readers will be announced in January 2024; previous readers have included Ciarán Hinds, Paterson Joseph, Malika Booker, Roy McFarlane, Hafsah Aneela Bashir, alongside Poetry Exchange podcast hosts, Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer.
This edition celebrates our forthcoming anthology, Poems as Friends - The Poetry Exchange10th Anniversary Anthology, which will be published by Quercus Editions on 9th May 2024. You will hear a wonderful array of the poems featured in the anthology, each of which has been a friend to someone who has visited The Poetry Exchange over the last 10 years.
In the Company of Poems is a fundraising event that helps us continue our vital work building community and connection with poems as friends. We invite you to make a donation when booking your ticket - suggested donation of £10, but whatever you can afford.
The event will be live streamed via YouTube, so you can sit back, relax and immerse yourself in a beautiful evening of poetry. You will receive a link to join us when you complete your booking.
We look forward to being In The Company of Poems with you!
Announcing Poems As Friends: The Poetry Exchange Anthology
Thursday 26th October 2023
We are utterly delighted to announce our first anthology, Poems As Friends, celebrating The Poetry Exchange's 10th Anniversary.
In this celebratory book, Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer draw on ten years of archival material to bring together a collection of poems chosen by readers that know them as friends, presented alongside their personal stories of connection. Featuring Brian Cox on John Clare, Andrew Scott on George Herbert, Krista Tippett on Christian Wiman and over 50 more, in this gathering of poems you can reacquaint yourself with old friends, perhaps make some new ones, and enjoy the companionship poetry can offer us.
Poems As Friends: The Poetry Exchange 10th Anniversary Anthology will be published on the 9th May 2024 by Quercus Editions.
