Where: Mitcheldean Library

When: Saturday, July 21, 1pm-4.30pm

For this year's Mitcheldean Festival the Poetry Recital to be held in the library on Saturday, July 21, has been completely re-invented and it promises to be something special!

In the past the recital has been strong on tradition, celebrating the mines and the industrial past - and equally strong looking to the future with the 'Young Poets' Competition', which each year has discovered extraordinary poetic talent.

So past and future have been well covered, but for the present - nothing: no poets making their names and establishing reputations in the here and now.

This year the committee has addressed that problem by inviting three award-winning, trail-blazing poets to the recital in the persons of Jonathan Edwards (Costa Poetry Prize 2014), Ben Ray (Geoff Stevens Memorial Prize 2016) and Anna Saunders (Founder and CEO of the Cheltenham Poetry Festival).

Together they will offer an original take on the world - unforgettable, frequently very funny -

and an inspiration to the Young Poets and Story-Tellers in the audience.

John Livesey, poetry co-ordinator, said: "This year the Young Poets Competition has witnessed a huge growth spurt with many more schools taking up the offer of workshops with local poets, the children loving the experience and wanting more, which we'll be happy to provide, so that's a win-win.

"We've also added a 'Young Story-Tellers' Competition', for which the take-up has exceeded all expectations."

Winners for both competitions will be announced and prizes presented at the recital, which will open with a 'Schools' Showcase' (another first) this year featuring Lydbrook Primary School in a presentation inspired by the 'Foresters' Forest' programme, and with the aim of protecting and promoting their forest heritage.

Finally another innovation in this the hundredth anniversary of the end of World War I - a celebration of the life and work of one of the great Forest poets of the past: F W Harvey. He first made his name as awar poet but later, having settled in Yorkley, he became known as 'The Forest Poet'.

His most famous poem 'Ducks' was voted one of the nation's 100 favourite poems in a BBC poll in 1996; and several of his poems were set to music and will feature in a presentation by the F W Harvey Society.

Mr Livesey added: "So that's this year's Mitcheldean Festival Poetry Recital - with past and present joining hands to make way for and inspire the future - just as it should be!"