WHEN John Burnside won the T.S Eliot Prize this year, he described poetry as ‘the music of what happens’, and a Gloucestershire festival is set to have audiences dancing in the aisles this year with a line-up which combines poetry with folk, hip-hop, blue s and even opera.

Festival Director Anna Saunders says ‘since the festival’s launch in 2010 we have aimed to offer an all-singing, all-dancing festival – one that fuses poetry and music, film, drama and visual art and this year we have extended our program to offer a stage to up-and coming musicians, such as Cheltenham based performers Edd Donavon and Clayton Blizzard, Carol Ann Duffy’s favourite poetry band Little Machine and even a song cycle of poems by Emily Dickinson which will be performed by The English Touring Opera.’

Highlights of the festival include film showings, a performance by People’s Poet Laureate John Hegley, a play about Dylan Thomas’s fated American tour, In Tune With Dementia ;a true-life dramatization in which a son struggles to reconnect with his disabled mother suffering from dementia, readings by internationally acclaimed poets Don Paterson and Ruth Padel, a showcase by student s from The University of Gloucestershire, storytelling, a carbaret night featuring comedy, poetry and music, events dedicated to Gloucestershire’s Dymock poets and Laurie Lee, workshops, a performance of Spark, The Goblin Wizard – a theatre show performed and written by slam-star Dominic Berry, readings of a cult Gloucestershire inspired novel It Never Gets Dark All Night and much more.

The full programme is available on line from Friday, February 14. More information is available at www.cheltenhampoetryfest.co.uk