Bristol Poetry Grand Slam Finals

An audience favourite at Bristol Poetry Festival, and a landmark event in Bristol’s cultural calendar, the annual poetry Grand Slam Final is back! Headlined by Vanessa Kisuule and Tony Walsh.

Come along to see 10 of Bristol’s finest wordsmiths battle it out to be crowned the 2023 Lyra Bristol Slam Winner, as well as some fantastic feature performances from world-class poets. The winning poet will need to impress the judging panel as well as YOU, the audience, who have the biggest say of all. Raucous, energetic, passionate and audience-centred, this event always promises to bring poetry to life in an engaging and unexpected way that will make you laugh, smile, or cry, perhaps all at the same time!

This year’s event will be headlined by former Bristol City Poet and UK National Slam Champion, Vanessa Kisuule; as well as one of the UK’s most widely acclaimed professional poets who has inspired audiences of millions – Tony Walsh! There will also be a performance from last year’s Grand Slam Champion, Sven Stears.

Vanessa Kisuule

Vanessa Kisuule is a writer, performer and facilitator based in Bristol. She has won over ten slam titles and performed nationally and internationally. She has been featured on BBC iPlayer, Radio 1, Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, Blue Peter and TEDx in Vienna. She was the Bristol City Poet for 2018 – 2020 and her poem on the toppling of Edward Colston’s statue ‘Hollow’ went viral on Twitter. She wrote and presented ‘The Poetry Detective’ for Radio 4 in 2021 which has been commissioned for a second series.

She has two poetry collections with Burning Eye Books and was Highly Commended in the Forward Poetry Prize Anthology 2019. Her work is published in poetry anthologies Everything is Going To Be Alright (Trapeze Books), More Fiya (Canongate) and the essay collection Black Joy (Penguin). She is the co-tutor for the Southbank New Poets Collective alongside Will Harris and is currently working on an essay collection and her debut novel.

Tony Walsh

Tony Walsh, is one of the UK’s most widely acclaimed professional poets; a writer and performer of remarkable breadth and depth, whose powerful words regularly reach and inspire audiences of millions.

Whether earning a standing ovation from a BAFTA audience, sharing arena and rock festival main stages with superstars, performing to packed sports stadiums, or writing for peak-time TV, this is a poet consistently blazing a dazzling web of trails where very few have gone before. The now iconic performance of his poem “This Is The Place” in the wake of the Manchester Arena bombing reached a truly global audience in 2017.

“The poet who defined a city, with the poem that inspired the world.” – Forever Manchester

“Tony Walsh stunned millions of people…” – Huffington Post

“Now a national hero…” – The Guardian