Dobunni Poetry Festival
hosted by Gloucestershire Poetry Society and Dialect Writers Collective
We’re pleased to announce the dates of our first poetry festival! And what a line up we’ve got in store.
Stroud is a town rich in creativity, but it doesn’t have a poetry festival of its own. In a place known for its independent spirit, its artistic communities across disciplines, and its deep connection to landscape and radical thought, this absence is striking. The Dobunni Poetry Festival 2026 aims to change that, establishing a dedicated poetry festival for Stroud and creating a cultural home for writers, readers, and audiences of all ages, supported by our festival bookseller Borderless Books.
By naming the festival after the Dobunni, we’re honouring a lineage of creativity and connection to place. It signals that this is a festival grown from the ground up - shaped by the people who live and work here, attentive to the rural territory that has always held stories, and committed to celebrating the voices that rise from it today.
The festival will run across two days, 16–17 October 2026, bringing together headline poets of national standing with the exceptional talent already thriving in the region, platforming poets and publishers based in the west / south west.
For now, kindly save the date in your diaries – tickets will be on sale very soon. We hope to see you in October!
We are grateful to Stroud Arts Festival and the Laura Kinsella Foundation for some seed funding to help us to get this off the ground.
#poetryfestival #dobunnipoetryfestival #stroud #cotswolds #gloucestershire
LINE UP
Pascale Petit
Alison Brackenbury
Ambient Receiver
Zoe Brooks
Claire Carroll
Chaka
Jason Conway
Hannah Copley
Nick Degg
Kym Deyn
Karen Downs-Barton
Suyin du Bois
Angela France
Lucy Holme
Adam Horovitz
Alun Hughes
Andrew Hykel Mears
Aaron Kent
Living Matter
JLM Morton
Pey Oh
Alycia Pirmohamed
Kate Potts
Philip Rush
Martha Sprackland
Ellora Sutton
Alice Willitts
Jonny Fluffypunk & Uta Balduf x Art Lab
Slight afterparty with Lost Mythos + special guests
