National Poetry Day: activities with Mark Rutter and Julian Stannard

Winchester Poetry Festival 2025

National Poetry Day: activities with Mark Rutter and Julian Stannard

Celebrate National Poetry Day 2025's theme of 'play' with readings and a workshop hosted by University of Winchester. Guest facilitators are poet-artist Mark Rutter and International Troubadour Prize, and Shelley Prize winner Julian Stannard. Both have been published extensively.

Free to attend, all welcome.

Word as Sound and Vision: workshop with Mark Rutter

4:30 - 6pm

Language is increasingly thought of in terms of its information-carrying potential, but words have other, secret lives as sounds and shapes. In this workshop we will take a playfully experimental approach to exploring the visual and sonic aspects of words and letters. There will be a series of creative exercises using found texts, manual typewriters, and coloured pens and pencils. Paper and other materials will be provided, so come along and set the language free to sing and roam across the page.

Readings from Julian Stannard and Mark Rutter, plus open-mic

6:30 - 7:45pm

Join poets Julian Stannard and Mark Rutter for a poetry reading/performance and open mic in the Stripe Lecture Room at the University of Winchester.

Mark Rutter takes an experimental approach to performance, combining poetry with elements of art and music. Julian Stannard will be reading from his New and Selected Poems ( Salt , 2025)

All are welcome, so bring along a poem to perform.

Mark Rutter’s most recent poetry publications are: Basho in Acadia (Flarestack), Simple Cells (inkCONCRETE) and Sky-Burial (Coast to Coast to Coast). He is an artist as well as a poet, and his performances often combine poetry with elements of art and music. Mark has also published several collaborative artists books, the most recent being Swimming in Spruce Cove (with Walter Tisdale, Grant St Editions, Maine) and Oorts Cloud (with Winchester artist Kate Dicker). His prints and paintings have been exhibited in the UK and US, most recently in Type-Mono-Type, an exhibition of monotypes and typewriter poems at the Winchester School of Art Library, in collaboration with Kate Dicker.

Julian Stannard has read at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival and festivals across Europe and America. He is the author of nine collections of poetry and New and Selected (Salt , 2025). He was the winner of the International Troubadour Prize in 2010 and the Premio Shelley in 2024 for his contribution to Anglo-Italian literature. His satirical novel The University of Bliss was published in 2024 by Sagging Meniscus Press (USA). A chapter on the prose and poetry of Leonard Cohen is published by the Cambridge University Press at the beginning of 2026.

This event takes place at University of Winchester

15 min walk from Winchester Train Station

20 mins walk from Winchester Bus Station.

Limited parking available

Workshop at 4:30pm:

St Alphege Building 203

Art Centre

University of Winchester

Winchester

So22 4NR

Readings and Open-Mic at 6:30pm:

The Stripe Lecture Theatre

University of Winchester

SO22 4NJ

Suitable for: all ages and abilities, student and general public all welcome

Duration: 90 min workshop, 75 min readings + open mic

Format: relaxed session

Access: contact for details