Bradford Poetry Take Over

Our Aims

This take-over of Bradford saw poetry activities happen across the city centre offering opportunities for families and young people to get stuck in and see and experience poetry from a different angle. These free, pop-up, drop-in activities enabled families to engage at their own pace and respond in their own way to fun, creative and inspirational stimulus.

What We Did

This project consisted of four pop-up activities/opportunities for families to experience including:

Sand in Your Eye
Public realm art and workshops City Park was transformed for the festival weekend, with a huge graphic painting of local Bradford poet and spoken word artist Kirsty Taylor invoking her famous line of poetry ‘You can’t tek the Bratfud out of us’. Families and passers-by were invited to add to the mural outside the town hall, sharing their thoughts about poetry and Bradford through play, words, sketches and scribbles. Families were encouraged to roll up their sleeves, pick up some chalk and make their own mark creating a living artwork that grew with every interaction and colourful stroke. More information about this event can be found on Sand In Your Eye’s webpage.

Bradford Story Bus
The National Literacy Trust’s Story Bus took up residency in Bradford’s City Park over the festival weekend, bringing its unique charm and cosy, inspirational space to explore reading, writing and all things creative. Poetry workshops and activities were held on the bus, engaging passers-by and enchanting over 800 children and their families across the weekend. Each child who came along went away with a book to inspire their love of reading and poetry as well as being invited to take part in the ‘Share Your Story’ campaign to encourage young people to enjoy writing for pleasure.

Make Yourself at Home
West Yorkshire-based poet Andy Craven-Griffiths used Impressions Gallery’s Young Curators exhibition, ‘Make Yourself at Home’, as inspiration to create a poetic way of engaging with this powerful photography. This exhibition, curated by talented young creatives in Bradford, collected photos from communities across Bradford to create and share one big Bradford ‘family album.’ Andy Craven-Griffiths worked with Word Up North to create an easy-to-use interactive prompt sheet and encourage children and families to use the exhibition as a way of exploring words and generating poetic responses. More information about the exhibition can be found here.

‘Bards of Bradford’ Doodlewall
As part of our summer ‘Bards of Bradford’ project, travelling poet Nabeela Ahmed gathered Bradford residents’ thoughts and recollections about poetry together with their own original work. These were turned into an interactive Doodlewall by artist Scott Walker of Doodlejam. The wall was displayed at The Broadway shopping centre on Sunday 21 September 2025 and inspired children and families to get creative and share their own reflections on what poetry is and means to them.