The eagerly anticipated Nottingham Poetry Festival returns from 26 April until 5 May. Get ready to experience a range of fantastic spoken word events from some of the country’s best-loved poets across the city.

Caroline Bird is an extraordinary poet and playwright. She has five collections of poetry published by Carcanet. Her most recent collection, In These Days of Prohibition, was shortlisted for the 2017 TS Eliot Prize and The Ted Hughes Award. A two-time winner of the Foyles Young Poets Award, her first collection Looking Through Letterboxes was published in 2002 when she was 15. She won a major Eric Gregory Award in 2002, and was shortlisted for the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize in 2001 and the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2008 and 2010. She was one of the five official poets at the 2012 London Olympics. Support comes from Georgina Wilding and Ioney Smallhorne.

Read a poem about hysteria by Caroline Bird