StAnza’s mission is to celebrate poetry, to bring poetry to audiences and to enable encounters with poetry. The organisation works all year round to deliver poetry events and projects in Scotland and beyond.
StAnza’s main focus is our annual festival in St Andrews each spring. Now recognised as one of the leading poetry festivals in the UK and Europe, StAnza has over the years featured a strong list of contemporary poets from within Scotland and also from across the UK and the rest of the world. StAnza has brought a range of major poets to the festival, commissioned art works from leading artists, featured both past and present Poet Laureates, and has showcased poets from over 50 countries worldwide.
StAnza also actively promotes readings in foreign or minority languages and has featured poets reading in many of the national languages of Europe, as well as in regional languages and dialects. We regularly include Gaelic and Scots language poets.
The StAnza festival was conceived in 1997 by three St Andrews-based poets, Brian Johnstone, Anna Crowe and Gavin Bowd, the first two of whom continue to be involved in the organisation. The first festival was launched on National Poetry Day in 1998. StAnza continued to take place each October until its relaunch as a spring festival in 2003, from which time it has been held annually in March.
StAnza 2021: 6-14 March
More than 90 poets will take part in about 100 events
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: StAnzaPoetry
Facebook: stanzapoetry
