2024 New Northern Poets

Introducing the 2024 New Northern Poets! We have selected these six incredibly talented poets based in the North of England to receive 1:1 mentoring from experienced poets from the University of Leeds Poetry Centre and to take part in a series of commissions and events around our 2024 festival to help develop their poetry.

You can hear from this year’s New Northern Poets at our New Northern Poets Showcase and our Poet’s Corner Reading Group.

So say hello to them during the festival, keep your eyes on these new rising talents as their careers grow, and watch this space – we’re delighted to be showcasing them below.

The New Northern Poets programme is run by Word Up North in partnership with The University of Leeds Poetry Centre. The New Northern Poets programme aims to discover and promote new talent, particularly from backgrounds currently underrepresented within the cultural and publishing sector.

Melanie Banim

Melanie Banim is a writer and poet in Liverpool who explores how place impacts who we are and how families do – and undo – harm.

In the last two years, she was shortlisted for Bridport Poetry Prize, Highly Commended in Manchester Poetry Prize, a finalist in Gaia Nature and Class Prize, was longlisted in Rialto Nature and Place Poetry Competition, the Plaza Prize, and Cúirt New Writing Prize, and she was shortlisted in both 2023 and 2024 for the Northern Writers’ Debut Poet Award.

Melanie leads creative workshops at universities and in communities, and works in mental health and music.

Melanie was chosen for The Stinging Fly poetry and fiction programmes at the Irish Writers’ Centre, Dublin, and during 2022-23 was an Emerging Writer in Poetry at The London Library, selected from nine hundred applicants. Melanie is also one of this year’s New Poets’ Collective, writing monthly at Southbank Centre.

You can follow Melanie on Twitter/X: @Melanie__Writes

Holly Bars

Holly Bars is a Leeds-based poet. Her debut collection, Dirty, was published by Yaffle Press in November 2022. She graduated from the University of Leeds as a mature student. Holly has been published by Stand, The Moth, The London Magazine, Ink, Sweat & Tears and more.

You can follow Holly on Twitter/X: @holly_bars

Mike Farren

Mike Farren is a writer and editor whose poems have appeared in journals such as Stand, 14 Magazine and The Interpreter’s House. He has been placed and commended in several competitions, including as ‘canto’ winner for Poem of the North (2018) and winner of both the Ilkley Literature Festival Poetry Competition (2020) and the Red Shed Competition (2023). His pamphlets are ‘Pierrot and his Mother’ (Templar), ‘All of the Moons’ (Yaffle) and ‘Smithereens’ (4Word). He is part of the Yaffle publishing team and one of the hosts of Rhubarb open mic in Shipley.

You can visit Mike’s website here.

Ian Harker

Ian Harker is co-founder of Strix magazine and a director of Leeds Lit Fest. He has been shortlisted for the Troubadour and Bridport prizes, and was a runner-up in the BBC Proms Poetry Competition. He was also poet in residence at the Henry Moore Institute. He has a debut pamphlet and collection from Templar Poetry. In 2023 he was made an Honorary Fellow of Leeds Trinity University. His pamphlet ‘A – Z of Superstitions’ is out now from Yaffle Press. He was shortlisted for the inaugural Tempest Prize from New Writing North, judged by Andrew McMillan and Patience Agbabi.

You can visit Ian’s website here.

Instagram: @iamianharker

Sheena Hussain

Sheena Hussain is a British Pakistani poet, essayist and cancer advocate from the UK. She is a non-practising immigration lawyer who turned to poetry after receiving a cancer diagnosis. Subsequently, she self-published a collection of poems, whilst recovering, titled ‘Memories of a Poet, My Road My Recovery’; her latest book is ‘Poem:99, Poems from a Competition’. She is the founder of Poem:99, an international children’s poetry competition. She is widely anthologised. Her poem titled ‘Watching a Green Fly’ was longlisted for the Leeds Poetry Festival Competition. More recently she was shortlisted for the inaugural Curae Prize 2023 with ‘No Thanks’. She is a member of Inscribe-Peepal Tree Press’s writer’s development programme and the recipient of the DYCP Award from ACE, 2021.

You can visit Sheena’s website here.

Instagram: @poetrybysheena

Claire Lynn

Claire Lynn’s poem ‘Crossing to Lindisfarne’ is currently displayed on a poster at Longbenton Metro station in Newcastle upon Tyne. She won the Metro Poetry Competition and the Mist and Mountain International Poetry Prize in 2023. She has a poem in ‘Menopause: The Anthology’ (Arachne Press, 2023), and another in the Candlestick Press pamphlet ‘Wish You Were Here: Fourteen Poems about Holidays’. Her poems have been placed in the Bridport Prize (1999) and the Wasafiri New Writing Prize (2017) and have been published in various anthologies including Virago anthology ‘The Nerve’, and various magazines including Butcher’s Dog. Her poem ‘Sixteen Summers’ was commissioned by the Ilkley Literature Festival in 2022.