Charlotte Oliver is an Ilkley Literature Festival New Northern Poet 2023 and was recently Lead Artist for the Yorkshire Coast on Spoken Word Power 2024. Published widely in journals and anthologies including Candlestick Press’ Christmas Walks, she has placed in a number of competitions including Wirral Poetry Prize, the Patricia Eschen Poetry Prize 2022 and Wetherby Festival Poetry Competition. Big Ideas by the Sea 2024 Festival Poet, her debut pamphlet is How To Be A Dressing Gown (Dreich). Poetry commissions include work for the BBC, Scarborough Film Festival and North Yorkshire Moors National Park. She has appeared on R4’s Front Row and is Poet in Residence at Scarborough’s South Cliff Gardens.
Charlotte regularly leads poetry writing workshops. She works with both primary and secondary schools, and a number of adult community groups including MIND and Carers Plus, as well as running family drop-in sessions.
Of her debut publication, How To Be A Dressing Gown (Dreich), poet Clare Shaw wrote, ‘The chapbook lured me in with its calmness and certainty – punctuated with poems of breathtaking power.’
Projects include:
- Commissioned poet, working with Dromer, for Three Animal Statues due for install in South Cliff Gardens in early 2025.
- Commissioned poet, working with Electric Angel, for Just the Ticket in South Cliff Gardens, Scarborough
- Commissioned poet for Words in the Landscape poetry trail at Sutton Bank Visitors’ Centre, North Yorkshire, working with Electric Angel.
- Poetry workshop leader at 10th anniversary Underneath the Stars Festival, August 2024
- Commissioned Artist for the Summer Reading Challenge launch for the National Literacy Trust, July 2024
- Front Row, BBC Radio 4, May 2024 Listen here.
- Festival Poet for Big Ideas by the Sea festival 2024, Scarborough
- Poet in Residence (2024/5) at South Ciff Gardens, Scarborough
- Lead Artist (Scarbororough area) for Spoken Word Power, a project bringing poetry into schools (with Eastside Arts, The National Literacy Trust and Arcade)
- Commissioned poet for Scarborough Film Festival 2023
- Arts Council England funded for ‘The Dark Store’, a radio ballad highlighting hidden labour written with composer Sarah Dew, premiered at South Square Arts Centre, West Yorkshire, Summer 2022
- Saturday Poet Laureate for BBC Radio York 2020 – 2023
- Commissioned poet for BBC Radio York‘s Make a Difference campaign
Recent/Upcoming Readings:
- Poetry and Music in the Gardens, South Cliff Gardens, August & September 2024
- Clerkenwell ARTSlab at the Betsy Trotwood, Clerkenwell, London, June 2024
- All About Anne! Poetry event remembering Anne Bronte, May 2024
- Guest Poet at Women of Words, Hull, May 2024
- Henry Normal support, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, April 2024
- Candlestick Press Christmas Walks for Rosy Cheeks Launch, November 2023
- Finding the Words, York October 2023
- Poetry and Music in the Gardens, South Cliff Gardens, August & September 2023
- Luke Wright support, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, May 2023
https://www.iambapoet.com/wave-nine/charlotte-oliver
Bluesky: @coliverpoet.bsky.social
Tweets at @charlotteolivr
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