Meet the Team
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Co-Director
Professor Lucy English is a spoken word educator and Professor in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. She has two collections published by Burning Eye, including The Book of Hours which is an online 'book' of 48 poetry films created in collaboration with 27 film makers. The Bookof Hours was shortlisted for the New Media Writing Prize. Lucy organizes the MIX conferences in Writing and Technology at Bath Spa University and is co-director of Liberated Words which screens, curates and creates poetry films.
Lucy English
Danny Carlo Pandolfi
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Co-Director
Danny Carlo Pandolfi is a poet, rapper, educator and cultural producer. He has facilitated poetry, spoken word and rap talks and workshops in schools, prisons and youth centres across the country, and has performed at Ministry of Sound London, 02 Academy Bristol, Camp Bestival, Shambala, Cheltenham Literature Festival, Ledbury Poetry Festival and more, as well as featuring on ITV News and BBC Radio. His has charted #1 on UK Hip-Hop iTunes. He is also the founder of acclaimed South West poetry event Raise the Bar.
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Josie Alford is a Bristol-based poet, events host, and social media consultant. Her stage presence is sequinned, pop culture referencing, infectious, & welcoming. Once seen, never forgotten, her work ranges from the subtlety of dealing with loss to analysing the nuanced discography of the Spice Girls. She also makes YouTube videos on all things poetry covering subjects such as how to write a sestina to how to get your poems published. Josie co-produces the annual Lyra Bristol Poetry Slam
Josie Alford
Raina Greifer
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Raina Greifer is a performance maker, producer, and frequent zoom user. She has toured shows across the UK to venues like Bristol Old Vic, Theatre Royal Plymouth and Roundhouse. Often found reading erotica or putting on film parties, Raina’s work is some of the boldest and sexiest there is. She has worked with a range of festivals and conferences on incorporating hybrid elements into their events, and loves helping to bring performances to your screens!
Sebastian Lewis
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Sebastian ‘Baz’ Lewis likes poems and people. As Production and Admin Assistant, he has worked as a volunteer coordinator, panel leader, and outreach advocate amongst other administrative roles to provide Lyra with comprehensive logistical support since 2022. He has also worked in collaboration with the Oxford Poetry Library and The Story Works to help bring funky words to the people who need them most. Their poetry has been published in Full House, Spellbinder, and elsewhere.
STEERING COMMITTEE
In late 2020, Lyra Festival appointed a Steering Committee with a wealth of experience and a diverse range of connections to poetry and public arts. The committee meets quarterly to advise on matters such as programming, commissions and appointments, organisational strategies, themes and priorities, and to take key votes.
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Caleb Parkin
Caleb Parkin, Bristol City Poet 2020 - 22, is published widely including in The Guardian, Poetry Review, The Rialto and he was guest poet on BBC Radio 4’s Poetry Please. He holds an MSc Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes and tutors for Poetry Society, Poetry School, Arvon and elsewhere. Publications: ‘Wasted Rainbow’ (tall-lighthouse); 'This Fruiting Body (Nine Arches Press, longlisted for the Laurel Prize), ‘All the Cancelled Parties’ (Bristol Ideas), ‘The Coin’ (Broken Sleep). From 2023, he’s a practice-as-research PhD candidate at University of Exeter, as part of RENEW Biodiversity.
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Tjawangwa Dema
Tjawangwa Dema is an award-winning poet, events manager, and educator. She holds an MA in Creative Writing and is an Honorary Senior Research Associate at the University of Bristol. Tjawangwa is an alumna of the HarperCollins Author Academy and an Honorary Fellow of the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program. She has been shortlisted for Bristol City Poet and won the Sillerman First Book Prize. She has given readings in over twenty countries and worked collaboratively with fellow poets, musicians, scholars, dancers, as well as theatre and film-makers. Tjawangwa co-produces the Africa Writes – Bristol festival
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Martin Rieser
Martin Rieser is both a poet and visual artist. His interactive installations based on his poetry have been shown around the world, including Understanding Echo shown in Japan 2002, Hosts Bath Abbey 2006, Secret Door Invideo Milan 2006, The Street RMIT Gallery Melbourne 2008/ISEA Belfast 2009, Secret Garden, Phoenix Square 2012/Taipei 2013 and RUR at Glyndebourne in 2014 for REFRAME at the University of Sussex. His published work has appeared in Poetry Review and the Write to be Counted anthology, Magma Magazine 74, Morphrog 22. He runs the Stanza poetry group in Bristol and has edited and published two Group collections with Tangent Press: Calyx and The Weather Indoors
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Dr Edson Burton
Dr Edson Burton is a writer, historian, programme-curator and performer based in Bristol. Between, 1998-2003 Edson was the lead curator for Black History Month Bristol as part of his role as Kuumba Centre librarian. He has curated the Arnolfini take over Afrometropolis 2017, The Late Night Blues for the Architecture Centre (2018), Bristols Got Soul for Colston Hall. His academic interests include: Bristol and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, Black History in the USA, Cultural continuities between Africa & the New World. He has been a consultant and coordinator for a range of history projects in Bristol including most recently a study of Bristol’s Old Market ward Vice & Virtue (2014) and Black South West Network’s Race Through the Generations (2017).
