Inspiring Voices
Inspiring Voices is a poetry programme that will bring people and communities together to explore England’s heritage. We will create new platforms to connect people through poetry on and off the page, amplifying voices from across the country to build a powerful sense of community and belonging.
Inspiring Voices builds on the successes of Untold Stories – a programme that explored the hidden histories and contemporary resonances of English Heritage sites through poetry.
Launching soon...
This autumn, young people are invited to bring history to life through poetry. Launching 3 November 2025 at 10AM, the Inspiring Voices Poetry Festival is an online celebration of creativity, run by English Heritage in partnership with TORCH (The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities).
The festival encourages young people to create poetry in any form - written, spoken, filmed, or visual—drawing inspiration from England’s historic places.
Submissions will remain open until 26 February 2026.
The Inspiring Voices Poetry Festival is more than a competition - it’s an invitation to create, connect, and see history through new eyes.
What’s Happening in 2025
A Heritage Portrait of England
The Poetry Takeaway is taking to the road to create unique, made to order poems, with people local to Bolsover Castle, Hylton Castle and Temple Church. Join us at one of these sites, as we celebrate together the everyday in the everyday - where your words come to life and stories are shared.
A Heritage Portrait of England celebrates our everyday heritage. This is a pilot project that will help to shape our ambitions for a national project in 2026–28 and is a collaboration between English Heritage and The Poetry Takeaway.
Poetry, Community and Heritage
January marked the beginning of an 18-month research project with TORCH (The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities), led by Research Associate Abbi Flint. Together, we will explore the poetic legacy of our sites, creating and delivering workshops, publications, mentoring schemes and public events at our sites and Oxford University’s Schwarzman Centre, opening in 2025.
With a shared commitment to community-engaged, co-created learning, we aim to broaden and deepen our engagement with people and communities across the country through poetry.
Community Poetry Champion
In January, we welcome our first Community Poetry Champion, Sarah Terkaoui. Through a new volunteer role at Marble Hill House, we will support Sarah to develop her poetry practice and engagement with local communities.
Past Projects
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Loughborough Students Celebrate Margaret Cavendish, 2024
A group of Loughborough College students visited Bolsover Castle and worked with local poets Tyler Turner and EM Birdie to explore the life and work of writer, scientist, poet and philosopher Margaret Cavendish (1623−76) on World Poetry Day. An anthology of poems was created by the students.
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Larksong, 2023
For the British Textile Biennial 2023, artists Nick Jordan and Jacob Cartwright presented a new film installation, Larksong, in Goodshaw Chapel. It featured a new poem by Emily Oldfield and a musical score by musicians and artists David Chatton Barker, Mary Stark, Sam McLouglin, and Bridget Hayden
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The Refuge Box, 2023
Poet, historian and broadcaster Katrina Porteous was commissioned alongside artist and illustrator Olivia Lomenech-Gill to create a new installation for Lindisfarne Priory museum. An edited version of the audio poem The Refuge Box by Porteous was installed alongside a large-scale mixed media artwork, Shifting Sands, by Lomenech-Gill.
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The Future Belongs to What Was As Much As What Is, 2022
This multi-award-winning art installation was created by artist and designer Morag Myerscough in collaboration with the local community and poet Ellen Moran on the site of the original gatehouse at Housesteads Roman Fort, Hadrian’s Wall.
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Liberty and Lottery, 2021–22
Malika Booker’s poem Songs of Mahogany was included in Liberty and Lottery, an exhibition at Brodsworth Hall and Gardens. The exhibition explored the sites connections to the transatlantic slave trade, through the financier and businessman Peter Thellusson. Songs of Mahogany is published in the Untold Stories digital anthology.
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Mithraic Groves and Gothic Towers: Reuniting the Lost Literary Legacies of Wrest and Wimpole, 2022
This collaborative knowledge exchange project between the University of Oxford, English Heritage, and the National Trust explored the shared poetic legacy between Wrest Park (English Heritage) and Wimpole Hall (National Trust). The research led to an exhibition at Wimpole Hall and a student-led performance of a play.
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The Wrest Circle: Literary Coteries and their Influence on Landscape Design, 1740–1760, 2021
In collaboration with TORCH (The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities), English Heritage supported PhD student Jemima Hubberstey with her research. Hubberstey uncovered of unpublished poetry written by members of a literary coterie centred on Wrest Park. The poems, many of them sonnets, formed part of the polite sociability of the coterie group.
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Untold Stories, 2020
Untold Stories was a poetry programme that launched in 2020. It included the commissioning of new poems by established poets Esme Allman, Nii Ayikwei Parkes, Jay Bernard, Malika Booker, Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa and Jacob Sam-La Rose, a poetry exchange and a public poetry programme.
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Untold Stories, Poetry Anthology, 2020
Leading established and emerging poets were commissioned through Shout Out Loud to support young poets from Beatfreeks, Barbican Young Poets, The Writing Squad and ArtfulScribe to develop their practice. A collection of their poems, produced as a digital anthology, also featured poems from the Untold Stories poetry competition and commissioned poets.