Inspiring Voices
Inspiring Voices is a creative programme that brings people and communities together to explore England’s heritage. We work with partners and participants to produce contemporary responses using a variety of creative mediums, from poetry, performance, and music to visual art, photography and animation.
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.
The Inspiring Voices Poetry Festival is now live!
The Inspiring Voices Poetry Festival is now live!
From 3 November 2025 to 15 March 2026 (11:59pm), young poets and creators aged 11–25 are invited to take part in this online celebration of poetry, place, and imagination.
Hosted by English Heritage and The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH), the festival invites you to explore the stories, people, and landscapes behind England’s most inspiring heritage sites — and turn them into an original poetic response.
Whether you’re writing, filming, recording, or creating visual poetry, this is your chance to bring the past to life through your own words — and to win exciting prizes.
Prizes
Category Winners (11–14, 15–17, 18–25) will receive:
- Invitation to perform at the Schwarzman Centre, Oxford (June 2026), with travel and accommodation covered
- One-year English Heritage Membership
- Branded poetry anthology featuring their work
- Collection of literary titles
- Certificate
Runners-up: Certificate and a selection of prizes
Highly Commended: Certificate
Before submitting, please read the following:
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Submission Guidelines – for information on formats, eligibility, and inspiration prompts.
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Terms & Conditions – outlining participation rules and permissions.
Poetry Inspiration
Resources to help you create poetry
Looking for inspiration?
Explore a curated collection of digital peotry prompts and industry-leading poets as they share their insights on writing, craft, and finding your voice. Alongside practical advice and creative tips, you’ll also see these poets perform their own original work, showing the power of poetry in action.
Whether you’re just starting out or refining your practice, these resources are here to spark ideas, build confidence, and remind you why poetry matters.
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Digital story dice
Roll the Dice. Write Your Story. Connect with Heritage.
Roll the dice and see what pops up!
Each roll unlocks a new poetry prompt to kickstart your creativity, inspired by English Heritage sites and history - maybe a word, a feeling, or an image you never expected. Use it as a spark for a poem, a single line, or an image to build your verses around.
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Joseph Roberts: Bolsover Castle
Joseph Roberts performs his original poem, based on Bolsover Castle.
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Joseph Roberts: Why Poetry Matters
Joseph Roberts takes us through why poetry has been important to his life and career.
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Guruleen: Tips and tricks on poetry
Guruleen tells us her tips and tricks on making a poem
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Raymond Antrobus: Darwin as Father
Renowned poet Reymond Antrobus perfoms his piece "Darwin as Father" at the beautiful, Down House.
What Happened in 2025
A Heritage Portrait of England
During the summer The Poetry Takeaway embarked on a road trip to create unique, made to order poems, with people local to Bolsover Castle, Hylton Castle and Temple Church.
Many people took part and had personal bespoke poems created for them. Majority of participants said they would engage with poetry again after the experience.
This pilot project will help shape our ambitions for a future national mixed medium creative art project in collaboration with external partners.
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 Professor Christine Gerrard (Lady Margaret Hall Oxford) and Research Associate, Dr Abbi Flint. Together, we are exploring the poetic legacy of our sites, creating and delivering workshops, publications, mentoring schemes and a three-day festival at 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 young people across the country through poetry.
Community Poetry Champion
In January, we welcomed 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. Download the anthology here (pdf).