Glastonbury Festival: Call-out for poets and spoken word artists

Glastonbury Festival (25-29 June) has had a strong presence for spoken word performers, poets, live literature performers and storytellers in past years, curated on the Poetry&Words stage, and 2014's festival will be no exception. At the start of the year, the festival organisers put out a call-out for "poets, wordsmiths, lyricists, spoken word artists, raconteurs, story tellers, stand-up poets and slam champs" from up and down the country to apply to perform at this year's festival. Submissions close on 7 March.

Pat V.T. West set up the Poetry&Words stage in 1992, and it has been going strong ever since - you can watch some highlights from previous years over at their YouTube channel. Glastonbury has seen sets from the cream of the UK's vibrant performance poetry scene, including Dizraeli, Kate Tempest and Hollie McNish. The call-out for artists reads as follows (text in full here):

"If you want to perform your work on Glastonbury Festival’s poetry stage, then this is your chance. We’re looking for applications from experienced writers and performers with something awesome to offer the audience of the world’s biggest greenfield arts festival.

If you think that could be you, then please e-mail poetryandwords@hotmail.co.uk with some words about yourself and 1-3 video and/or audio files of you performing your work. We’re happy to receive either attachments (of a manageable size!) or web links. We can also provide a snail mail address if you’d rather do things the old fashioned way!

We do pay a fee, but this is only small, and overseas poets in particular should note that we are unable to provide travel expenses. Guest tickets are also beyond our power, but booked poets will receive a ticket for themselves as well as a camping pitch backstage of the Poetry&Words tent."