Inspire Poetry Festival 2026 - Cara Thompson: an evening of poetry and heritage in celebration of Caribbean Pioneer Gardeners

Cara Thompson: an evening of poetry and heritage in celebration of Caribbean Pioneer Gardeners

Join us on National Poetry Day for a special festival finale!

Listen to live poetry, including a new poem presented for the first time, from Nottingham City of Literature’s Nature Poet Laureate Cara Thompson and the remarkable stories of the green-fingered Windrush generation who helped shape the historic Hungerhill Gardens known today as St. Ann’s Allotments.

Explore the Caribbean Pioneer Gardeners exhibition*, based on the book by Colin Haynes, as we come together to celebrate Nottingham’s green spaces, rich Caribbean heritage, and literary landscape.

*Includes material from an English Heritage Open Days exhibition in 2005/6.

About Cara Thompson 

Cara Thompson is a writer, performer, and interdisciplinary artist based in Nottingham, UK.  Nottingham’s Nature Poet Laureate and Wasafiri’s Writer in Residence, Cara’s practice spans poetry, performance, textiles, sound, and oral history. A proud descendant of Jamaican migrants who came to Britain as part of the pioneering Windrush generation, her work explores the richness and complexities of Caribbean-British heritage, inviting audiences to reflect on shared histories, memory, and humanity. 

Cara is currently developing NEEDLE, an Arts Council England Developing Your Creative Practice (DYCP) funded project exploring textiles, oral history and sounscabes as tools for poetic and material storytelling. Through sewing, embroidery, listening, and interviews with family members and textile practitioners, the project investigates how knowledge, memory, and care are held and transmitted through fabric and handwork.

Cara’s poetry has been commissioned and featured by Penguin Random House, HuffPost, Oxfam, the NHS Leadership Academy, UNESCO, Simon & Schuster, and others. In 2021, Cara won UNESCO Cities of Literature’s international slam poetry competition Slamovision with the poem Island Screams (Where Are You From).

Alongside her work as an artist, Cara is a musician, educator, programmer, and an active member of Nottingham’s creative community. She has been a director of Nottingham Poetry Festival since 2023. From 2024 to 2026, Cara served as an Assistant Producer for Nottingham-based poetry collective GOBS, co-directing their development programme and live showcase Earth at Nottingham Playhouse. 

carathompson.co.uk 

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