RADICAL wordsmiths will gather for the eighth annual Sussex Poetry Festival this weekend.

Starting tomorrow and continuing on Saturday the festival will feature debate, performances and workshops courtesy of some of the most cutting-edge poets in the country.

It will be held in Brighton’s newest arts venue, The Rose Hill, formerly The Rose Hill Tavern pub, in Rose Hill Terrace, Brighton.

Poet Keston Sutherland, who is also a professor at the University of Sussex, said: “Sussex Poetry Festival sees the most boisterous, ungoverned energies of the radical underground scene gather for a weekend of poetry at its most unruly, its most uncompromising.

“If you’re an underground poet, Brighton is one of the most exciting places to be. The University of Sussex has a strong record of turning out brilliant experimental poets. It’s a tradition that goes back to Andrew Crozier, who was here for around 30 years. Today we see some of the world’s most brilliant poets coming through the university.

“The line-up of this year’s festival will include not just the international lights of the radical poetry world but also some of the university’s brightest poetry students.”

Topping the bill is Liao Yiwu, a prominent Chinese poet who has been an outspoken critic of the Chinese regime.

The event, which is held each year in Brighton, is viewed as the antithesis to traditional, larger poetry festivals such as StAnza which is held in St Andrews, Scotland.

Mr Sutherland said: “This year the festival will include more visual art and performance alongside the poetry, with poet and film-maker Abigail Child showing some of her experimental films as well as giving a reading.

“Chinese poet and dissident Liao Yiwu will perform, alongside other poets from around the world, including Berlin, Portugal and the USA.

“The Rosehill is a suitably nonconformist venue for the festival, an independent, not-for-profit venue run by musicians and artists, recently saved by the community from being developed into ‘luxury flats’.”

Tickets start from £3. For more details visit sussexpofest.wordpress.com.