The Argus: Brighton Festival Thumb These days poetry may be more important than ever, as this well–attended, inspiring event demonstrated. Five poets – all black or Asian – took centre stage and read from Ten, a new collection from Bloodaxe Books. Giving voice to subjects too often marginalised, they reminded consumers that there is more that is noteworthy than mainstream publishing would have us believe.

Products of their times, the poems varied from a mother’s grief at her stillborn son (Karen McCarthy Woolf), butterflies imagined as the souls of the dead returning (Rowyda Amin), departure from an Abyssinian homeland by sea (Denise Saul), to the creation of voices otherwise unexpressed, such as the thoughts of a woman committing suicide that for the first time she was in control (Seni Seneviratne).

The high standard of the readings prompted interest from the audience in the two-year programme provided by writer development agency Spread The Word, which gave each of the poets a mentor, a poet already “accepted” by British publishers.

Special thanks to poet Bernadine Evaristo, whose commitment to social inclusion of “women of colour” led these poets to the wide world where, according to this event, they stand proud.