Date: Saturday 25th April 2026

Venue: Watershed (W3)

Time: 11:00 - 12:00

Tickets: £5 / £3 / FREE

✅ BSL Interpreted

✅ Live Streamed (book a ‘Live Stream Ticket’ at checkout)

✅ All Lyra Fest venues are wheelchair accessible. Access Information Pack available at www.lyrafest.com.

Poetry, AI, Ethics and Inclusion

Panel Discussion

Presented in partnership with Bristol Poetry Institute

Can poets and poetry coexist with AI? As digital means for the generation of text gain traction across society, what does this do to the work of poets and their relationships with audiences? What kinds of aesthetic, ethical, and social questions do these technologies present, and how do we answer them? Can AI be used in ways which foster inclusive, anti-racist, and community-centred practices for artists and audiences alike?

Poets Deanna Rodger and shakara, plus technologist Vincent Baidoo, present their findings from Lyra’s Page Against the Machine: AI and Poetry project, in conversation with guest poet Hannah Silva (author of My Child, The Algorithm). Chaired by Michael Marcinkowski (Poet and Senior Lecturer in Digital Humanities at King’s College London). Includes audience Q&A.

SPEAKERS:

Deanna Rodger:

Deanna Rodger is a former UK Poetry Slam Champion who has recently written and performed commissioned pieces including ‘Bigger Than Sport’ for BBC1’s Sports Personality of the Year, ‘Black History Matters’ for BBC Sport 2020 and ‘If’ which was read by Serena Williams for International Women's Day 2021. Deanna has over ten years of facilitation experience and has designed long term programs for schools and youth centres such as Active Citizens (British Council and Lyrix Organix), Creative Facilitation Training (Roundhouse) and Black Lives matter homepack (Hamilton Trust).

Hannah Silva:

Hannah Silva, author of My Child, the Algorithm, confronts big ideas through formal innovation and a seriously playful approach to language, voice and technology. Their work spans nonfiction, a record, eight BBC radio dramas and two decades of critically acclaimed poetry and performance. 

Crow, Pirate, Fly is Hannah Silva’s long-awaited second poetry collection, out now with Bad Betty Press. It is a glitching manifesto of pain, pleasure, domination and submission. A power play of identities, authors, lovers and mothers, Crow, Pirate, Fly is subversive and compelling, intimate and estranging, animal and alien. Ten years in gestation, this genre-queering text began as a cut up of Kathy Acker's literary terrorism with E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey, and now emerges as its own thing—dark, wild, innovative and pregnant with desire. There are no safe words.

shakara:

Dr shakara Thompson is a recent PhD graduate from the University of Bristol, an alumnus of Oxford University, and a Jamaican-born poet, performer, and creative technologist. They are passionate about the development of ethical and sustainable technologies, particularly exploring the role of artificial intelligence (AI) within creative practice. Their work involves research into AI and the creative process, including a research fellowship with MyWorld and the PM Studio. As well as research at the intersection of poetry and AI through a collaboration with Lyra Fest as part of the Page Against the Machine project.

Dr shakara is deeply committed to education and increasing digital literacy among communities that are often marginalised or exploited by emerging technologies. During Page Against the Machine, they were one of the lead developers of Intersectional Ethics, a living manifesto that centres voices often excluded from conversations about AI and challenges dominant narratives around fairness and bias in AI. Their work to increase digital literacy also includes projects developing workshops based on this living manifesto to support communities in critically engaging with AI and digital technologies.

Vincent Baidoo:

Vincent Baidoo is a creative technologist and researcher who explores the social impacts of immersive tech and AI. Recent work includes looking at Intersectional AI ethics and an optimistically technological Bristol. He’s delivered public-facing projects and workshops on generative AI and holographic/mixed-reality experiences whilst developing one of the first commercial holographic games due for simultaneous release on Nintendo Switch

Part of Lyra – Bristol Poetry Festival 2026

#LyraFest

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Entry requirements: no age restrictions (under 18s to be accompanied by an adult over 21yrs, 1:1 ratio) — Read more — Read less