Date: Sunday 26th April 2026

Venue: Watershed (W3)

Time: 13:30 - 14:30

Tickets: £5 / £3 / FREE

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

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

KIN: Tending the Flame

Poetry Readings & Music

Join Karen Downs-Barton, Vanessa Wood-Davies and Raine Geoghegan as they enchant you with words, harp music and song on themes of life on the road, including the Old Traveller Ways, domesticity, belonging and identity. They are all contributors of the anthology ‘Kin’, a collection of poetry, art and story that celebrates Romany culture with Salmon Poetry Press, 2024. The performance will be followed by an informal Q&A. Introduced by Lyra Co-Director Lucy English.

ARTISTS:

Karen Downs-Barton is an award-winning Anglo Romani poet based in Wiltshire. Her debut collection ‘Minx’ (Chatto & Windus / Penguin, 2025), a memoire in poetry, is shortlisted for the John Pollard Foundation international poetry prize. Her pamphlet ‘Didicoy’ (Smith Doorstop) won the 2022 International Poetry Book and Pamphlet Competition and was a 2023 Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Karen has appeared on BBC Radio 4's The Verb, headlined at Ledbury Festival, Lyra Festival in Bristol, Deptford Literature festival and Edinburgh International Book Festival. Poetry from her PhD thesis exploring the development of identity through experimental and multilingual poetry won the Cosmo Davenport-Hynes Poetry competition. Karen has written for the ‘i’ newspaper and her poetry has appeared in Ink Sweat and Tears; The North; Tears in the Fence; Rattle and others. Her work is widely anthologised and has been translated into Spanish, Russian and Farsi.

Raine Geoghegan, M.A. is an Anglo Romani International poet, writer, playwright and writing facilitator with Welsh and Irish ethnicity. She is a Forward Prize, twice Pushcart Prize, and Best of the Net nominee. Her work is published online and in print with Poetry Ireland Review; Travellers Times; Under the Radar; The Clearing and has been widely anthologised and translated into Italian, Romani, Afrikaans and Croatian. Her essay, ‘It's Hopping Time is featured in ‘Gifts of Gravity & Light’ (Hodder & Stoughton), 2021. Her three pamphlets, ‘Apple Water: Povel Panni’, ‘they lit fires: lenti hatch o yog’, and 'The Stone Sleep' are published with Hedgehog Poetry Press. Apple Water was listed in the Poetry Book Society Spring 2019 Selection. Her debut full collection, ‘The Talking Stick: O Pookering Kosh’, is published with Salmon Poetry Press (2022). She is the curator and chief editor of ‘Kin, an Anthology of poetry, Story and art by Women from Romani, Traveller and Nomadic Communities. She has appeared on Soul Music BBC Radio 4, RTE, And Welsh radio. She is the founder of: ‘Writing as Sanctuary’, a Transformative Writing Programme. She is the Romani Script Consultant for the musical, ‘For Tonight’ which premiered at the Adelphi Theatre in 2023.

Vanessa Wood-Davies is a harpist and poet. Her Gypsy heritage comes from the family of Abram Wood, who is her five times great grandfather, and John Roberts, Telynor Cymru, who is her three times great grandfather. She lives in Norfolk and spends time in Wales in her caravan. She also composes tunes, makes jewellery, sketches and generally creates things. She has designed and built two harps. She has appeared at Gypsy and Folk festivals, including Strumpshaw Fair. She has also played at the Gypsy Church on Bramdean Common along with Raine Geoghegan and Allison Hulmes to a packed audience.

Part of Lyra – Bristol Poetry Festival 2026

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Entry requirements: 16+, any under 18s accompanied by 21+ adult 1:1 ratio — Read more — Read less