An evening to celebrate the launch of poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy’s first Collected Poems, drawing together the best of eight collections spanning 30 years, will be one of the poetry highlights of Manchester literature festival, from 12-25 October. Duffy will be appearing at Hallé St Peter’s, on Sunday 18 October, at 7.30pm, reading and talking to Observer writer Rachel Cooke.

Simon Armitage will be reading from his new book, Walking Away: Further Travels With a Troubadour on the South West Coast Path, and from his collected poems, Paper Aeroplane: Poems 1989-2014, on Thursday 22 October at Manchester’s Central Library, at 6.30pm.

Other poetry highlights include:

Michael Rosen talking about the future of children’s poetry, prompted by a decline in the number of publishers launching new poetry for children, with poet and educator Mandy Coe on Monday 12 October, 6.30pm, at the Central Library; 

Australia’s leading poet Les Murray, whose new collection, Waiting for the Past, is published by Manchester’s Carcanet Press, at the Central Library on Wednesday 14 October, at 1pm;

Don Paterson reading from his new collection 40 Sonnets and playing his own music, and poet and playwright Rommi Smith performing from Poems From Mornings & Midnights, her narrative sequence of poems inspired by jazz and blues, on Saturday 17 October, 2.30pm, at Hallé St Peter’s;

Poets Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze, Lydia Towsey and Shruti Chauhan exploring contemporary women’s issues and culture across three continents and three generations on Tuesday 20 October, at the Contact theatre;

A celebration of new talent, as students from four Manchester secondary schools perform original poetry created as part of a term-long project delivered by the arts organisation Wordsmith. Produced as part of Black History Month 2015, it also features poet and singer Zena Edwards, and Manchester MC and singer King Burga, on Thursday 22 October at Z-arts. Full details

PHOTOGRAPH: MICHAEL J WOODS