The power of spoken word has been demonstrated at Manchester literature festival, where the double bill of Hollie McNish and Salena Godden at Gorilla on Wednesday 19 October is sold out. But there is more poetry to see before the end of the festival. On Saturday 22 October TS Eliot prize winner Sarah Howe will be reading from her debut collection, Loop of Jade, at the Anthony Burgess Foundation, at 2pm. On Saturday evening at 7.30pm Manchester’s young rising stars from the poetry and performance collective Young Identity will be collaborating with predecessor organisation Speakeasy, and their older sibling, Inna Voice, in a special anniversary show, at Contact. And on Sunday 23 October, the final day of the festival poet Jean Sprackland will be presenting Lock Songs, a new sequence of poems commissioned by Manchester literature festival and the Canal & River Trust, and inspired by a boating weekend along the Peak Forest canal from Whaley Bridge to Castlefield, passing through magnificent countryside into post-industrial Manchester. It’s at 2pm at Hope Mill theatre.

PHOTOGRAPH: GREG FREEMAN / WRITE OUT LOUD