Stroud Book Festival has added a free outdoor poetry event to its 2026 programme, giving visitors the chance to hear site-specific work broadcast along access routes from Sladebank Woods.
The festival said excitement is building with the event now less than three weeks away. Organisers are completing their preparations and said many tickets for the 2026 programme have already been bought, while further events are being highlighted for people who have not yet made up their minds.
Poetry broadcast through Sladebank Woods
Borrowed Ground Radio will feature work by award-winning poet and non-fiction writer JLM Morton. The project broadcasts poems into wild spaces using small, site-specific transmitters activated by infrared sensors as visitors pass by.
Each outdoor radio unit carries a different poem intended to encourage listeners to pay close attention to the surrounding landscape. A QR code on every box links to the written text and a high-quality recording, providing an additional way to access the work.
The poems were inspired by time spent listening in Sladebank Woods. The broadcasts will run on Friday 6 and Saturday 7 November 2026, from 11am to 4pm.
Access to the woods is behind 10 Summer Crescent, Stroud, GL5 1PP. The festival says the site is fully accessible apart from some steep upper paths, and directs visitors to its further access information before attending.
Daniel Hahn to explore Shakespeare in translation
The festival is also promoting If This Be Magic: The Unlikely Art of Shakespeare in Translation, an event with Daniel Hahn.
The session will examine how Shakespeare’s plays have reached audiences around the world through the work of translators. Hahn, an award-winning translator from Spanish and Portuguese, will discuss how translators have rendered Shakespeare’s words into more than 30 languages, including Afrikaans, Bulgarian, Turkish and Yiddish.
The event will look at the balance between precision and ingenuity involved in replacing every word in a book while retaining the identity of the original work. Tickets are available through the festival’s booking arrangements.
How to book Stroud Book Festival tickets
Tickets for almost all Stroud Book Festival events can be booked online through thesubrooms.co.uk, by telephone via the Sub Rooms Box Office on 01453 796880, or in person at the box office.
The box office is open from Tuesday to Saturday, between 10am and 4pm. The festival says tickets for a small number of events are being sold through other providers, with booking details included in the individual event information.