An Aberystwyth bookshop has launched a poetry festival that will take place at the end of this month.

The Bookshop by the Sea will host the festival from Saturday, 29 April to Monday, 1 May.

Freya Blyth, founder of the festival and bookshop owner, said: “I am thrilled to be launching the Aberystwyth Poetry Festival! I am especially loving having so many truly amazing female poets confirmed as this project grew out of my experience of studying an MA in poetry, specialising in feminist poetry, and wanting to engage with those female voices of modern poetry.

“During my course, I brought this up with the head of department and they agreed I could invite some women poets to visit the university, and I really wanted to include my bookshop and open events up to the community too, to get everyone involved and build bridges between the university and wider community.

“I started getting in touch with poets and just got such a fantastic response, and as more people started getting involved, I started wanting to engage those voices with each other and have them come on the same weekend, to be in conversation with each other.

“That one conversation I had, has now developed into Aberystwyth’s first poetry festival full of talented poets with voices who have something to say, local poets, prize-winning poets, poets of all ages and backgrounds.

“I am overwhelmingly excited that these voices will now be shared with all you lovely people! And that you can all come and experience poems that have inspired me, in the wonderful Victorian seaside town of Aberystwyth, and be a part of the community here, that makes this little Welsh town such a heart-filled home for my bookshop.”

She added: “Poetry can sometimes be seen as too highbrow, too inaccessible, but it is such an important part of how we express ourselves and connect to each other as humans.

“With this festival we really want to get poetry out to people by creating links between the university, the poetry community and readers like yourself; making the amazing world of poetry inclusive and accessible for all.”

Award-winning poets Matthew Francis, Kim Moore, Karen McCarthy Woolf, Zoë Brigley and Mari Ellis Dunning are among the poets who will be appearing at the festival.

For more information, go to www.thebookshopbythesea.co.uk