Poetry readings, workshops and talks at Forty Hall on 26 and 27 September, tickets from £5. Patience Agbabi headlines two days of readings and workshops.

The Enfield Poets Literary Festival returns to Forty Hall this Saturday and Sunday, 26 and 27 September, with fourteen ticketed readings, workshops, lectures and performances on its box office across the two days.

It is the festival’s second year at the Jacobean house at Forty Hill, which Enfield Council says it provides to the organisers free of charge. The line-up mixes established names with local performers: the council’s announcement picks out award winners Patience Agbabi and Hannah Copley, alongside Enfield artists such as Abe Gibson.

The programme

The full programme and booking are on Forty Hall’s what’s on pages. Tickets run from £5 to £25 per session, plus a £1.50 booking fee. Saturday’s events include:

  • Discover YOUR Story workshop, 10am, £18
  • Polish and international poets, 12pm, £5: Literary Waves Publishing and the Polish Cultural Institute in London take part for the first time, with poets reading in English and their native languages, and a musical interlude
  • Joy, Despair and Attention workshop, 12.30pm, £10

Sunday is the fuller day, ending with the festival’s headline act:

  • Women Breaking Rules, 12pm, £5: novelists Gill Paul and Louisa Treger, who have sold more than a million books between them, discuss their latest novels about Ruth Ellis and about Jackie Collins and Jacqueline Susann, chaired by Maggie Brookes-Butt
  • So Sweet and So Cold workshop with Patience Agbabi, 1pm, £10
  • Poetry and live music in the Long Gallery, 2pm, £10
  • Patience Agbabi: Telling Tales, 4pm, £10: the festival’s closing reading, from her 21st century remix of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales to her new verse novel Wonderland

Workshops on both days cover writing for wellbeing (£25, £15 concessions), bringing poetry to life (£12) and the value of poetry in modern times (£5).

Getting there

Forty Hall is at Forty Hill, EN2 9HA. On its own directions, the estate is about a 20 minute walk from Turkey Street, Gordon Hill or Enfield Town stations, or a 191 or W10 bus from Enfield Town to the Myddleton Avenue roundabout followed by a 10 minute walk up Forty Hill. By car, the entrance is on Forty Hill, reached from the A10 via Bullsmoor Lane or Carterhatch Lane, with disabled bays in the main car park. Entry to the house and garden itself is free; only the festival sessions are ticketed.

What it means for you

If you want to go, book ahead: sessions are small and ticketed individually, so you can pick one session for £5 or build a full weekend. The first ticketed sessions start at 10am on Saturday and 10.30am on Sunday.

Cllr Edward Smith, Cabinet Member for Council Assets and Culture, said the council is “proud to support organisations like Enfield Poets, who bring the community together”. The festival’s sponsor is a local firm, Fisher Darville Holdings, whose chairman Anthony Fisher said it wants to “shine a light on the incredible talent within Enfield’s creativity community”.

More ideas for the weekend are on our things to do in Enfield page.

Sources: Enfield Council announcement, 14 September 2026; Forty Hall what’s on listings (event pages carry the times and prices quoted).

Correction, 25 September 2026: this article gave the price of Patience Agbabi’s Telling Tales reading as £15. The box office lists it at £10 plus the £1.50 booking fee, and we have corrected it above. We also said there were seventeen ticketed sessions; the box office now lists fourteen. Since we published, four sessions we listed no longer appear on the festival’s box office: the Addictionary reading, the translation reading with Katherine Gallagher and Marina Sanchez, ‘Upon A Path I Stand’ and the bookmaking workshop. With the £3 session gone, tickets now start at £5. Check Forty Hall’s festival page for the current programme before you set off.