Words That Make You Laugh: A discussion with Henry Normal, Hollie McNish, Michael Pederson and more

Comic poetry is some of the most loved verse in the country. Whether it’s tight rhymes, subverting forms or hilarious observations of the everyday It can surprise and delight audiences. Comedy can also bring nuance to heavier darker writing or a poem can be so mater of fact you cannot help but laugh. In this pannel join legendary poets Hollie McNish, Henry Normal, Michael Pederson and more as they talk about how comedy and humour plays a role in the poetry everyone loves. 

Nearest Tram Stop: The Royal Centre

Henry Normal
Henry Normal is a writer, poet, TV & Film producer, founder of the Manchester Poetry Festival (now the Literature festival) and co-founder of Nottingham Poetry Festival. He co-wrote and script edited the multi-award winning Mrs Merton show and the spin off series Mrs Merton and Malcolm, Henry co-created and co-wrote the first series of The Royle Family. In June 2017 Henry was honoured with a special BAFTA for services to Television after retiring from Baby Cow Productions in 2016 where highlights of his tenure as MD include the Oscar nominated film Philomena, I believe in Miracles, Gavin and Stacey, Moone Boy, Uncle, Marion and Geof, Nighty Night, The Mighty Boosh, Red Dwarf, Hunderby, Camping and Alan Partridge. Henry has written and performed 11 x BBC Radio 4 shows combining comedy, poetry and stories about family. He was recently given an honorary doctorate of letters by Nottingham Trent University, another by Nottingham University, has a beer and a bus named after him in Nottingham and has just completed a nationwide sell out theatre tour with the Banksy of poetry, Brian Bilston.

Henry’s 13th book ‘A Moonless Night ‘ was released on 28th February 2024.

Hollie McNish
Hollie McNish is a poet and author based between Glasgow and Cambridge. She was the first poet to record at Abbey Road Studios, London and won the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry for her poetic parenting memoir – Nobody Told Me – of which The Scotsman stated ‘The World Needs this Book’. She has published four further collections of poetry – Papers, Cherry Pie, Plum and Slug, which was a Sunday Times bestseller and translated into French under the title Je souhaite seulement que tu fasses quelque chose de toi. Her new book, Lobster, and other things I’m learning to love is out in March 2024. She loves writing.

“like Pam Ayres on acid” – Lemn Sissay

Jay Sandhu
Jay is an international selling author, comedian and poet. Punchy, informative and witty, his poetry and comedy focus on race and culture. He is also a presenter on BBC radio and runs Nott Another events and projects. Alongside working on projects with Lakeside Arts, New Art Exchange and National Justice Museum, he manages to fit in teaching maths part-time at secondary schools across the city.

Michael Pedersen
Michael Pedersen is a prize-winning Scottish poet, author, scribbler, stitcher. He is currently Writer in Residence at The University of Edinburgh. He’s unfurled two acclaimed collections of poetry with Polygon Books with a third (The Cat Prince & Other Poems) published by Corsair/Little Brown in July 2023—the title poem of which is currently shortlisted for the Forward Prizes. His prose debut, Boy Friends, was published by Faber & Faber in 2022 in the UK & North America and was a Sunday Times Critics Choice. He won a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship, the John Mather’s Trust Rising Star of Literature Award, and was a finalist for the 2018 ‘Writer of the Year’ at The Herald Scottish Culture Awards. With work anthologised by the likes of Pan MacMillan and Canongate Books, Pedersen has collaborated with musicians, film-makers, and visual artists.
‘Enchanting…astonishingly compelling…sparklingly written…rare and to be treasured’.’ — Stephen Fry
‘A master of words. He plays them like music.’ —Kae Tempest

Hosted by Helen Mort.
Helen Mort Helen Mort is a British poet and novelist. She is a five-time winner of the Foyle Young Poets award, received an Eric Gregory Award from The Society of Authors in 2007, and won the Manchester Poetry Prize Young Writer Prize in 2008. Her collection Division Street is published by Chatto & Windus and was shortlisted for the Costa Book Awards and the T.S. Eliot Prize. In a national survey, it was chosen by sixth-form groups and reading groups as their first choice collection. Mort is currently Professor of Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University and In June 2018, Mort was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in its “40 Under 40” initiative.