The heavenly Cambridge Writing Retreat has launched a new podcast called 30 Poets featuring a poem every day – read by the poets themselves – throughout the month of June.

The poems can be heard and read at cambridgewritingretreat.com and the line-up of first class, published poets is stellar, including: TS Eliot prize-winner poet George Szirtes; National Poetry Competition winner Susannah Hart; National Poetry Competition commended Cheryl Moskowitz; and prize-winning performance poets Helen Ivory and Martin Figura.

The free poems are a lovely way to soothe lockdown and an inspiring start or end to a day. “Since we can’t run our writing courses, or residential retreats right now, we were thinking of ways to support and inspire the writing community,” says Gaynor Clements, founder of the rural retreat situated in a beautiful village spot on the outskirts of Cambridge.

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“What better way, we thought, than to have a daily poem, read by the poet in their own intimate and inimitable way – a little piece of sanity in these crazy times. You can hear them read on the podcast and read them on our website. It always adds a dimension to read the poem too, we think.

"Hopefully, as soon as there's a proper relaxation of the lockdown rules, we can run our residential retreats. It’s perfectly possible to come to the Hut or the Bothy and not see anyone, even if you are in our garden. We really look forward to welcoming guests again as soon as we can. The gardens are looking magnificent and we are positively teeming with vegetable and salad.”

Look out for more writerly goodies – the Cambridge Writing Retreat will be conducting interviews with writers, poets and journalists who will be talking about their writing life. Later in the year, a series of short masterclasses about specific aspects of writing will be available and there are writing coaching packages to help inspire budding writers and keep on track.

Follow @CambridgeWritingRetreat and visit cambridgewritingretreat.com