WINCHESTER Poetry Festival 2016 reveals a star-studded line-up, plus a major new international poetry competition and a new co-artistic director.

At a special launch event, chairman Stephen Boyce announced that poets Simon Armitage, Sinead Morrissey, Roger McGough and Bernard O'Donoghue will attend the Festival, which features around 40 poets and speakers.

Bookings have opened for more than 26 events, readings and workshops.

This is the second Winchester Poetry Festival and takes place across three days from October 7 to 9.

Simon Armitage has been invited to write a new poem, which will be showcased for the first time in the Festival brochure. Armitage will be talking at the Festival about his unique collaboration with stonecutter Pip Hall on Stanza Stones, a site-specific art installation along the Pennine Way.

Seven poets whose lives and imaginations have been shaped by chalk landscape of the South Downs have also been invited to contribute new poems, commissioned by the Festival and co-funded by South Downs National Park Authority.

The first Winchester Poetry Prize – an open poetry competition to be judged by the distinguished and much admired poet Mimi Khalvati, is launched in partnership with Hampshire Cultural Trust.

Uprisings and rebellion are commemorated this year. Some of Britain’s favourite poets have been invited to reflect on the Easter Rising (100 years ago in 1916) and the October Revolution (Russia, 1917).

The Festival also features a clutch of rising stars, all with an exciting and distinctive style: Sarah Howe, winner of the latest TS Eliot prize for Loop of Jade, Helen Mort, Shazea Quraishi, Kim Moore, Kei Miller and Inua Ellams.

See winchesterpoetryfestival.org