Finding the Words with Becca Drake, Andy Nuttall and Tom Weir

Come and listen to some of the best poets from Yorkshire and beyond at Finding the Words, our relaxed and welcoming online poetry evening.

Becca Drake is a poet, researcher, and printer based in York. Her debut poetry pamphlet Unstill Landscapes (Guillemot Press) was a BBC Poetry Extra Book of the Month. She holds a PhD in medieval English and Icelandic literature, and has published essays on this subject. Becca edits and prints poetry by hand at Little Hirundine press, and her printed poetry books have been collected by the National Poetry Library, the British Library and the Bodleian. She has held residencies with Senate House Library and the Hull Maritime Museum, and regularly works with heritage and arts organisations.

Tom Weir’s poetry has been Highly Commended in both The Forward Prize and The National Poetry Competition. He has won the Magma Editor’s Choice Prize and was one of the inaugural winners of the Templar IOTA Shots competition. He has published two previous collections All That Falling and Ruin, for which he received a grant from the Arts Council. His pamphlet Negativity Bias was a winner of the 2026 Poetry Business International Book and Pamphlet Competition.

Andy Nuttall began writing poetry for children and adults late in the day. Now retired, he has been published in Acumen and on the sound platform Iamb - Poetry Seen and Heard curated by the poet Mark Antony Owen. His children’s poems have featured in Tyger Tyger Magazine; the US publication Parakeet and in the Charles Causley Literary Blog, The Maker. He is currently working on a first collection for children and for adults. He describes himself as determined but unprolific!

At Explore we keep all our events free or low cost to enable everyone to attend. When you book your place, if you can, please make a donation to help with Explore's costs and enable us to continue running events like this one.

Accessibility: We want our online poetry events to be accessible to everyone. Readings take place on Zoom, and we display each poem on screen so you can read along. Zoom’s built in accessibility features, including optional captions, are also available. If you have specific access needs, please contact us at arts@exploreyork.org.uk and we’ll do our best to help.