POETRY was never cool in my day. Back then it was all about World War One and wastelands, writes Riazat Butt.

These days, sexy wordsmiths write about post-millennial angst and urban life and entire festivals are devoted to the art including the Manchester Poetry Festival, which is celebrating its tenth birthday from this Sunday.

Names to look out for are the city's very own Lemn Sissay and Rosie Lugosi, dishy, award-winning Welshman Owen Sheers and New York slam poet Mahogany L. Browne.

During the last decade the festival has blossomed to become the biggest urban poetry festival outside London and virtually every significant modern British poet has appeared - from Nobel Prize winner Seamus Heaney to Poet Laureate Andrew Motion.

Henry Normal, the 1994 BAFTA award-winning poet and TV comedy writer behind The Royle Family and Mrs Merton, underwrote the Festival for its first three years. He says: "Manchester is the most overlooked hotbed of creativity. I'm proud that the Festival has made history and that what started from nothing is now in its tenth year and going from strength to strength."

This year the emphasis is on new talent, new writing and the opportunity for potential stars to shine, with a short poem competition, an erotic oriental poetry lunch, performance play-offs that give winners the chance to get their work published and open-mike contests for school pupils running simultaneously at six locations across Greater Manchester. The Festival is taking poetry to shopping centres, churches and restaurants and a survey into Mancunian attitudes will find out what people really think of poets and poetry - is it essential or inconsequential?

Manchester Poetry Festival events run until Sunday, October 12. Details are available from 0161 236 5725, or the website below.