LEDBURY Poetry Festival is part of a international project to find the future and unsung poetry stars of Europe.

Versopolis is new a European poetry project that is striving to get poets and their poetry heard outside of their mother language, and the project is supported by European Commission’s Creative Europe programme.

The idea is that European festivals both nominate and receive poets to read at international festivals.

Ledbury Poetry Festival has proposed Liz Berry, Adam Horovitz, Meirion Jordan, Kim Moore and Eleanor Rees, and they have been invited to perform at festivals in Belgium, Croatia, Genoa and Lithuania.

They will have their poems translated and published and will have the opportunity to meet publishers as well as audiences and potential readers. The poets have all either been involved in the Ledbury Poetry Festival’s New Writers’ Programme or are based in the West Midlands.

A Ledbury Poetry Festival spokesman said: "It is great to have the opportunity to promote and support these excellent poets through this European platform.

"Excellent young poets write poems in every language but are often unknown beyond the boundaries of the language they write in. The aim of Versopolis is to change this, creating a unique, Europe-wide platform that gives emerging European poets the chance to become international poetry stars."

On July 5, Ledbury Poetry Festival will play hosts to Maria Feren?uhova of Slovakia; Gjoko Zdraveski of Macedonia; Maud Vanhauwaert of Belgium; Aivaras Veiknys of Lithuania and Ida Linde of Sweden.

Tickets and further details on, www.poetry-festival.co.uk