A star-studded new season of poetry is aiming to bring a ray of sunshine to summer in South Lakeland.

A plethora of award-winning poets will be giving readings at the Waterside Hotel, opposite Dove Cottage, home to The Wordsworth Trust in Grasmere and St Martin's Student Union Bar in Ambleside.

The season runs through the summer until Tuesday, October 16, and today sees a one-off move away from Grasmere to St Martin's Student Union Bar where AF Harrold, a poet and a comedian, and regular BBC radio poet John Hegley, who often features alongside popular Radio 2 DJ Mark Radcliffe, will perform.

David Wilson, Robert Woof director of the Wordsworth Trust, said Hegley was "a regular sell-out at Edinburgh who will be bringing an entertaining mix of poems, tales and songs."

Later this month, a woman once voted the most promising playwright in the London Evening Standard Awards, Sasha Dugdale, a translator and consultant at the Royal Court Theatre, brings her poetry to the Waterside Hotel on Tuesday, May 29, alongside television and radio playwright Elaine Feinstein.

June will be lit up by Caroline Bird and Gillian Allnutt on Tuesday, June 12. Bird was named Simon Elvin Young Poet Of The Year in 1999 and 2000, and won The Peterloo Poets Competition for three years running between 2002 and 2004, while Durham-based Allnutt picked up the Northern Rock Foundation Writer's Award in 2005.

Then on Thursday, June 26, there will be an appearance from freelance literature and creative writing teacher Cynthia Fuller, whose latest collection of work, Jack's Letters Home, has just been published. Alongside her will be Maurice Riordan, editor of Poetry London, who has had books nominated for the prestigious TS Eliot and Whitbread awards.

Among the many further highlights through this sensational season is the well-known, highly-lauded and widely admired Simon Armitage, on Tuesday, July 24, who has much material to draw on from his 12 volumes of poetry, two novels and travelogue.

All readings will begin at 6.45pm and finish at about 8.30pm, and tickets will cost £7 on the door and £6 if pre-booked. There is also the chance to enjoy a supper, for an extra charge, which will usually be attended by the writer, at 8.40pm at the Dove Cottage restaurant, with the exception of today's event at Ambleside.

For more information visit www.wordsworth.org.uk