Casey Bailey grew up in Nechells with a pen in his hand and a city in his lungs. A writer, performer, playwright, and educator, Casey Bailey has made language a home for memory, for pride, for protest, for possibility.
As Birmingham Poet Laureate from 2020 to 2022, Casey Bailey carried the voice of the city with him—into schools, onto stages, across screens, and into the hearts of people who recognised something true in his words. Not just craft, but connection. Not just poetry, but purpose.
Casey Bailey has published three poetry collections and contributed to countless anthologies and journals. His work has been commissioned by organisations including the BBC, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Birmingham Royal Ballet, and his words have travelled beyond the city—performed internationally, yet always returning home in tone, texture and truth.
As a playwright, Casey Bailey has brought stories to Birmingham, Coventry and London stages. His acclaimed play GrimeBoy—a story of youth, survival, and self-worth—sold out its run at the Birmingham Rep, speaking directly to a generation too often unheard. Whether on the page or in the theatre, Casey Bailey writes to reflect the worlds we live in and the ones we’re still building.
Casey Bailey was awarded a Royal Television Society award for his film-poem Dear Brum—a love letter and a reckoning. The piece captured what many Brummies felt but hadn’t yet said aloud: that beauty lives beside struggle, and that the city carries both.
Casey Bailey’s work lives where poetry meets policy, where performance meets purpose. In every school visit, workshop, or public commission, there’s a constant thread: an invitation to be seen, to be heard, to matter. His poetry doesn’t lecture—it welcomes. His presence doesn’t dominate—it makes space. That generosity is part of what makes his voice resonate so deeply across generations.
Alongside his creative work, Casey Bailey remains deeply committed to education. As a teacher, a Fellow at the University of Worcester, and the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate in Education from Newman University, Casey Bailey brings the same clarity, compassion and conviction to the classroom as he does to the stage.
For Casey Bailey, poetry is not performance—it is presence. A way of standing in a place and saying: we’re here. We’ve been here. And we’ve got something to say.
Frameworthy honours not just Casey Bailey’s awards or roles, but his voice—firm, generous, unflinching—which continues to shape the cultural life of Birmingham and beyond.
