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On the last Sunday of every month, there is a pleasant surprise to be had at the
Florence Arms, Southsea Hants. Tongues and Grooves has been in residence since 2003, and welcomes a wide range of poets and performers, from artists of local origin to those of international reputation. Maggie Sawkins (pictured below), the author of 'Zig Zag Woman', is co-founder, organiser and one of the hosts of Tongues and Grooves.

Sawkins presents the performers with a gentleness and humo...

The Poetry Jam is an original idea by Steve Garside. Send your audio poems together with the text of the poem (word format or rtf) to stevegarside@hotmail.com
Just so that you can sing along, here is the text of this month's Jam:
A ripened blue plumb
splitting in my skin
the caress of barbed wire
for a while causes pain
but a ripened blue plumb
keeps the beast in the field
so it can remain
adhering to your face
from a distance
where none can harm it
while driving by
boun...

Nice easy ones this month. I am sure you are all well aware of the rhythms and conventions of the limerick. Simply solve the clues using logic, rhythm, rhyme and a dirty mind, and you will have yourself a scatological little verse to recite with the kids. Or maybe not.

A ------ collector from ---

------- the end of himself in a -------

Now he ---- help but -----

----- --------- the splints

That ----- him to ------- freely

Deny rubbish? (6)

Norfolk town from Ely...

Wafts is a Beachcomber type column where you can expect the unexpected...
POETS, my definition.
Poet. Is that what you call yourself? Arsiversie-ists is my word for you,and pretty pillicocks all. Yeah, I’ve heard you, you strungout shrugging flandan dins. What makes you special? Oh, yeah, you’ve got genetically tampered-with neckties with primate speech capacity; you’ve got a skinwrap of bioluminescent algae working your skin into twinkles. You step out of your jeans and pl...

In the spring, a young Ted's fancy turns to thoughts of pretty much the following...

Aquarius (Jan 20 – Feb 19)

Why trace the end of
a flame when bayonets
fixed face synonymous delay -
though crowded trenches
bring some good,
as introductions swell
your social network
as sure as should.

Pisces (Feb 20 – Mar 20)

All is good, so let life flow,
your resolving hands divine
the way of things (and
way to go), and those with
budding thoughts curtailed,
will follow y...

What follows is a roistering tale of hi jinx on the high seas, but only on the part of the two imbeciles who could have got themselves killed (both of whom are involved in this very ‘zine), and only because my inner idiot told me to do it.
The tale starts several years prior to the events described, with a man called John G. Hall, a man with a plan. John’s idea was to get a group of poets onto a mysteriously beautiful isle called Arran, off the west coast of Scotland, and there to...

This month we’re going to be looking at preparing for performance. Whether you are going to be reading one or two limericks at your local pub, or playing the lead role in a major theatre, you are there to entertain. And you cannot entertain your audience if they can’t hear or understand what it is that you’re saying.
By now you should be able to exercise a little more control over your breathing, which will help you not only when it comes to delivery, but in calming any nerves...

This book began as a pamphlet, of a 1990 Hilda Hulme Lecture entitled ‘Ways into Shakespeare’s Sonnets’.
It is a book of close-reading, a book that investigates poetry in depth, from its language, its craft. This is a handsome, and exemplary work.

Throughout, Helen Vendler has used the 1609 Quarto edition of the Sonnets. A facsimile of this edition is reproduced; the examination and commentary of each sonnet is then prefaced with a modernised version of the sonnet. The leng...

What I Do That's New is a series of articles in which poets share their trade secrets with the rest of us i.e. they describe aspects of what they do that is either innovative or just plain clever.

If you would like to feature in a future article in this series then contact feature editor Dermot Glennon dermot@writeoutloud.net
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I love to play with metaphor and inhabit that strange landscape where ambiguity holds you. I try to hover in...

OK so you didn't like the first six! So here are six more photos to make some sort of creative reaction too... whether it's a poem, flash fiction, short sentence, a short story, six words describing each image, a poem, screenplay, or if you've got the time, use all the pictures in the Picture this series to create a novel the easy way!

Whatever, write something and put it in Comments box below this article to share with the world.

The rules are:
Whatever you want them t...

Well, here we all are again in the letters page of the March Edition of Write Out Side Now Car Park Fight, the friendly low fat magazine of Write Out Loud and what a month it's not yet been. St Patrick's day hasn't yet passed off quietly without incident and a number of issues in the poetry world are yet to present themselves.
One issue that will, we confidently predict, arise around the fourth half of the month is that of whether or not the um bongo adverts (whilst undoubtedly poet...

This month's poem was chosen by Mandy Coe who simple says "I found it and liked it a lot."

Find out more about Constant-Ngozi and his work at http://www.writeoutloud.net/poets/constantngoziozurumba

Not for Yesterday. Not for Today

I’d sing you a song
cast you a shield
shielding you from fiery darts
that did yesterday and today
suck up the triumphant zeal of tires.

I’d sing you a song
weave you linen
protecting you from slices of insane st...

These are 6 audio poems with musical backing picked at random.

If you have an audio poem with musical backing, in MP3 format only, then please send one only to jukebox@writeoutloud.net, please include the poem's title. Submissions will then be considered for inclusion in next month's jukebox. Audio tracks without musical backing will be ignored.

Please do not send more than one audio file in a calendar month as the second and subsequent files will be ignored....

What we want
Write Out Quiet does not publish a lot of poetry, and most of that which we do put out there will either be messed with in some way, critiqued unflinchingly or reproduced in partial quotation only in order to illustrate a point made in an article.
Most of our output is in the form of articles and reviews. We are also keen to publish your views on both the ezine itself and poetry issues in general in our letters page, together with any amusing problems you’d like to share wi...

Sympathetic Sybil is Write Out Loud's own Agony Aunt...
Dearest, dearest – hope you're going to be sympathetic – Sybil,
Please, please, for the love of God! - you have to help me! I just can't seem to keep the angst out of my poems, and I am told that I use far too many clichés!!! Please tell me how to make my work less depressing, before I fall into a pit of despair. Lead me to the path of poetic righteousness so that I may wend my way through this vale of tears...

Exercise one
This is a simple exercise that a lot of poets use to get over writer's block. Write the words "I remember" on the first line, and then carry on writing the poem for five or ten minutes. If you get stuck for something to say, just write the words "I remember" again and carry on from there.

Exercise two
Choose a place where folk mingle, like a lift, or a cafe or a classroom. Write one stanza describing each of the following (not necessarily in the same o...

Poetry's Biggest Secret's finally revealed. One poet dares to speak out but only if he gets to wear a mask. It's not to conceal his identity, he just derives pleasure from it. If other poets were to discover the identity of this masked man, they would chain him up and bind his hands and force him into a chest and lock it shut. He would probably enjoy that too. His name is Alec Numan, and if you want to know where he lives and at what time he is at home, just write in.

‘...

Okay, you've got the picture, you've got the merged poem (below). Clearly, the mad, evil Dr. Van Kinston has been up to his old tricks again. But, who's been cross-fertilising with whom?
Email your answers to winstonplowes@googlemail.com

In restaurants we argue
over which of us will pay for your funeral
The Sergeant-major, filled with rage,
Attacked the Sergeant at this stage,
though the real question is
whether or not I will make you immortal.
"You careless swab!...