Bolton Arts Festival Poems 2012
Opened for submissions: 07/04/2012 00:00 BST
Closed for submissions: 07/06/2012 23:59 BST
This competition has ended.
Summary
Submissions are invited for original poems to be displayed alongside other art works in up to 45 town centre shops during the week-long Bolton Arts Festival from 14th June.
All submitted poems will be appear on the website, whose huge poetic community will be invited to rate and comment on the poems, with the final selection – one per shop - curated by Write Out Loud director, Julian Jordon.
The Write Out Loud community can then comment on and rate the poem out of 10. These ratings will be used to guide Julian’s final selection.
As well as in shops, the selected poems will appear in a Bolton Arts Festival anthology and website.
The deadline for receipt of poems is midnight on Wednesday 6th June 2012. So, get out your pen and paper, look at the list of shops and start writing, and commenting and voting. Come on you poets!
Bolton Arts Festival, 14 – 21 June, 2012 across the town centre, and on university and college campuses.
Judges
Submission Terms and Conditions
1. Competition Rules
1.1. In the following, the terms ‘we’ refers to Write Out Loud, Bolton Council, Bolton University, Bolton Arts Forum and the festival partners and sponsors.
1.2. By submitting you are deemed to have read and agree to abide by these terms and conditions.
1.3. Each poem must have a title and be no more than 30 lines in length, using standard line length – no concrete poetry.
1.4. Poems must be suitable for display in a public place and contain no material that in the judgement of the curator might cause offence.
1.5. All submissions must be in English.
1.6. You can submit poems for as many shops as you wish, but no more than two poems per shop per poet.
1.7. The closing date for submission is midnight (UK time), Weds 6th June 2012.
1.8. Those whose work is selected will be contacted by email and the results announced on the organisers’ websites and in the press where appropriate.
1.9. If selected you will be required to provide your full name and address.
1.10. The curator’s decision on selection of poems is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
1.11. We reserve the right to withdraw selected poems and substitute alternatives where necessary.
1.12. Only poems submitted online on www.writeoutloud.net are eligible.
1.13. By submitting work you agree to its continued display during the term of the festival.
1.14. All submissions must conform to the Write Out Loud website terms and conditions.
1.15. By submitting, you warranty that all work submitted is your own original work, does not contain anything that breaches copyright, plagiarises others’ work or infringes any intellectual property rights whatsoever.
1.16. All poems remain the copyright of the originating author.
1.17.
In uploading your work you give permission for the organisers to publish the poem on the Write Out Loud website within the terms of its standard terms and conditions; and (if selected), on a poster in a Bolton shop window, on the Bolton Arts Forum website and in its print anthology; and for use in publicising this and subsequent events.
No other use will be made of your work without your permission being sought.
1.18. Other’s work can be included within original poems with appropriate permissions – Cento, for example - responsibility for securing such permission resting with the poet submitting the work.
1.19.
Once submitted, poems cannot be amended or resubmitted.
Correspondence on individual work cannot be entered into, except for technical issues to do with uploading.
1.20. We accept no responsibility for loss of poems, so do keep a copy.
1.21. We accept no responsibility for any damage, loss, injury or disappointment suffered by any entrant submitting poems to this event, howsoever caused.
1.22. We accept no responsibility to any party for any technical failure whatsoever.
1.23. In any dispute the curator’s decision will be binding and final and no correspondence can be entered into on such decisions.
1.24.
The project is managed by Write Out Loud, 7 Warehouse Hill, Marsden HD7 6AB
www.writeoutloud.net
2. Tips and Hints
2.1. Submitted work will be appearing in public as part of a major arts festival and online and in a printed anthology, so please read, and re-read, your work carefully before submitting. The final selection will take account of grammar, punctuation and presentation.
2.2. Reading through comments on the Write Out Loud blogs can be very useful in giving ideas for how to formulate and present your work.
2.3. You are responsible for your own proofreading.
Entry Categories
Poems were entered in the following categories.
Amore
AMORE
12 Corporation St. Bolton
Independent family-run furniture store. If beds, sofas or chairs could talk; if tables could eavesdrop on tea-time conversations...
They specialise in fairly showy furniture with much chrome and diamanté - that's amoré, as Dean Martin said. Italian for love.
Babers Bladez
St. Andrew's Court, Bolton
Hairdressers
Poems about the conversations between hairdresser and client? About the transformations? What happens to all that hair they cut off?
Barnardos
49 Newport Street
Town Centre, Bolton
Lots of scope to look at the donated goods and write about the people who donated them, perhaps the links to the ones helped by the charity. Or think about the people who spend their time in there, the volunteers. What if the goods could talk, what would they tell us?
Talking of the volunteers, two of them are poets themselves, Angie and Daniel. excellent.
A lot of stuff sold in charity shops comes from house clearance after someone has gone into a home or has died. There is a lot of scope there for ideas for poems, list ones in particular.
Or write about Barnardos work. A bit of scope there I guess.
Beaverbrooks
Beaverbrooks, Crompton Place Shopping Centre, Bolton
Jewellers.
Sparkly stuff for special occasions like weddings, engagements, etc. Rings are often emotive items, reminders of those who have passed away, or got away before the wedding.
Booth's Music Shop
Booth's Music Shop, 17 Churchgate Bolton, Lancashire BL1 1HU
A real old-fashioned shop in the oldest bit of Bolton town centre. The world's oldest music shop, it is claimed, having opened only 16 years after the Battle of Waterloo. An Aladdin's cave of musical instruments, sheet music, tutors, accessories, etc: banjoes, guitars, fiddles, whistles, percussion instruments, harmonicas, sax...
They run music tuition workshops too.
If you can't write a poem about Booth's...
Cancer Research charity shop
Cancer Research charity shop
6 Newport St., Bolton
Lots of scope to look at the donated goods and write about the people who donated them, perhaps the links to the ones helped by the charity. Or think about the people who spend their time in there, the volunteers. What if the goods could talk, what would they tell us?
A lot of stuff sold in charity shops comes from house clearance after someone has gone into a home or has died. There is a lot of scope there for ideas for poems, list ones in particular.
Carbon Bar
18, St. Andrews Court, Bolton , BL1 1LD
A bar that has undergone transformation recently - caterpillar to butterfly, it says here.
Of all the bars in all the world, she had to walk into this one.
Card and Party Centre
Card and Party Centre, Crompton Place Shopping Centre, Bolton
Greetings cards, wrapping, balloons, etc. How about a poem based on lines from classic greetings cards, for example. Or what new type of greeting card would you introduce?
Carrs Pasties
Carrs Pasties, The Corner Shop, Ashburner St. BL3 1TQ
Pasties, pies and sausage roll shop. Pastry, flour, ovens, fillings, what can you buy with your shillings?
Costa Coffee
Italian style coffee bar
34-36 Deansgate
Bolton
Huge scope for writing about the people who pass through or linger in here. Or about the view from the window. Who is that guy who has the statue? What about the two holding hands, etc.
Ernest Jones
18 Hotel street
Bolton
BL1 1DA
Jewellery, watches, gifts.
A chance to write something that shines, sparkles or ticks away the minutes and the hours. What do the jewels think as they look at people staring at them an pointing thorugh the window?
Greenhalgh
Crompton Place Shopping Centre, Bolton
Bakers of bread, cakes, pies. Makers of sandwiches. Potato cakes, drizzled with butter. Mmm.
Bread, the staff of life. Biscuits, the stuff of, er, scary characters (see photo).
Bake up a poem for this noble shop that feeds the passing population.
Greggs
Hays Travel
Hays Travel, St. Andrews Court, Bolton
Hays Travel is the UK's largest independently owned travel agent.
Take your words on a journey.
HMV
HMV
3/5 Exchange Street
Bolton, Lancashire
01204 524641
Sell music and film media such as CD's, DVDs etc. Music, films, all those characters and stories in shiny plastic boxes, all those lives, tragedies, triumphs, disasters and daftnesses.
Jessops
Jessops
Photographic shop
Show map of 34 Newport Street, Town Centre, Bolton BL1 1NB
Photographs have long been stimulus for poetry, often used in creative writing workshops. Once we all trooped off ot the photo shop to get our negatives and prints, quite happy to wait until they were developed. Now, it's all digital, and we can do so much with them, share them via internet, mobile phones (sorry, smart phones), blue teeth all that. Write about that eh?
Lizzie Mars
Lizzie Mars, St Andrew's Court, Bolton
Florist, gifts, cards, vintage homeware.
Why do we give gifts, agonising over their appropriateness, their cost, how we might be perceived by the recipient?
Mea Fashion
Mea Fashion, 13 St. Andrews Court Town Centre, Bolton BL1 1LD
Women's designer clothes, shoes, belts, accessories. Fabrics, feeling, looking our best. special occasions.
Mannequins swathed in silk, coddled in cotton - OK, I'll belt up.
Milkshake
26 Corporation St, Bolton
A milkshake bar where they shake milk, and lots of other stuff.
Read a full article in Bolton News
Shake those words and stanzas.
Mr Simms Sweet Shop
1-2 St. Andrews Court, Bolton
http://www.mrsimmsfranchise.co.uk/
An olde worlde sweet shop. One custumer wrote of it: It reminds me of the olden days and the sweet shop in Charles Dickens' novel the "Bleak House. What does it remind you of? Your childhood?
Next
Next, The Market Place, Bolton
Chain clothes shop
Great scope for imagining who buys what for what reason. All the colours, fabrics - the names of fabrics, too.
Octagon Theatre
The Octagon is a nationally-renowned theatre that has lots of accolades for its productions. Artistic Director David Thacker is famous for his productions of Arthur Miller's work, having worked with the late American playwright.
It also has a popular cafe by the booking office.
The bar there is a part of Write Out Loud's history, our having run irrregular highly-successful showcase poetry nights there over a number of years.
How much scope is there here for poems? The characters, the actors, the staff, the ghosts...
Odessa Café and Salad Bar
Odessa Café and Salad Bar
1 Bridgeman Buildings
Exchange Street
Bolton
BL1 1RS
Great name, too. A port on the Black Sea in Ukraine. And, again, scope for people watching and speculating: what if...?
Olympus Fish and Chip restaurant
Family-run, award-winning Olympus Fish and Chip restaurant, 35-39 Gt. Moor St., Bolton BL1 1SW
Well, the name Olympus gives loads of opportunity for London 2012-based poems. And our noble fish and chips have been part of all our lives for so long. And what about the fish stocks dwindling? This is a huge place, too, with lots of different people from all walks of life.
And it's a posh fish and chip place, with music from the grand piano to accompany the dining.
The family is originally from Cyprus, now winning awards here in Bolton.
There's a lot of scope. Get it written!
Omega Collectables
Omega Collectables, St Andrews Court, Bolton
Comic book shop. It comes highly recommended for collectors of Star Trek, Dr Who and Star Wars comics.
Superheroes of poetry?
PDSA Charity Shop
44 Newport Street
Bolton
Greater Manchester
BL1 1NB
PDSA’s charity shops sell a range of good quality clean donated clothes, kitchen equipment, toys, books, vinyl, CD's and DVD's to help raise money to treat the thousands of sick and injured pets their vets see each day.
Animal lovers, post your poems.
Phones 4 U
64-66 Deansgate
Bolton
Mobile phone shop. Wow, what scope here for poems about the conversations people have, in what circumstances? Declarations of love, difficult news, reassurance, photo of the new baby, those 9/11 last phone calls...
Rhode Island Coffee
Ryman
St. Andrew's Court
St Andrew’s Court is a small renovated shopping precinct in an old part of Bolton town centre. It contains several small independent shops.
Links, some with photos
You can write about the precinct and/or individual shops within it. some of the links might help you think about the precinct's story, for example.
Stitches of Bolton
Stitches of Bolton, St Andrews Court
Clothing repairs and alterations. Making do and mending. So many stories. How many times has this been mended? Why can't she bring herself to throw it away? What is so urgent about getting this button sewn on? Where is she going in that outfit, and why is she having it reduced in size?
Colours of cottons, zips, fabrics. The repair that was never picked up?
Subway
Subway, 46A Newport Street, Bolton
Sellers of sandwiches, coffee and salads.
Everyone has to eat. If music be the food of love, perhaps poetry is food for the soul. Be inspired: who are these people teh staff see for a few seconds at a time, coming and going, in and out, to where? from where?
The Courtyard Jewellers
The Courtyard Jewellers, 3 St. Andrews Court Town Centre, Bolton BL1 1LD
New and secondhand jewellers, family firm.
Baubles, bangles, bright shiny poems about where diamonds come from, who buys them. the hopes and dreams of wedding rings...
The Magic Tree
The Magic Tree, St Andrew's Court, Bolton BL1 1LD
Quirky toys and gifts different from chain stores. Runs workshops for toddlers with things like craft, circus skills, pottery, reading workshops, and recycling junk to make toys.
The Work Shop
Provides local employment information and advice for those seeking work or training: help with your CV, honing your interview skills and offer support to suit your individual needs such as confidence and motivation..
You can register with The work shop if you are unemployed (or about to be made redundant), receiving benefits, Income Support, Incapacity Benefit (6 months or longer), Council Tax or Housing Benefit) and living in Bolton.
This should provide a lot of scope for poems.
Waterstones
Waterstones, 34-36 Deansgate. Bolton BL1 1BL
Famous book store. Hopefully you shouldn't need any more description. Lots of scope here for things to write about. About the shop, the staff the life of books...
Ye Olde Pastie Shoppe
Ye Olde Pastie Shoppe, 31 Churchgate, Bolton BL1 1HU
The popular olde worlde pasty shop in an historic part of Bolton, near the spot where Lord Derby was executed as a traitor and his part in the Bolton Massacre. Not sure the pasty shop was there then though.
Food has long been a source of inspiration for poets. Recent VAT changes and the politics of pasties might also yieid interesting verses.
This competition is assocated with the Write Out Loud profile Bolton Arts Trail