Simon Armitage returns to Marsden on latest leg of libraries tour
The poet laureate, Simon Armitage, is lining up the next leg of his 10-year tour of the UK’s libraries. Each spring this decade, Armitage is giving readings in libraries across the UK and his journey is planned using the alphabet.
The next stage of his tour will be held from 3 to 11 March 2025, marking the halfway milestone of his project. It will include a series of free live poetry readings ...
21st January 2025
Dominic Berry at Write Out Loud Bolton
Award-winning poet Dominic Berry is the guest at Write Out Loud Bolton open-mic night at Bolton Socialist Club on Sunday 2 February. Dominic, who has twice won the Saboteur award for performance poets, has a new collection out with Flapjack Press, How Can I Be Now?, containing selected poems from pr...
20th January 2025
Chris Hardy to judge South Downs Binsted prize
Chris Hardy will be judging the £250 South Downs Poetry Festival’s Binsted prize. Poems must be previously unpublished and not exceed 40 lines. The deadline is 31 March. More details
16th January 2025
Peter Gizzi wins £25,000 TS Eliot prize
American poet Peter Gizzi has won this year’s £25,000 TS Eliot Prize for his collection Fierce Elegy, described by the chair of judges, Mimi Khalvati as “infinitely sad, yet resolute, and so alive in ...
14th January 2025
‘You can’t take the Bradford out of us’: poet Kirsty Taylor as City of Culture is launched
Bradford-born poet, spoken word artist and playwright Kirsty Taylor is the dramaturg – the literary adviser - of Bradford 2025 City of Culture, which was launched on Friday night in front of a packed ...
11th January 2025
Dancing in the street? You might be if you win this Motown poetry competition
Clevedon LitFest is now open for submissions for its Motorcitysixty poetry competition, which marks the 60th anniversary of the first Motown Revue tour outside the US in 1965.
Entrants worldwide, a...
6th January 2025
Helen Mort to judge £1,000 Rialto Nature and Place competition
Helen Mort will be judging the 2025 Rialto Nature and Place poetry competition. First prize is £1,000, and the deadline is 1 April 2025. More details
3rd January 2025
Imtiaz Dharker awarded OBE in New Year's Honours
The poet, artist and film-maker Imtiaz Dharker has been awarded an OBE for services to the arts in the 2025 New Year’s Honours List. Dharker was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2014 and b...
3rd January 2025
Twenty years ago, did I imagine that Write Out Loud would still be here in 2025? No …!
Welcome to 2025 – and to Write Out Loud’s 20th anniversary as a poetry website! We have a number of things planned to commemorate this year, including a big new competition. We’ll be launching that - ...
1st January 2025
Poems on exile sought to mark Byron bicentenary
The £1,000 Keats-Shelley prizes for essays and poems have opened for entries. The theme for this year’s prizes is ‘Exile’, to mark the bicentenary of Byron’s death.
Entrants to the Keats-Shelley p...
1st January 2025
