The 11 April deadline for entering Write Out Loud’s 2025 poetry competition to mark this website’s 20th anniversary is getting closer. Have you entered yet? Don't leave it too late! The judge is celebrated Bloodaxe Books editor and anthologist, Neil Astley, and the theme is ‘Echoes’- a theme that is...

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Fiona Larkin has won this year’s £5,000 National Poetry Competition with ‘Absence has a Grammar’, which was described by judges Romalyn Ante, John McAuliffe and Stephen Sexton as “very impressive, ing...

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Following Anthony Anaxagorou's mind-stretching masterclass, re-released last week, we've now re-launched Caroline Bird's workshop, giving you a whole new set of challenges to stretch and stimulate you...

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A north-east poet who was first published as a teenager by Bloodaxe Books is celebrating 40 years of writing poetry by launching a new pamphlet next month. Elaine Cusack’s launch event also marks a re...

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Want to give your poetry a boost with new ideas, new skills, and new challenges?  Here's how: watch the videos of our series of masterclasses from professional poets at the top of their game.

Write...

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The Write Out Loud team has perhaps been more focused on our 20th anniversary and fundraising poetry competition than the recent World Poetry Day. Mea culpa! 

And yet we consider ourselves internat...

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Faber is to publish The Poems of Seamus Heaney later this year, edited by Rosie Lavan and Bernard O’Donoghue with Matthew Hollis. It’s described as the definitive edition of  Heaney’s poetry, featurin...

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What will you be doing on World Poetry Day, Friday 21 March? North Tyneside council’s Northumberland Park has come up with a topical and possibly controversial idea – an AI poetry trail around the par...

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This first full-length collection by Cardiff-based poet Emily Cotterill follows on from her debut poetry pamphlet The Day of the Flying Ants published by Smith / Doorstop in 2019 which was selected by...

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In October last year a unique creative venture involving Marsden-born poet laureate Simon Armitage, his LYR band and Marsden Mechanics was launched. The project invited the people of Marsden to engage...

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It was a foggy night on Teesside and a warm if slightly melancholy evening for the final farewell of Smokestack Books, which publisher Andy Croft closed for new titles last Christmas after 20 years. P...

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All good things must come to an end – or at least, a pause, in the case of Hexham’s very popular poetry event Words on the Wall. There was an impressive turnout for what masterly compere Joe Williams ...

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This year’s Spring Poems on the Underground posters include Foyle Young Poet Lewis Corry. The poster set was launched with readings outside the tube station at Covent Garden by Lewis, plus poets Niall...

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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...

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Most readers coming to this site will be interested in the future of poetry in changing times. The Bookseller announced in December 2023 that poetry was “on course for a record year”, partly due to an...

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Sometimes slim volumes open up much bigger worlds and pack a punch beyond 30 pages of text. The title and the cover of Janus suggest a gaze, both forward and backward. The structure of the book, thoug...

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