Spoken word comes of age: top performance poets have night in the spotlight at the Southbank
Performance poetry’s equivalent of the TS Eliots – a number of contenders for a big cash award lined up in front of a Southbank audience - took place in the Purcell Room on Wednesday night. Like the TS Eliots, we were told that the winner would be announced in the next 24 hours.
But there the similarity ended. The compere, and one of the judges, Mark Grist, gave the sell-out, enthusiastic audi...
31st January 2015
The Garden: anthology, Otley Word Feast Press
The Garden is the second book from this new small press in West Yorkshire, an anthology of rather delightful garden poems. I wouldn’t go quite so far as the editors to describe it as “stunning”, principally because I dislike the current fashion of terming everything “amazing”, “stunning”, “‘brilli...
30th January 2015
Two Countries: Katrina Porteous, Bloodaxe
Porteous tells us, in the introduction to this collection, that the long poems in the book are a collage of scraps and fragments, “‘an archaeological assemblage of speech, song, litany and chant”, an...
30th January 2015
George Szirtes to judge poetry competition in aid of cold weather shelters
George Szirtes will be judging the 2014-15 Camden/Lumen poetry competition, with all proceeds going to two London homeless cold weather shelters. The deadline is 14 February 2015. The prize is public...
30th January 2015
Deadline nears for £5,000 Hippocrates poetry prize
Rebecca Goss will be one of the judges of the £5,000 Hippocrates poetry prize. The other judges are author, journalist and broadcaster John Humphrys and psychiatrist Femi Oyebode. The deadline is 31 J...
29th January 2015
Deadline nears for The Interpreter's House £500 competition
Forward prize winner Liz Berry is the judge of The Interpreter’s House poetry competition. First prize is £500 and the closing date is 1 February 2015. More details
28th January 2015
David Harsent's 'Fire Songs' wins £20,000 TS Eliot prize
David Harsent has won this year’s £20,000 TS Eliot Prize, for his collection Fire Songs. Harsent is professor of creative writing at the University of Roehampton and a Fellow of the Royal Society of L...
28th January 2015
Still to publish? Could you be a Faber New Poet?
Faber and Faber in partnership with Arts Council England is now accepting submissions for the 2014–15 Faber New Poets scheme. The closing date is 30 January 2015. Faber New Poets is open to those who ...
27th January 2015
Penelope Shuttle to judge £500 Teignmouth poetry competition
Penelope Shuttle is to judge Teignmouth poetry festival’s inaugural poetry competition. First prize is £500, and the closing date is 31 January 2015. More details
25th January 2015
Write Out Loud Middleton at the Ring O'Bells on Sunday
Members of Write Out Loud Middleton will be gathering on Sunday,25 January at the Ring O’Bells, St Leonard's Square, Middleton. This open mic event, hosted by Norman Warwick, starts at 7pm, and entry ...
24th January 2015
Poetry magazine editor jailed for 13 years for child sex abuse
A poet and editor has been jailed for 13 years for child sex abuse. Les Merton, aged 70, of Redruth, Cornwall, was found guilty at Truro crown court of 16 counts of indecent assault against girls and ...
23rd January 2015
'You don't have to be miserable to be intellectual': Northern Ireland journal seeks lighthearted poetry
A new literary journal based in Belfast is seeking poetry submissions – but “nothing miserable, nothing too bleak, nothing too serious and nothing too dense. We want to be the journal that’ll make you...
22nd January 2015
Change of venue for Risk A Verse at Huddersfield tonight
There's a late change of venue for Write Out Loud’s Risk A Verse, hosted by Julian Jordon, on Thursday 22 January. Because of problems at the Red and Green Club at Milnsbridge, Huddersfield, the new l...
22nd January 2015
Reasons to be gloomy: poet plans 'misery tour' of happiness hotspots
A poet specialising in gloom is hoping to visit some of the happiest places in the country on a “misery” tour. Bill Jones, who has been described as “the most miserable poet in Stroud”, will be appear...
22nd January 2015
The floor is yours at Write Out Loud Marsden tonight
Write Out Loud Marsden convenes on Wednesday 21 January at Marsden library for another evening of open-floor poetry, open to all to read a poem, your own or a favourite, or a short short story. Beginn...
21st January 2015
Let's speak up for openness, acceptance, tolerance - freedom of expression is at the heart of democracy
Freedom of expression is at the heart of democracy. Write Out Loud’s raison d’être is helping and encouraging people to find their voice and share their words with each other in an open, accepting, to...
21st January 2015
Write Out Loud Sale at Waterside arts centre on Tuesday
Sarah L Dixon and Ciaran Hodgers are the guests at Write Out Sale at the Waterside arts centre, Sale, on Tuesday 20 January. Entry is £3/£2 to this open mic event, which starts at 7.30pm. Get there ea...
19th January 2015
'It was, and still is, so empowering.' Meet Wirral's Naked Poets
You arrive at the venue – it’s usually a pub – and ask at the bar, maybe a little nervously, if it’s your first time: “Where’s the poetry?” You’ll probably be directed to a separate area upstairs. You...
19th January 2015
Prize winners Jonathan Edwards and Kei Miller in Wenlock poetry festival lineup
Costa poetry prize winner Jonathan Edwards, pictured, and Forward prize winner Kei Miller will be among a host of big poetry names at this year’s Wenlock poetry festival in April, organisers have anno...
18th January 2015
Australia's Uneven Floor seeks poetry 'with soul'
Write Out Loud is launching a new feature in which we let readers know about calls for submissions out there. Just to emphasise our global reach, here’s the first …
A poetry “blogzine” based in ...
18th January 2015
Kim Moore to judge Manchester Cathedral poetry competition
Kim Moore will be judging this year’s £450 Manchester Cathedral poetry competition. Winners and seven runners-up will be invited to read their poetry at the Manchester literature festival event in Oct...
17th January 2015
TS Eliot Prize contenders on parade at poetry's big night out
You could say that the TS Eliot Prize readings at the Royal Festival Hall on the Southbank are poetry’s equivalent of the cup final. You have the huge crowd – in poetry terms, at least – the merchandi...
14th January 2015
'Comic superhero' Jonathan Edwards wins Costa prize for poetry
Jonathan Edwards has won the Costa poetry prize with his first collection, My Family and Other Superheroes (Seren). Reviewing it for Write Out Loud last year, Dave Morgan said Edwards’s poems were abo...
13th January 2015
Larach: John Foggin, Ward Wood
This pamphlet collection is the result of John Foggin winning the Lumen Camden poetry competition last year with his poem ‘Camera Obscura’. The prize is a chapbook of the winner’s poetry issued by War...
13th January 2015
Poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy becomes a dame in New Year honours
The poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, has been made a dame in the New Year honours List. Duffy, who is also professor of contemporary poetry and creative director of the Manchester Writing School at Man...
13th January 2015
Performance poetry contenders for spoken word award line up at Southbank
Five performance poets who have been shortlisted for an Arts Foundation award will be performing at the Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room on Wednesday 28 January at 7.45pm. The five are Rob Auton, Jemim...
12th January 2015
Deadline nears for £1,000 Basil Bunting poetry award
The 15 January deadline is close for the £1,000 Basil Bunting poetry award. This year’s judge is WN Herbert. More details
11th January 2015
No poet is an island: global lineup at Stanza festival in March
Poets from the US, New Zealand, Jamaica, the Faroe Islands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Sardinia, Mallorca, India, as well as the UK will be appearing at Stanza, Scotland’s international poetry festival ...
9th January 2015
Toby Martinez de las Rivas to judge Melita Hume prize for younger poets
Toby Martinez de las Rivas, whose first collection, Terror, was published by Faber in 2014, will judge the £1,500 Melita Hume poetry prize for best first collection by younger poets aged 35 or under. ...
9th January 2015
Want to perform on the Poetry & Words stage at Glastonbury this summer?
Organisers of the Poetry & Words stage at this year’s Glastonbury festival are inviting submissions from “poets, spoken word artists, wordsmiths, lyricists, raconteurs, stand-up poets and slam champs”...
8th January 2015
Kick off 2015 with Write Out Loud in Wigan tonight
The first Write Out Loud open mic event of 2015 takes place in Wigan on Thursday 8 January, when Write Out Loud Wigan meet at their new venue, The Old Courts in Crawford Street, Wigan, at 8pm. Entry ...
8th January 2015
Grandmother publishes first poetry collection after winning health battle
A grandmother who had to learn to walk, talk and write again after a major operation has published her first collection at the age of 83. Patricia Hill, from Ashby-de-la-Zouch, was diagnosed with an a...
6th January 2015
Semi-detached in Shrewsbury that was Wilfred Owen's last home given listed status
An Edwardian redbrick semi-detached house on the outskirts of Shrewsbury that was the last home of Wilfred Owen has been given a Grade II listing by English Heritage. Owen spent his last two days of l...
5th January 2015
'Muslim Calvinist' Imtiaz Dharker wins Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry
A poet who describes herself as a Scottish Muslim Calvinist, and who now lives between India, London, and Wales, has been awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. The Pakistan-born British poet Imti...
5th January 2015
'Separating and combining the senses': the art of the poetry film
Have you ever wondered about combining your poetry with film? Frances Spurrier interviews Zata Kitowski, director of PoetryFilm, about the creative possibilities involved in the art form.
Than...
2nd January 2015
Jo Shapcott will be judging £1,000 Magma poetry prize
Jo Shapcott will be judging Magma poetry magazine’s prize for poems of 11 to 50 lines. Poems of up to 10 lines will be judged by a panel of Magma editors. Both competitons have a first prize of £1,000...
2nd January 2015
