Poetry among the birches with Robert Macfarlane on Winterwatch
Poetry featured on BBC’s recent Winterwatch nature programme, with nature writer Robert Macfarlane reciting his verses in praise of silver birches, and talking about their beauty and importance.
Macfarlane revealed that “when I was a child, I sometimes wrote on birch barks.” His simple but inspiring poetry includes lines such as “Snow is falling, my silver seeker / Soon the path will be lost to...
31st January 2022
Kate Clanchy parts company with publisher after 'culture war' row
Pan Macmillan and author Kate Clanchy have parted company “by mutual consent”, following criticism of the poet and teacher’s Orwell prize-winning book, Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me, The Bookseller has reported.
Clanchy's book was criticised last year for its portrayal of young peopl...
31st January 2022
Making history! Leena helps launch first night of Worcester Write Out Loud
Former Worcestershire poet laureate Leena Batchelor, second from right, was there to help launch the first Worcester Write Out Loud evening on Monday. Leena is currently poet in residence at The Comma...
31st January 2022
Kim Moore to judge £600 Poets & Players competition
Kim Moore will be judging the £600 Poets & Players competition. The deadline is 23 February. More details
31st January 2022
What's the story? Scotland's seven-day poetry festival returns, live and online
Tickets are now on sale for the seven-day, hybrid StAnza poetry festival, Scotland’s annual international poetry festival, which will take place in March from its festival hub in St Andrews, Fife. StA...
31st January 2022
Smokestack Books looks back at first 199 titles in anthology
The radical independent publisher Smokestack Books has published a retrospective anthology containing one poem from each of the 199 titles it has published since 2004.
Smokestack Lightning includes...
31st January 2022
Award-winning poet Paul Muldoon: 'Too much is made of literary prize-winning'
The multi award-winning poet Paul Muldoon has cautioned that the winning of literary prizes “doesn’t really mean anything”. The Irish Times reported that Muldoon, who has won the Pulitzer prize for po...
29th January 2022
Deadline nears for Brian Dempsey Memorial poetry prize
Konstandinos (Dino) Mahoney will be judging the Brian Dempsey Memorial poetry prize. First prize is publication of the winner’s pamphlet, judged from entry of 10 poems. The winner of this prize will ...
29th January 2022
Richard Skinner to judge Kent & Sussex competition
Richard Skinner will be judging the £1,000 Kent & Sussex Poetry Society open poetry competition. The deadline is 31 January. More details
27th January 2022
One Day: poetry to mark Holocaust Memorial Day
There will be a poetry reading at Shrewsbury Abbey on Thursday 27 January to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, when victims of genocide around the world are remembered, and especially the victims of the N...
26th January 2022
Book of poetry writing tips to be launched online from Manchester Poetry Library
Why I Write Poetry: Essays on Becoming a Poet, Keeping Going and Advice for the Writing Life, edited by Ian Humphreys, pictured, is being launched online from Manchester Poetry Library on 27 January a...
25th January 2022
Happy birthday, Robert Burns!
Happy birthday to the poet Robert Burns, born today – 25 January – in 1759 in a village in Ayrshire in Scotland. The popularity of Burns has led to his birthday being celebrated all over the world on ...
25th January 2022
'A blazing book of rage and light': performance poet Joelle Taylor wins £20,000 TS Eliot Prize
Performance poet Joelle Taylor has won the £20,000 TS Eliot Prize for her collection C+nto and Othered Poems. The book is described as entering “the private lives of women from the butch countercultur...
25th January 2022
Poetry School moves London courses to Somerset House
The Poetry School is marking its 25th anniversary by moving its London-based workshops, events and other activities to Somerset House Exchange, an arts centre in the heart of the capital. The move wil...
24th January 2022
Gaia Holmes to judge Red Shed poetry competition
Gaia Holmes will be judging the £100 Red Shed poetry competition. The deadline is 31 March. More details
24th January 2022
A new Write Out Loud night - in Worcester tonight!
We at Write Out Loud are very excited about a new monthly Write Out Loud night that’s starting in Worcester very soon. The first evening is being held on Monday 24 January at the History and Heritage ...
24th January 2022
Love & Other Fairy Tales: Adam Horovitz, Indigo Dreams
Last year the poet Adam Horovitz published his latest collection. It was also the year when he lost his father, the legendary Michael Horovitz, at the age of 86.
There is a poignant poem about Mich...
23rd January 2022
Publisher hits £1,050 target in plea to fund 'dictionary' by young poet
A poetry publisher has reached its funding appeal target to help pay for the publication of a 998-page manuscript in memory of a young poet. In 2013, the innovative poet, artist, and animal rights act...
21st January 2022
Paperfolders: Chris Hemingway, Indigo Dreams
Poet and songwriter Chris Hemingway was born in Mansfield, studied in Leeds and Manchester, and now lives and works in Gloucestershire. His debut pamphlet Party in the Diaryhouse (Picaroon Poetry) was...
16th January 2022
Image of poet Maya Angelou to appear on US quarters
The image of American poet Maya Angelou, who has been dubbed the “black woman’s poet laureate”, is to appear on US quarter coins. Angelou, an American author, poet and civil rights activist, rose to p...
14th January 2022
Campaigners launch new appeal to 'discover' west London background of WB Yeats
Campaigners who raised £135,000 to fund an artwork to commemorate Irish poet WB Yeats’ early years in the west London suburb of Bedford Park have launched the next phase of their appeal.
Discover B...
14th January 2022
Goodbye and best wishes to Jeff Dawson after 10 years at the helm of Bolton Write Out Loud
Write Out Loud is reluctantly saying farewell, and wholeheartedly offering our thanks and warmest wishes to one of our longest-serving poetry night organisers. Jeff Dawson aka Jeffarama! has been runn...
10th January 2022
Gillian Clarke to judge £1,000 Rialto nature and place competition
Gillian Clarke will be judging the £1,000 nature and place poetry competition, run by The Rialto magazine with RSPB, BirdLife International, Cambridge Conservation Initiative and The University of Lee...
10th January 2022
Deadline nears for Edward Thomas competition
The deadline is 15 January for entries to the £150 Edward Thomas Fellowship poetry competition. The judge is Jamie McKendrick. More details
9th January 2022
Thinking outside the Unboxed: 'connectivity and the universe' competition
The deadline has been extended to 9 January for a poetry and/or animation competition called About Us aimed at youngsters aged from four to 18 on the theme of ‘connectivity and the universe’. The Poet...
9th January 2022
Mollusc: Mark Totterdell, The High Window
Mark Totterdell was born and brought up in rural Somerset and now lives in Exeter where he works as a copywriter. His first collection, This Patter of Traces was published by Oversteps Books in 2014. ...
8th January 2022
Submissions open for Yaffle anthology competition
Submissions are open until 31 January for the Yaffle poetry prize, with the winner receiving £200, and publication in the Yaffle prize anthology, along with the runners-up, highly commended poets, and...
8th January 2022
Hannah Lowe's 'The Kids' wins Costa poetry award
Hannah Lowe has won the Costa poetry prize with her collection of sonnets The Kids (Bloodaxe), which draws on her years of teaching in an inner-city London sixth form, and her experiences as a teenage...
5th January 2022
Love Algorithm: Eleni Cay, Black Spring Press
Eleni Cay is a Slovakian-born poet living in England and Norway, and writes in a number of languages. She has published one previous full collection, and three pamphlets.
You might say that her lan...
4th January 2022
A new Write Out Loud night - in the West Midlands!
Write Out Loud is coming to the West Midlands! A new monthly Write Out Loud night is to be launched later this month in Worcester. It will be organised by Jan Scrine, and will take place at the Histor...
2nd January 2022
