Ian Duhig to pick £1,000 Cafe Writers winner
Ian Duhig will be the sole judge of Norwich-based Cafe Writers’ £1,000 open poetry competition, which has a 30 November deadline. Second prize is £300, 3rd is £150, and there are six commended prizes of £50. Entry fee is £4 per poem, £10 for three poems and £2 per poem thereafter. Other prizes are £100 for funniest poem not winning another prize, and £100 to the best poem from a permanent Nor...
29th October 2012
All the way from Kathmandu - Selected Jazz Poems: John Clarke
I once saw John Clarke perform in Greenwich. He represents an exotic minority of performance poets who conceive their poems in a mindset earthed in jazz and blues. The poems are not lyrics in a conventional sense; but, like many lyrics, standing bare on the page, they don’t shine as they might. A...
29th October 2012
Poets read in aid of the homeless at Camden
Write Out Loud regular David Cooke, Maggie Butt, Caroline Carver and Pam JT Zinnemann-Hope will be guest poets at the monthly Camden Poetry open mic event on Friday 2 November, at Trinity United Re...
29th October 2012
National Poetry Competition: last call for entries
There’s still time - just – to enter the £5,000 National Poetry Competition. The deadline is 31 October. Ok, there will be thousands of entries, but the judging is anonymous – they don’t know who y...
29th October 2012
Angry Sam Berkson launches debut collection
Performance poet “Angry” Sam Berkson will be launching his debut collection Life In Transit, published by Influx Press, on 15 November at the Arcola theatre, Dalston, east London. He'll be backed u...
29th October 2012
Slouching towards Rotherham: Jackie Kay to read anti-racism poem at football match
It’s a whole new ball game: Jackie Kay will read an anti-racism poem on the pitch before a match between Sheffield United and Portsmouth on Monday night.
The initiative was the idea of Sue Beel...
29th October 2012
Deadline nears for £1,000 Crashaw first collection prize
The 31 October deadline is fast approaching for entries for the £1,000 Crashaw prize, an international annual prize for a first collection of poetry. Entrants must not have had a volume of poetry p...
28th October 2012
Rod Whitworth at Write Out Loud Middleton
Rod Whitworth is guest poet at Write Out Loud Middleton on Sunday 28 October at the Ring O’Bells, St Leonards Square, Middleton. Contact katie.haigh@sky.com. It starts at 7pm, and entry is a £2 d...
27th October 2012
The art of reading out loud: Rhian Edwards passes on tips at Dylan Thomas festival
Rhian Edwards, who was shortlisted earlier this year for the Forward first collection prize – and interviewed by Write Out Loud - is running a workshop on reading poems aloud at the Dylan Thomas f...
27th October 2012
'Fast and furious' poetry slam at Wantage: but would Betjeman approve?
A poetry slam billed as “fast and furious, X-Factor style” featuring slam champs from all over the UK is one of the highlights of the Wantage (not just) Betjeman literary festival taking place in t...
27th October 2012
Write Out Loud Stockport back fight to stop art gallery cuts
Members of Write Out Loud’s Stockport’s group are backing the fight against proposed cuts that would see their meeting place at Stockport art gallery closed to the public on weekdays from Tuesday t...
24th October 2012
Gillian Clarke branches out into John Lewis
We’ve had poems on show in shops in Bolton, and along the Rochdale canal – and now the national poet of Wales, Gillian Clarke, has teamed up with John Lewis, and written a poem that is being displa...
23rd October 2012
Book fair day at Scottish Poetry Library
The Scottish Poetry Library is staging what it calls its “annual celebration of books and small creative presses” on Saturday 27 October between 11am and 6pm at the SPL building at 5 Crichton’s Clo...
21st October 2012
Magazine editor Paul Sutherland's new collection
The editor of Dream Catcher magazine, Paul Sutherland, will be reading from his brand-new collection, Journeying, at the Python Gallery, Middlesbrough on Friday 26 October. The reading starts at 7....
21st October 2012
Texperiments: there's still time to take part in a new type of poem
There are still several days left to take part in a new poetic experiment is being conducted by Write Out Loud’s regular conduit of the interesting and unusual, Winston Plowes. Backed by Jo Bell, o...
21st October 2012
Write Out Loud at Bolton tonight
Chris Co is guest poet at Write Out Loud Bolton on Sunday 21 October, upstairs at the Brooklyn pub, 7pm for 7.30pm start. Entry is £1 for this open mic event. Contact Jeff Dawson (Jeffarama!) at je...
21st October 2012
Marsden's poetry jam: exuberant, embracing, cyclists not excluded
Let me put my cards on the table, as a southerner who is in love with the north. It was the first time I had visited Marsden, and I’m afraid to say that as a result I no longer consider Hebden Brid...
18th October 2012
Closing date nears for Northern Ireland's eulogy contest
The 26 October closing date is approaching for the Funeral Services of Northern Ireland poetry competition, launched earlier this month on National Poetry Day. The organisers are looking for poems ...
18th October 2012
Sheffield unveils digital poetry slam for Off The Shelf festival
A poetry slam with a difference – it’s digital – is being run in Sheffield with embedded videos of local poets performing at key locations across the city. 21 Poets for Sheffield is run by local po...
18th October 2012
Death of north-west poet John Clays
John Clays, a stalwart of Wigan and Write Out Loud, passed away recently. A much-loved character of the Wigan and Bolton events over the years, John often had a smile and a sestina to share. I firs...
17th October 2012
Walking in the footsteps of Ted Hughes at festival
Walks round Ted Hughes’s boyhood village of Mytholmroyd, and nearby Heptonstall, where he later lived, films about the disappearing culture of the Pennine valleys that he documented in his poems, a...
17th October 2012
After the jam, it's Write Out Loud at Marsden tonight
This Wednesday, 17 October, sees the latest instalment in the story of poetry advancement in Marsden as we meet at the Mechanics Institute for another Write Out Loud poetry read-around. Be there fo...
17th October 2012
Fifteen teenagers from UK and US win Foyles Young Poets of the Year awards
This year’s Foyles Young Poets of the Year were announced yesterday, during National Poetry Day. You can read the winning poems and see the list of commended young poets here. The prize, which hon...
16th October 2012
Council cuts threaten Write Out Loud at Stockport art gallery
Write Out Loud Stockport met last night at Stockport art gallery with a cloud hanging over future meetings there. Stockport metropolitan borough council is reported to be considering a drastic cutb...
16th October 2012
Write Out Loud at Sale tonight
Dominic Berry, who will be previewing a segment of his new poetry show, The Dragon Who Hates Poetry, and Polly Livsey and Nicole May are the guest poets at Write Out Loud Sale’s open mic, on Tuesda...
16th October 2012
Praise for PM's speechwriter - and poet - Clare Foges
The young woman behind David Cameron’s Conservative party conference yesterday is also a poet in her spare time. Clare Foges, who has been working for the Tories at No 10 for several years, gained ...
14th October 2012
Catch the bus as Aldeburgh moves inland
Aldeburgh’s famous poetry festival is moving some of its events this year – to the world-renowned concert hall and campus facilities at Snape Maltings, above, a few miles inland.
A shuttle bus ...
14th October 2012
Roll up for the jam at Marsden jazz festival
What a honky-tonking, stonking festival it is, with music belting out from every pub, café and orifice. Poetry too. Yours!
Don’t miss this chance. It’s been stanza room only for each previous W...
12th October 2012
Laura Taylor at Nantwich Words and Music festival
Write Out Loud’s Laura Taylor will be performing as a guest poet with Barbara Bentley and Sheila Blackburn at Poetry in the Museum on Sunday 14 October between 11am and 12.30pm, as part of the Nant...
12th October 2012
Write Out Loud Wigan - it's tonight
Write Out Loud Wigan reassembles at the Tudor House hotel tomorrow night, Thursday 11 October, with this month’s compere Isobel cracking the whip and keeping poets in order. Entry is free to this o...
11th October 2012
Poets add their voices to Pussy Riot protests
As the appeal of Maria Alekhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Ekaterina Samutsevich, of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot, against their two-year sentences for hooliganism in a Moscow court was put b...
5th October 2012
Sam Riviere scoops Forward prize for best first collection
Belated congratulations to Faber’s Sam Riviere, who has won the Forward prize for best first collection. His 81 Austerities was an "effortless, wide-ranging and confident" look at everyday life in ...
5th October 2012
Gillian Clarke and Mimi Khalvati at Mayfield poetry festival
Gillian Clarke, above, Mimi Khalvati, Tim Liardet, John F Deane and Abegail Morley are just some of the poets appearing at the Agenda/St Leonards school international poetry festival on 9 October ...
4th October 2012
What's brewing? Fire River Poets competition
The deadline is 31 October for Fire River Poets open poetry competition, with prizes £100, £75 and £50 and an invitation to read at the Brewhouse, Taunton. The competition will be judged by Anthony...
4th October 2012
Just walking in the rain? Poetic tour of Manchester at the literature festival
Carol Ann Duffy, Simon Armitage, Paul Farley, Leonitia Flynn, Deryn Rees-Jones and Rosie Garland are just some of the poetic names appearing at Manchester literature festival, which runs officially...
4th October 2012
It's National Poetry Day ... today!
It's National Poetry Day today, Thursday 4 October … and here are just some of the events happening around the country.
At London’s Southbank Centre it’s National Poetry Day Live, with free re...
4th October 2012
Full steam ahead for Marsden jazz festival's poetry jam
What a cracking session each previous poetry jam has been at Marsden jazz festival, filling the pub with poets and poetry, pies and pints all before noon on a Sunday - stanza room only! All part of...
1st October 2012
