'12:26' by Natfastic is the Write Out Loud Poem of the Week
The new Write Out Loud Poem of the Week is ’12:26’ by Natfastic, a poem about the joys of writing late at night. In a Q&A with Write Out Loud, Natasha said that her poetry has developed from her experiences with depression and an eating disorder: “It's been a tool for healing and I now couldn't live without it.”- She added: “I recently trained as a counsellor and started taking the masks off gradu...
30th October 2016
Homecoming: Joanna Ezekiel, Valley Press
Joanna Ezekiel has worked as a teacher, bookseller and librarian; she has had a British Jewish upbringing, and is of Indian Jewish heritage. She is the author of five books of poetry, and Homecoming is her second full collection. Typical is its opening poem as the writer prepares to return home – “I...
29th October 2016
Tom Pickard joins tribute to Bunting at Black Huts festival in Hastings
Tom Pickard, who as a teenage poet was instrumental in Basil Bunting's return to writing in the 1960s, will be taking part in an evening of poetry, film and music in honour of Bunting at the Black Hut...
29th October 2016
Forward prize winner Vahni Capildeo on £20,000 TS Eliot prize shortlist
This year’s Forward prize winner, Vahni Capildeo, pictured, has been named on the shortlist for the £20,000 TS Eliot prize. Four other poets who were shortlisted for Forward prizes – Ian Duhig, Alice ...
26th October 2016
Can poetry pay? Panel of experts offer their advice at Society of Authors event
How do you make a living as a poet? Three figures from the poetry world will be discussing this topic at a special event at the Society of Authors on Wednesday 26 October. Tamar Yoseloff, pictured, wh...
26th October 2016
154: edited by Helen Eastman, Live Canon
Live Canon publish anthologies and debut collections but they are also an ensemble of actors who perform poetry from memory at theatres, festivals and events throughout the UK and abroad. This latest ...
24th October 2016
On the way ... a poetry competition run by Write Out Loud on the theme of milestones
Write Out Loud has been chosen by the Milestone Society to run the society’s national poetry competition in 2017, which is being backed by the Heritage Lottery Fund. The Milestone Society, established...
24th October 2016
'Justice' by Suzi Challenger is Write Out Loud's Poem of the Week
The Write Out Loud Poem of the Week is ‘Justice’ by Suzi Challenger. In comments following the posting of the poem, she has said that it was written in response to the much-publicised case of the deat...
23rd October 2016
Putting the boots in: poets continue political blog after publication of anthology
It started as a blog after the 2015 general election. New Boots and Pantisocracies was intended to run for just a year, publishing poems that reacted to the new political regime. Then came Brexit, and...
22nd October 2016
Laura Taylor takes her hard-hitting poetry performance to London
Political and passionate performance poet Laura Taylor is leaving her northern stamping ground and heading down south for a three-date, whistlestop tour of London, starting in Brixton on Friday 21 Oct...
20th October 2016
Mark Pajak and Miller Oberman win Bridport and Ledbury poetry competitions
The winners of two big poetry competitions have been revealed this week. At the weekend it was announced that Mark Pajak, pictured, had won this year’s £5,000 Bridport poetry prize for his poem ‘Spitt...
20th October 2016
Don't think twice, it's all right: Bob Dylan wins Nobel literature prize
Fans of the legendary troubadour Bob Dylan are celebrating after the news that their hero has been awarded the Nobel prize in literature “for having created new poetic expressions within the great Ame...
19th October 2016
'Message in a bottle' theme at Write Out Loud Marsden tonight
The theme for Write Out Loud Marsden's open-floor poetry night is “message in a bottle” on Wednesday 19 October. The theme is optional, as always. It’s hosted by Julian Jordon, and starts at 7.30pm at...
19th October 2016
Hollie McNish and Salena Godden are box-office gold at Manchester lit fest
The power of spoken word has been demonstrated at Manchester literature festival, where the double bill of Hollie McNish and Salena Godden at Gorilla on Wednesday 19 October is sold out. But there is ...
19th October 2016
Lustful Feminist Killjoys: Anna Percy and Rebecca Audra Smith, Flapjack
These two poets, both with links to Manchester Metropolitan University, are the brains behind Stirred – the feminist collective that runs poetry workshops and performances and works out of the city’s ...
18th October 2016
All together now! Write Out Loud Bolton plus Live from Worktown tonight
Write Out Loud Bolton is teaming up with Bolton’s Live From Worktown annual festival at its regular open mic night at Bolton Socialist Club on Tuesday 18 October – and the guest poet is Write Out Loud...
18th October 2016
Ian Whiteley at Write Out Loud Sale at the Waterside tonight
Ian Whiteley is the guest poet at Write Out Sale on Tuesday 18 October at the Waterside arts centre, Sale. Entry is £3/£2 to this open mic event, which starts at 7.30pm. Open mic spaces are available ...
18th October 2016
Write Out Loud Woking at the New Inn tonight
There’s another night of open mic poetry in the heart of Surrey at Write Out Loud Woking at the New Inn, Send, on Monday 17 October. Sign up after 7.30pm for 8pm start. Entry is free, and your hosts a...
17th October 2016
'The witnesses are not to be found, the steps lead nowhere'
The workings of memory are something that every writer thinks a lot about, and in this poem Peter Everwine, a California poet we've featured before, looks very closely into those workings. His most re...
17th October 2016
'Mature Student' by JF Keane is Write Out Loud's Poem of the Week
The new Write Out Loud Poem of the Week is ‘Mature Student’, by JF Keane. John Keane, who organises Write Out Loud Stockport, is an admirer of WB Yeats, and describes ‘Mature Student’ as a “loose paro...
16th October 2016
Measures of Expatriation: Vahni Capildeo, Carcanet
I am usually pretty indifferent to awards culture in this country; poetry prizes for many years seemed to go to the same few names, mainstream and to me frankly rather bland poets who seemed to hog al...
13th October 2016
Write Out Loud Wigan at the Old Courts tonight
Write Out Loud Wigan heads on into the next 10 years at the OId Courts, Crawford Street, Wigan, on Thursday 13 October. Entry is free to this open mic poetry night organised by John Togher. It starts ...
13th October 2016
'Pavement Cafe' by Anna Ghislena is Write Out Loud's Poem of the Week
Write Out Loud’s new Poem of the Week is Pavement Cafe, by Anna Ghislena, a vignette of impressions seen through the eyes of a beggar. In her answers to Write Out Loud’s questions Anna reveals herself...
12th October 2016
'No one knew he could sing!': John Cooper Clarke takes on Macarthur Park and other pop classics
Venerated punk poet John Cooper Clarke is making his debut as a lead vocalist on a new album of classic American and British pop with Hugh Cornwell, a former member of the punk band The Stranglers. Th...
12th October 2016
Deadline nears for £5,000 National Poetry Competition
Moniza Alvi, Gerry Cambridge, and Jack Underwood will be judging this year’s £5,000 National Poetry Competition, which is run by the Poetry Society. The deadline for the competition, which attracts ar...
12th October 2016
Peter Riley, Steve Ely, John Foggin, Mark Hinchliffe: Calder Valley Poetry
Ted Hughes would undoubtedly have approved of Calder Valley Poetry, a new small poetry press taking its name from his native West Yorkshire landscape. Its first four beautifully produced pamphlets are...
11th October 2016
Foyle Young Poets are announced
The Poetry Society has announced this year’s top 15 Foyle Young Poets of the year. They are: Jennie Howitt, aged 17, from Shrewsbury; Eva Brand Whitehead, 14, Oxford; Sophia Carney, 16, London; Robert...
11th October 2016
'I sit in the dirt and put my hands in your tracks'
Travel can sharpen our awareness, can keep us on the alert, and here's a poem by Patricia Traxler from her new book Naming the Fires, from Hanging Loose Press. Traxler lives in Salina, Kansas.
...
10th October 2016
Write Out Loud at Stockport art gallery tonight
Write Out Loud Stockport will be meeting at Stockport art gallery on Monday 10 October to share their poems at this open-floor poetry night. Each month a collage poems is produced from the poetic cont...
10th October 2016
Asterism: anthology of punctuation, Laudanum
Asterism, perhaps one of the less well-known forms of punctuation, is used to indicate minor breaks in text, to separate sub-chapters in a book or to call attention to a passage. It is also a pattern ...
9th October 2016
Kathleen Jamie to judge £1,000 Rialto poetry competition
Kathleen Jamie will be judging the £1,000 Rialto magazine nature and place poetry competition, run with the RSPB, BirdLife International and the Cambridge Conservation Initiative. The deadline is 1 Ma...
9th October 2016
Write Out Loud's open mic poetry jam at Marsden - and all that jazz!
This weekend sees the Write Out Loud poetry jam at Marsden, which takes place, during the town’s famed jazz festival, every year on Sunday morning between 11am and 1pm at The Railway pub. Poets travel...
7th October 2016
Poets join musicians at events in support of foodbanks
Musicians and poets are getting together over the next few days under the banner of We Shall Overcome at more than 250 gigs across the UK to support foodbanks and to encourage people to make donations...
7th October 2016
'It's a marriage of my words and their message' - Matt Abbott on the Nationwide TV ads
Matt Abbott is one of three spoken word poets who have been recently featured on TV taking parts in adverts for the Nationwide building society. In an interview with Write Out Loud, he talks about why...
7th October 2016
Royal recital of Heaney poem kicks off National Poetry Day
The Prince of Wales launched Natonal Poetry Day today by reading Seamus Heaney's poem 'The Shipping Forecast' on BBC Radio 4's Today programme. In addition, 40 BBC local radio stations commissioned 40...
7th October 2016
The view from the train: poets deliver a special night on BBC2
There was the perfect excuse for a poetry lover to be a TV couch potato on Saturday night. Congratulations to BBC2 for providing an alternative to the usual fare of The X Factor and Match of the Day –...
7th October 2016
Poetry anthology backing Corbyn is big success at party conference
A collection of poems in support of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn proved a soaraway sales success at the recent Labour party conference - and has drawn plenty of media interest, too.
Sky News featur...
4th October 2016
'I can't cross over. Then you really will be gone'
Barbara Crooker, who lives in Pennsylvania, has become one of this column's favorite poets. We try to publish work that a broad audience of readers can understand and, we hope, may be moved by, and th...
4th October 2016
Anthology's tribute to poetry of pubs
Around 30 poets among the winners of a pub poetry competition will be reading at the launch of the anthology, Half Moon: Poetry about Pubs, at the Horse and Farrier pub, on Bridge Street Otley, on 6 O...
3rd October 2016
Paris after the terror attacks: poet publishes pamphlet on the days that followed
A poet based in Paris has written a pamphlet of poems about the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in the city on 13 November last year. Paul Stephenson’s The Days That Followed Paris, published by Ha...
2nd October 2016
'The Stone Tape' by Tony Hill is Write Out Loud's Poem of the Week
‘The Stone Tape’ by Tony Hill is the new Write Out Loud Poem of the Week. Talking about the poem, Tony said: “The title is a reference to a 1972 BBC production of the same name, quite a chilling ghost...
2nd October 2016
'It's more than just words ... it's a way of connecting with the world' - Kat Francois
A spoken word show about first world war soldiers from the Caribbean that was reviewed on Write Out Loud earlier this year is returning to the Roundhouse in London in October, as part of Black History...
1st October 2016
