'If I've made researches, I have to present information ... basically I'm a tireless Googler': Ira Lightman
The Australian newspaper reported Judith Beveridge as saying that “you speak as if the entire body and character of my work is made up of borrowings, but that is a minuscule fraction of my total output”. In a new interview with Write Out Loud, poetry sleuth Ira Lightman – “basically I’m a tireless Googler” – described Beveridge as a “line magpie”, but added that her borrowings did not constitute a...
16th November 2020
How we brought more readers to poetry - Neil Astley on Bloodaxe’s Staying Alive series, and the new anthology
On National Poetry Day, Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley launched Staying Human, the fourth in his hugely popular series of world poetry anthologies that began in 2002 with Staying Alive (sub-title: ‘real poems for unreal times’). It is a series of anthologies that many people feel great affection for, i...
14th October 2020
'I just wanted to do SOMETHING': why Luke Wright has been performing nightly during the lockdown
On a Monday night in mid-March when live events started being cancelled lock, stock, and barrel due to the coronavirus crisis, leading performance poet Luke Wright said on Twitter that he would be liv...
6th May 2020
‘As a mother, it's my job to tell these stories’: Louise Fazackerley
Wigan performance poet and BBC New Voices winner Louise Fazackerley has broken new ground with her poetry collection The Lolitas. Its subject matter includes sexual abuse and underage grooming, and it...
16th February 2020
'Our Romany culture will always survive': Raine Geoghegan
Late last year Raine Geoghegan launched a second pamphlet of poetry that documents and celebrates her Romany heritage. Her family picked fruit, vegetables and hops in Herefordshire and Kent, and many ...
13th January 2020
How Andy Jackson's 'Otwituaries' provide special send-off
A few weeks ago I was saddened to hear of the death of one of my great sporting heroes, the former England Test cricketer Bob Willis. But the sadness was lifted to some degree – even though I blubbed ...
1st January 2020
