Shine So Hard, Brighton: 'Rely on your own equipment and start small'
In the third of a new series highlighting events usually listed on the Write Out Loud Gig Guide we got the low-down from Karen Withecomb on running Shine So Hard in Brighton. This event runs fortnightly (usually every other Monday) at The Quadrant, 12-13 North Street.
How long has it been running? And what made you think you should set up a poetry event in Brighton?
Shine So Hard will ...
31st December 2017
Double success for students Shirley-Anne and Eileen in poetry competition
Two former organisers of a Write Out Loud night have come first and second in Bolton University’s poetry competition. Shirley-Anne Kennedy, pictured right, with her poem ‘Moving On’, and Eileen Earnshaw, left, (‘If I Could’) came first and second in the competition’s staff/student category. They are...
31st December 2017
Poetry events over Christmas and New Year? Please make sure your Gig Guide listing is correct!
Calling all poetry event organisers … can you please check your listings on Write Out Loud’s Gig Guide over the Christmas and New Year holiday period? At the moment (Saturday 16 December) Write Out Lo...
31st December 2017
Deadline nears for Wolf poetry competition
Following on from the success of our Milestone poetry competition (run in conjunction with the Milestone Society) Write Out Loud is collaborating with the Wolverhampton Original Literature Festival (W...
28th December 2017
Deadline nears for €10,000 Moth poetry prize
Daljit Nagra will be judging the €10,000 Moth poetry prize, formerly the Ballymaloe poetry prize. The deadline is 31 December. More details
28th December 2017
'Embassy Christmas' by Kevin is Write Out Loud's Poem of the Week
A very happy Christmas, and a fulfilling and rewarding New Year, from everyone on the Write Out Loud team! Our Christmas Poem of the Week is ‘Embassy Christmas’ by Kevin. It’s a remarkable tale of p...
28th December 2017
On Trust: A Book of Lies, James Womack, Carcanet
James Womack was born in Cambridge, studied Russian, English and translation at university, and received his doctorate, on WH Auden's translations, in 2006. He has recently returned from Madrid, where...
26th December 2017
'Slim as an eel but a solitary glider, a pilot without bombs or weapons'
Nancy Willard, who died in February, was one of my favourite poets, with an enviable gift for inventive description. She published poetry, fiction, essays and children's books, one of which, A Visit t...
21st December 2017
A Moment of Disbelief: William Alderson, Poetry Salzburg
William Alderson has viewed horrors from across the world, before processing them for our consumption. During that process he will have made decisions on which images we can bear to see. But he is no ...
20th December 2017
Write Out Loud at Marsden library tonight
Marsden Write Out Loud will be meeting at Marsden library in Peel Street on Wednesday 20 December for another session of open-floor poetry with new co-ordinator John Ling. The theme for December is Re...
20th December 2017
Charlotte Wetton wins £5,000 poetry pamphlet award
Charlotte Wetton has won this year’s £5,000 Michael Marks award for her poetry pamphlet I Refuse to Turn into a Hatstand, published by Calder Valley Poetry, it was announced on Tuesday night.
When ...
19th December 2017
Write Out Loud Sale at the Waterside tonight
Nick Degg, Phil Poyser and Mark Rawlins are the guest poets at Write Out Loud Sale on Tuesday 19 December at the Waterside arts centre, Sale. Entry is £3/£2 to this open mic poetry night, which starts...
19th December 2017
'Suddenly an ordinary day becomes holy ground'
This poem by Stella Nesanovich, who lives in Lake Charles, Louisiana, appeared in a recent issue of Third Wednesday, a literary journal. At this time of great national division it's good to see a few ...
18th December 2017
'The Man That Gravity Forgot' by Nick is Write Out Loud's Poem of the Week
The new Write Out Loud Poem of the Week is ‘The Man That Gravity Forgot’ by Nick. It’s a poem about loss and mourning, an inability to let go, and includes these lines: “I'm sure I could have saved yo...
18th December 2017
Write Out Loud Woking at the New Inn tonight
It’s Write Out Loud Woking at the New Inn at Send, near Woking, on Monday 18 December, and organisers are promising a poetry quiz as part of the entertainment. Sign up for this free open mic poetry ni...
18th December 2017
Write Out Loud at Bolton Socialist Club tonight
Bolton Write Out Loud will be meeting at Bolton Socialist Club on Sunday 17 December for some festive verse with hosts Jeffarama! and Gordon Zola. Entry is £1 plus raffle. Doors open at 7.30pm for 8 p...
17th December 2017
Lydia Kennaway wins £1,000 Flambard poetry prize
Lydia Kennaway has won this year's £1,000 Flambard poetry prize, it was announced on Thursday night. She is a New Yorker living in Yorkshire, and is a student on the Writing Poetry MA at Newcastle Uni...
16th December 2017
Hippocrates prize organisers launch Book of the Heart
The Hippocrates prizes for poetry and medicine are among the most sought after international poetry awards – and this year the organisers have launched a new anthology to coincide with the competition...
16th December 2017
Poets band together to support Wolverhampton grandmother threatened with deportation
A group of poets in the West Midlands are putting on a benefit gig on Thursday 14 December in support of Paulette Wilson, a 61-year-old Wolverhampton woman who had been in Britain for 50 years when sh...
14th December 2017
Prize for best festive poem at Write Out Loud Wigan tonight
A rollicking night of festive verse is promised at Write Out Loud Wigan at the Old Courts on Thursday, 14 December, with a prize for the best festive poem, and mince pies. Entry is free to this open m...
14th December 2017
Licensed to Rhyme, Barnt Green, Birmingham
In the second of a new series highlighting events listed on the Write Out Loud Gig Guide, Maggie Doyle, pictured, answered questions about Licensed to Rhyme, the event in Birmingham that she co-hosts ...
14th December 2017
All fours: Nia Davies, Bloodaxe
Nia Davies’s first collection is fizzing with ideas, high spirits and personality. Rather than surreal, it’s a pell-mell stream of consciousness - adult nonsense verse almost - full of delightful non ...
13th December 2017
Dismay as trust is forced to sell John Clare's local in Helpston
The pub where John Clare drank and played the fiddle is to be sold by a trust that had intended to turn it into a folksinging centre.
The Exeter Arms in Helpston, Cambridgeshire, was bought by the ...
13th December 2017
Kim Moore's debut collection wins Geoffrey Faber prize
Kim Moore has won the Geoffrey Faber memorial prize with her debut collection The Art of Falling, which was published by Seren in 2015. The prize, which is worth £1,500, is given in alternate years to...
12th December 2017
'What advice would she offer for life between husbands?'
At a friend's wedding, as she stood in her reception line, an older woman leaned in and whispered, "Always rinse your dishrag in cold water so it won't stink." Advice! Christine Stewart-Nuñez lives ...
11th December 2017
'Aubade' by Terry Jones is Write Out Loud's Poem of the Week
The new Write Out Loud Poem of the Week is ‘Aubade’ by Terry Jones. The poem is written in a form known as a specula; after the mid-point of the poem every word or phrase used up to that point is empl...
11th December 2017
Write Out Loud at Stockport art gallery tonight
Stockport Write Out Loud will be meeting at Stockport art gallery on Monday 11 December for a readaround of poems. Each month a collage poem is produced from contributions. You can read November’s her...
11th December 2017
Subject Matters: Jeremy Robson, Smokestack
Jeremy Robson, a key figure in the poetry reading scene of the 1960s and 70s, opens the floodgates of memory wide in this collection as if eager to make up for the 35-year writer’s block that only end...
7th December 2017
Sunshine at the end of the world: Chris Hardy, Indigo Dreams
Chris Hardy has lived in Asia, Africa, and other parts of Europe, and in a number of his poems in his fourth collection, Sunshine at the end of the world, he is drawn to seas and oceans, flirting with...
6th December 2017
Celebrating peace: poetry competition to mark centenary of first world war armistice
This picture of Londoners celebrating the signing of the Armistice that marked the end of the first world war in 1918 is a reminder that the Museum of Military Medicine is running a £500 poetry compet...
6th December 2017
Katherine Pierpoint wins £2,000 Troubadour prize
Katherine Pierpoint has won the £2,000 Troubadour international poetry competition prize with her poem ‘The Egg-Slicer’, it was announced on Monday night. One of the prize judges, Imtiaz Dharker, said...
4th December 2017
'Great White Heron' by Chris Hubbard is Write Out Loud Poem of the Week
The new Write Out Loud Poem of the Week is ‘Great White Heron’ by Chris Hubbard. The poem is about a heron seen in the Loire valley in France, but is also about eagles circling above. In his responses...
4th December 2017
'God's eyes were stained glass, and his voice was pipe organ'
Many of us at some hour have struggled with organised religion, maybe all night, like Jacob wrestling the angel. Here's a fine poem by Fleda Brown, from her book No Need of Sympathy. She is the former...
2nd December 2017
Poetry that helps keep out the cold: celebrating 10 years of Camden Lumen
“Poetry makes nothing happen” is the famous phrase attributed to WH Auden. Even if Auden didn’t mean it in quite the way that it often has been taken, sometimes poetry does make things happen, it real...
2nd December 2017
Incendium Amoris: Steve Ely, Smokestack Books
Sometimes one comes across books that confound your expectations of poetry. Most poetry, even some experimental poetry, goes along relatively obvious lines and you generally know where you are in the ...
1st December 2017
Helen Dunmore's final collection on Costa shortlist
Novelist and poet Helen Dunmore, who died in June this year, has been included in the Costa poetry award shortlist for her fifth and final poetry collection, Inside the Wave, which was published by Bl...
1st December 2017
