A taste of Canadian poetry in Manchester
This evening at the Anthony Burgess Foundation’s Engine House could have been a disaster. Despite living and working in Manchester for 25 years, I had never heard of the Anthony Burgess Foundation (I know, I'm ashamed) and I knew absolutely nothing of Canadian poets (ditto). And it started on a sad note with the announcement of the death of noted Canadian short story writer Mavis Gallant
But f...
28th February 2014
Vona Groarke to judge £400 Poets and Players competition
Vona Groarke will be judging Manchester’s Poets and Players’ £400 poetry competition. The deadline is 16 April. All poems will be judged anonymously. Groarke has published five collections and teaches at the Centre for New Writing in Manchester. More details
27th February 2014
Risk a verse or two with Write Out Loud at the Red and Green Club tonight
There’s a new open mic poetry night in West Yorkshire on Thursday 27 February. All are welcome to read poems or sing a song in a friendly, encouraging ambience, at Risk a Verse! with Write Out Loud, a...
27th February 2014
Brittle Star launches first competition
Jacqueline Gabbitas, pictured, and Mimi Khalvati will be judging poetry entries in Brittle Star magazine’s first poetry and short fiction competition. First prize is £250 per genre, and the deadline i...
26th February 2014
Daljit Nagra to judge £500 Wenlock festival competition
Daljit Nagra is leading the judging panel for the £500 Wenlock poetry festival competition. The deadline is 17 March. Nagra said he was looking for poems “that come in any forms and sizes, that are co...
24th February 2014
Natural World is theme for £300 Buxton poetry competition
Buxton poetry competition is seeking entries on the theme of The Natural World. Helen Mort is the judge of the £300 competition, which has a deadline of 7 April. More details
23rd February 2014
Hollie McNish and Frieda Hughes at Bath festival
Hollie McNish and Frieda Hughes will be providing the poetry highlights at Bath literature festival, from 28 February to 9 March. McNish, pictured, will be performing on Wednesday 5 March at 8pm. Entr...
23rd February 2014
Write Out Loud at Middleton on Sunday
Chris Co will be the guest poet when Write Out Loud Middleton meets on Sunday 23 February at the Ring O’Bells, St Leonard’s Square, Middleton, at 7pm. The open mic night will be hosted by Her and the ...
23rd February 2014
Loose Muse goes west with new women-only open mic in Cornwall
Loose Muse, the women-only London open mic night that has already spread its wings and set up in Manchester as well, is branching out again – in Cornwall. Founder Agnes Meadows will be taking the long...
21st February 2014
Sex, laughter and adultery: anthology draws big crowd at festival
“It’s great to have a big audience at a poetry event. I suspect the subject matter may have something to do with it,” Sophie Hannah, pictured, editor of The Poetry of Sex, said in her introduction to...
19th February 2014
From Mersey to the poles: a one-day festival of poetry ideas
The Poetry School is staging a “poetry PhD festival” – a one-day festival of poetry ideas – in London on Saturday 15 March. Subjects at Is there a Doctor in the House? include the Merseybeat poets, th...
19th February 2014
End of February deadline for €1,000 Strokestown poetry competition
The deadline is 28 February for Ireland’s Strokestown poetry festival competition with a first prize of €1,000. The festival in County Roscommon takes place on 2-4 May. More details
19th February 2014
Your poetry favourites at Write Out Loud Marsden tonight
Write Out Loud founder, Julian Jordon, is asking members of Write Out Loud Marsden to come up with their favourite lines of poetry for the meeting on Wednesday 19 February. Julian said: “What are your...
19th February 2014
Steven Waling and Rachel McGladdery at Write Out Loud Sale
Steven Waling and Rachel McGladdery are guests poets at Write Out Loud Sale at the Waterside arts centre, on Tuesday 18 February. Steven Waling is the author of several books of poetry and has publish...
18th February 2014
Wendy Cope's poem to her husband - and why she got married in the end
A Valentine’s poem written by Wendy Cope to her husband, fellow poet Lachlan Mackinnon, has been published by the Guardian. ‘To My Husband’ begins: “If we were never going to die, I might / Not hug ...
15th February 2014
Manchester Writing School's £2,000 Writing for Children prize
Manchester Writing School has launched a £2,000 Writing for Children prize, open to new and established writers aged from 16 upwards. Entrants should submit a portfolio of three to five poems, to be ...
14th February 2014
York poetry judge Carole Bromley offers competition tips
A poetry competition judge has offered some tips, and an insight into how her own competition is going, a couple of weeks before its deadline. Carole Bromley, who is judging the £250 YorkMix / York li...
14th February 2014
A Shed for Wood: Daniel Thomas Moran, Salmon
I pondered the significance of the title of this collection. A wood shed can be storage for fuel (memories?). It is also a form of shelter. This poet was born in New York but has Irish forbears. The...
14th February 2014
Valentine's night in Wigan, with Attila, Laura, and Louise
Write Out loud regular Laura Taylor, pictured, and Louise Fazackerley are back on the bill as support when Attila the Stockbroker returns on Wigan on Friday 14 February – Valentine’s night - for a fu...
14th February 2014
Paragram launches Slants of Light anthology at Poetry Cafe
Prize-winning poets will be reading at the launch of the 2013 Paragram poetry prize anthology, Slants of Light, at the Poetry Cafe in London on 14 February. Entry is free, with open mic as well, and i...
14th February 2014
Sean O'Brien and Robin Robertson at London university poetry reading
Sean O’Brien, pictured, and Robin Robertson will be reading at the first of the University of Roehampton’s poetry readings, hosted by the Institute of English Studies at the Chancellor’s Hall, Senate ...
13th February 2014
Perversely political? Steve Mellor at Write Out Loud Wigan tonight
The nation is gripped by election fever ahead of the looming 2015 poll (some mistake surely?). Ukip if you want to, but Steve Mellor never sleeps in his quest to tell it like it is to the party leader...
13th February 2014
The Visitations: Kathryn Simmonds, Seren
Second collections can be difficult, especially if a poet’s first collection is published to wide acclaim, garnering praise and prizes, as was the case with Kathryn Simmonds’ Forward prize-winning deb...
12th February 2014
Poet is executed in Iran for 'propaganda against system'
A poet from an Arab minority community has been executed in Iran with a fellow teacher after being convicted for “enmity against God”, “corruption on earth”, “gathering and colluding against state sec...
11th February 2014
English PEN rallies support for jailed Cameroon poet awaiting appeal
English PEN has launched a print-on-demand version of a jailed Cameroonian poet’s collection, Jail Verse: Poems from Kondengui Prison, to help raise much-needed funds for the imprisoned activist. Enoh...
10th February 2014
Write Out Loud at Stockport on Monday
Members of Write Out Loud Stockport will be meeting at Stockport art gallery on Monday 10 February to read and discuss their own poetry. The group’s speciality is a collage poem, created at every meet...
10th February 2014
Top poetry magazine editors explain 'the art of choosing'
Four editors of leading poetry magazines will be explaining “the art of choosing” at Coffee-House Poetry at the Troubadour, in Old Brompton Road, Earl’s Court, London on Monday 17 February at 8pm. The...
9th February 2014
Deadline nears for Camden/Lumen poetry competition
The judge is Sir Andrew Motion and the closing date is 14 February for the Camden/Lumen poetry competition, which raises money for cold weather shelters. The prize is 50 free copies of a perfect bound...
9th February 2014
Storms force Alice Oswald to call off Manchester reading
Dramatic weather in the south-west has forced Alice Oswald to call off her appearance at Manchester’s Poets and Players on Saturday 8 February. Poets and Players said: “We are very sorry that extreme ...
7th February 2014
Erbacce-press offers book publication prize
The erbacce-press poetry prize competition is now open, with the first prize being book publication of the winner’s poems. Entry is free, with the deadline 30 June. Erbacce-press is a writers’co-opera...
7th February 2014
Deadline extended for £5,000 Hippocrates poetry prize
The deadline has been extended to 10 February for the £5,000 Hippocrates international competition for an unpublished poem on a medical subject. Poems must be no more than 50 lines. More details
7th February 2014
On Light & Carbon: Noel Duffy, Ward Wood Publishing
Noel Duffy is a scientist who studied experimental physics at Trinity College, Dublin, and graduated with a first in 1992. After a brief period in research he turned to writing and poetry. On Light &...
5th February 2014
'Saying the unsayable': editor Sophie Hannah talks about The Poetry of Sex
A much-talked-about new poetry anthology, The Poetry of Sex, edited by Sophie Hannah, pictured, has been described by publishers Penguin as “raucous and highly enjoyable”. But Hannah, a poet and succ...
3rd February 2014
Maps & Legends: eds. Jo Bell and Jane Commane, Nine Arches Press
Midlands-based Nine Arches Press has been around for five years. To celebrate that achievement – no small feat in the world of poetry publishing – they have produced an anthology which can be viewed a...
2nd February 2014
Poet Nathan Filer scoops £30,000 Costa award with first novel
A poet and creative writing lecturer has won the £30,000 Costa Book of the Year with his first novel. Nathan Filer was awarded the prize for The Shock of the Fall at an awards ceremony in London. He w...
2nd February 2014
Has 'performance poetry' been replaced by 'spoken word'? Discuss
Once there was performance poetry … now it could be argued there is only spoken word, according to a top London poetry compere. In a blog-essay, poet Niall O'Sullivan, who hosts the weekly, long-runni...
2nd February 2014
Jo Bell wins £3,000 Charles Causley prize
Jo Bell has won the £3,000 Charles Causley poetry prize. The competition was set up in aid of the continuing project to renovate the late poet’s house in Launceston, Cornwall, and support a programme ...
2nd February 2014
