Jeremy Paxman to chair Forward Prize judges
TV presenter and writer Jeremy Paxman is to chair this year’s panel of Forward Prize judges. Also are on the panel is singer-songwriter Cerys Matthews, as well as poets Dannie Abse, Vahni Capildeo and Helen Mort.
Susannah Herbert, director of the Forward Arts Foundation, said: "Jeremy Paxman's personal relish for memorable language and robust debate - not to mention his deep love of poetry - ma...
31st March 2014
If you have tears, prepare to shed them now: the poetry that makes chaps weep
Melvyn Bragg, Richard Dawkins, Ian McEwan, Mike Leigh, Ben Okri, Simon Russell Beale and Simon Schama will be among those reading at an anthology launch at the National Theatre next month. In Poems that make Grown Men Cry, edited by Anthony Holden and Ben Holden, 100 leading male figures in in liter...
31st March 2014
Royal Mail's stamp of approval for Dylan Thomas in centenary year
Dylan Thomas appears on a new Royal Mail first class stamp, issued on 25 March, to mark the centenary year of his birth. In other anniversary celebrations, a replica of the shed used by Dylan is touri...
31st March 2014
Now we are six: Manchester's experimental Other Room marks birthday
Manchester’s heart of experimental poetry, The Other Room, celebrates its sixth birthday on Wednesday 2 April at the Castle hotel at 7pm. Entry is free to hear Hannah Silva, pictured, Emma Bennett, an...
28th March 2014
Paterson, Hegley, Padel, Hannah and Little Machine at Cheltenham festival
Don Paterson, John Hegley, Ruth Padel, Sophie Hannah, and Little Machine, pictured, are just some of the highlights at Cheltenham poetry festival, from Friday 28 March to Sunday 6 April. Other events ...
28th March 2014
Spokes cycling anthology to be launched at Otley Word Feast
An anthology of poetry about cycling will be launched on Sunday 30 March as the culmination of Otley Word Feast, a three-day celebration of written and spoken word in the West Yorkshire town. The la...
27th March 2014
Parking is such sweet sorrow: Sainsbury's row in Hebden Bridge inspires Winston Plowes
Hebden Bridge arts festival’s Pop Up Poet, Winston Plowes, has produced a light-hearted take on a row about Sainsbury’s in the town by trying to imagine how Shakespeare might have looked at it in his ...
27th March 2014
It's worth the risk: Write Out Loud at the Red and Green Club in Huddersfield tonight
Take a chance to read or sing at Write Out Loud’s Risk A Verse open mic night at the Red and Green Club, Milnsbridge, Huddersfield, on Thursday, 27 March at 7.30pm. Entry is £1 for non-members. Showca...
27th March 2014
Mimi Khalvati at Roehampton poetry centre reading in London
Mimi Khalvati, Stephen Romer, and Ahren Warner will be appearing at the second University of Roehampton poetry centre reading at the University of London’s Institute of English Studies, Senate House, ...
24th March 2014
Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, publisher of Howl, prepares new book at the age of 94
The US poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, aged 94, who co-founded the City Lights bookstore in San Francisco, and was tried on obscenity charges after publishing Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems in 1956...
24th March 2014
William Blake and Christian socialism: the poetic side of Tony Benn
Tony Benn, one of the most famous British political figures of the late 20th century, has died at the age of 88. Like Margaret Thatcher, he was regarded at one time as bitterly divisive. But unlike hi...
24th March 2014
Calling teenage poets in Yorkshire: search is on for film performers
Teenage poets in Yorkshire are being invited to take part in performance poetry workshops that will lead to the creation of the True Grit Poetry Cycle, a series of six short digital films. Write to Sp...
23rd March 2014
Write Out Loud at Middleton on Sunday
Pete Slater will be the guest poet at Write Out Loud Middleton on Sunday 23 March at the Ring O’ Bells, St Leonard’s Square, Middleton. Entry to this open mic event, hosted by Norman Warwick, is a £2 ...
23rd March 2014
Emily Berry to judge £1,400 Melita Hume prize
Forward prize winner Emily Berry will be judging the £1,400 Melita Hume poetry prize, open to those up to the age of 35 who have not yet published a full poetry collection. Entry is free, and the firs...
22nd March 2014
Can poetry go 'mainstream'? The future's bright, says Valley Press publisher
In the latest of our Publisher Showcase series of interviews, Jamie McGarry of Scarborough’s Valley Press reveals to Greg Freeman that he had no alternative to becoming a poetry publisher, talks of th...
22nd March 2014
Remembering jailed Cameroon poet Enoh Meyomesse on World Poetry Day
It’s World Poetry Day on Friday 21 March – and English PEN is using it to highlight once more the plight of jailed Cameroon poet Enoh Meyomesse, who has been behind bars for more than two years on wha...
21st March 2014
McGough, Motion, Berry, Mort and Goss in York line-up
Roger McGough, Andrew Motion, Emily Berry, Helen Mort, Rebecca Goss provide the poetry highlights at York literature festival, from 20-31 March. Motion is at St Peter’s school on Monday 24 March, Berr...
20th March 2014
Things I Will Put in my Mother's Pocket: Catherine Graham, Indigo Dreams
This collection by Newcastle-based poet Catherine Graham begins strongly. In ‘Making Marmalade with Marc Bolan’ the free verse form employed particularly suits the whimsical, yet coherent narrative. ...
20th March 2014
Poetry on the move: events organiser Poejazzi launches free app
London spoken word events organiser Poejazzi is reaching out by launching a free poetry app available on iOS and Android. Charlotte Morgan-Nwokenna, Poejazzi’s creative director, said: “Poejazzi Seaso...
20th March 2014
Taking a world view at Write Out Loud Marsden tonight
Members of Write Out Marsden are being invited to go global at their meeting on Wednesday 19 March. Organiser and Write Out Loud founder Julian Jordon has asked them to consider bringing along a poem ...
19th March 2014
Write Out Loud at Sale tonight
Kate Bendelow and Christopher Coey will be guest poets at Write Out Loud Sale, at the Waterside arts centre, Sale, on Tuesday 18 March. Entry is £3/£2, and it starts at 7.30pm. Get there early if you ...
18th March 2014
Family of Hugo Williams appeals for kidney donor
The family of poet Hugo Williams – pictured with his granddaughter, Silver - has launched an appeal to find a kidney donor for him. Hugo Williams won the TS Eliot Prize in 1999, and the Queen’s Gold M...
16th March 2014
Poet and 'ex-scumbag' Byron Vincent defends underclass on sink estates
A poet who has described himself as an “ex-scumbag” and former drug addict has made a plea for understanding of those who live on sink estates. Byron Vincent, a slam poet and regular performer at fest...
15th March 2014
Historic night at Southbank as five laureates read together for first time
It was, as Liz Lochhead said, “a wow of a night, right enough". Five women poet laureates – Gillian Clarke (Wales), Sinead Morrissey (Belfast), Lochhead (Scotland), Paula Meehan (Ireland), and Carol A...
15th March 2014
Lemn Sissay and Rhian Edwards to judge £5,000 Cardiff competition
Lemn Sissay and Rhian Edwards will be the judges of the £5,000 Cardiff international poetry competition, which has a closing date of 14 March. The filter judge will be Samantha Wynne Rhydderch. More d...
13th March 2014
The cup overflows: Write Out Loud at Wigan tonight
Members of Write Out Loud Wigan, some maybe still basking in the glow of the Latics' second successive FA Cup triumph over Manchester City at the weekend, will meet on Thursday 13 March for another ru...
13th March 2014
Welcome sign of spring as poetry trekker Joe hits the road again
A footslogging open mic poet who makes long treks to poetry events turned up to check out a new Write Out Loud night. Joe Nodus, who sometimes styles himself Joe Yuno, arrived wearing waterproof trous...
12th March 2014
Warm, edgy, inspiring Loose Muse in Manchester: what's not to like?
Women were on the loose at this open mic night of poetry at Manchester's Three Minute Theatre, a wonderful venue, on Monday 3 March. Held under the umbrella of the established and expanding Loose Muse...
11th March 2014
School reunion time at Troubadour for Faber Academy poets
There were poems about Stanley Spencer and Marc Chagall; poems about Hitler voiceovers, and hating Mozart; poems about primordial molluscs, Boris Johnson, mermaids, and a dodgy travelling fishmonger. ...
11th March 2014
Write Out Loud at Stockport art gallery tonight
Members of Write Out Loud Stockport meet on Monday 10 March at Stockport art gallery to share poems, and to help construct the group’s collage poem that is put together on the same night. Beginners ar...
10th March 2014
Small press with big dreams delivers latest anthology
The Emma Press is a small, independent publisher specialising in anthologies and pamphlets, and has only been up and running for just over a year. But in that time the energetic and enthusiastic Emma ...
9th March 2014
The jam is back: Write Out Loud's open mic at jazz festival on YouTube
A video that recaptures some of the warm, inclusive informality of Write Out Loud’s poetry jam at last year’s Marsden jazz festival has been uploaded on to YouTube. It forms part of Write Out Loud’s d...
9th March 2014
Words of war and a wealth of poetry at StAnza festival
StAnza, Scotland’s premier poetry festival, which this year stars Carol Ann Duffy, Paul Muldoon, John Burnside, and Louis de Bernières, has begun. The festival at St Andrews from 5-9 March has two the...
8th March 2014
Five contenders listed for Ted Hughes award
A series of elegies and eulogies written in the voices of an unlikely band of northern subversives; a collaboration between a poet and a medical herbalist; a multimedia live literature production abou...
7th March 2014
Some of us want no part of a UK 'brand': Kathleen Jamie on independence
Leading poet Kathleen Jamie has spoken out on Scottish independence, in an article for the New York Times. Jamie, who won the Costa poetry award last year for her collection The Overhaul, said the iss...
5th March 2014
The Claims Office: Dai George, Seren Books
Dai George is a young poet, born in Cardiff, who now lives in London but often returns to Wales. His debut collection shows a strong interest in religion and ancestors, is enriched by a deep sense of...
4th March 2014
Don Paterson to judge £1,000 Philip Larkin and East Riding prize
Don Paterson will be judging this year’s £1,000 Philip Larkin Society and East Riding poetry prize. The deadline is 14 April. More details
1st March 2014
The Elephant Tests: Matt Merritt, Nine Arches Press
I don’t like crosswords, whodunnits or things that require a dictionary, encyclopaedia of myths and legends, or even Wikipedia at hand to get below the surface and winkle out the hidden meanings of th...
1st March 2014
The art of choosing: magazine editors reveal how they sift and select
“I read the first line of every poem that comes in: if I read to the end it goes into a ‘maybe’ pile:” Ahren Warner, (pictured right), poetry editor of Poetry London magazine. “I make my mind up very ...
1st March 2014
