The ins and outs of poetry workshops: residential courses
Over the last three or four years I’ve shared various thoughts about writers’ workshops of various shapes and sizes: from groups of like-minded friends who meet regularly in pubs to listen to and advise on drafts at different stages of development, to full-on residential writing retreats where you’ll go in the hope of being inspired to write new stuff.
My starting point was to reflect on the fa...
31st March 2019
Wayne Holloway-Smith wins National Poetry Competition
Wayne Holloway-Smith has won the Poetry Society's £5,000 National Poetry Competition with his poem ‘The posh mums are boxing in the square’. One of the judges, Kei Miller, said: "It seems unfair at times that poetry, one of the chief articulators of our deepest sentiments, should be required in the...
30th March 2019
Poetry publisher hits appeal target in just two days after losing Arts Council grant
A poetry publisher that unexpectedly lost its Arts Council grant has met its initial cash target within two days of launching a Crowdfunder appeal. The Poetry Business, a poetry publisher and writer d...
28th March 2019
'Maybe the ghostly face in the window staring back at him'
Perhaps you've seen miniature portraits enclosed in lockets. Well, here's a little portrait enclosed in the pages of a chapbook by Pennsylvania poet Paul Martin called Mourning Dove, from the Comstock...
28th March 2019
Raymond Antrobus wins Ted Hughes award
The British-Jamaican spoken word poet Raymond Antrobus, who was born deaf, has won the £5,000 Ted Hughes award for innovative poetry for his collection The Perseverance, published by Penned in the Mar...
28th March 2019
Counting Backwards: Helen Dunmore, Bloodaxe
It is tempting to reiterate that Helen Dunmore was a poet first and last, both metaphorically and chronologically, but this would be to see prose and poetry as rigidly separate. To me her poetry alway...
27th March 2019
The company of poets: why listening and learning provides that buzz
I came back to Ted Hughes’ Season songs today, as I do on a day like this, with
the earth invalid, dropsied, bruised, wheeled
out into the sun,
after the frightful operation
...
25th March 2019
The Poem of the Week is 'The Dolphins Seemed Unfriendly' by Dominic James
This week's Poem of the Week is 'The Dolphins Seemed Unfriendly' by Dominic James, an alliterative master-class that drops us in the Med, talks of Paxos and Pan, and is delivered with the unfettered i...
25th March 2019
The Beat goes on ... Lawrence Ferlinghetti is 100
The city of San Francisco declared 24 March ‘Lawrence Ferlinghetti Day’ as the renowned American poet celebrated his 100th birthday on Sunday 24 March 2019.
Ferlinghetti, who is regarded as one of ...
24th March 2019
'For the Silent' anthology launch at Cheltenham festival
The launch of an anthology of poetry against cruel sports will be one of the readings to watch out for at Cheltenham poetry festival, from Thursday 25 April to Saturday 4 May. Literary supporters of a...
22nd March 2019
become something frail: Stuart Buck, Selcouth Station Press
Stuart Buck is possessed of an astonishing imagination coupled with an enviable ability to birth fully-formed poems of unique, musical, and mind-bending originality. become something frail is his seco...
22nd March 2019
'The storm looked alive, yellow and green at the fringes'
Is it worse to live in a city where you can't see a big storm coming until it's right on top of you, or to be out on the plains where you can see it coming for almost too long? I like this long look a...
22nd March 2019
David Cooke at Write Out Loud Woking tonight
David Cooke is the featured poet at Write Out Loud Woking on Thursday 21 March at the Lightbox art gallery and museum in Woking. Sign up from 7pm for the open-mic, hosted by Greg Freeman and Rodney Wo...
21st March 2019
Poets take to the train or head for seaside on World Poetry Day
It’s World Poetry day on Thursday 21 March – and in Suffolk six poets will be taking to the train for a poetry parade. Starting at Ipswich station from 12.30pm, the poets will perform on the platforms...
20th March 2019
Tributes paid to innovative poet, artist and campaigner Leanne Bridgewater
Tributes have been paid to innovative poet, artist and animal rights campaigner Leanne Bridgewater, whose recent death at the age of 29 has shocked and saddened the many people who knew her in the poe...
20th March 2019
Write Out Loud at Marsden library tonight
The optional theme is trees at this month’s Marsden Write Out Loud at Marsden library on Wednesday 20 March. Entry is £2. Share your own poems, read your favourites, or just listen. Everyone welcome. ...
20th March 2019
Caribbean poetry, haiku, graveyard poems and much more at broadcast festival
Turn on, tune in. From Thursday to Sunday 21-24 March, Chapel FM Arts Centre in Leeds will host Writing On Air, a different type of literary festival - different in the sense that the festival will co...
19th March 2019
The Soil Never Sleeps: Adam Horovitz, Palewell Press
How much use is a poet down on the farm? Adam Horovitz was invited by the Pasture-led Livestock Association to be their poet in residence for a year, which involved staying on four of their farms – in...
19th March 2019
So the Sky: Valerie Lynch, Dempsey & Windle
Valerie Lynch, who is aged 90, was born in Hertfordshire, but spent many childhood holidays visiting Dorset relatives. Although she has been writing poetry all her life and has had poems published in ...
19th March 2019
Dominic Berry at Write Out Loud Sale at the Waterside tonight
Saboteur award winner Dominic Berry is the guest poet at Write Out Loud Sale at the Waterside arts centre, Sale on Tuesday 19 March. Entry is £3 to this open-mic poetry night, and it starts at 7.30pm....
19th March 2019
The Write Out Loud Poem of the Week is 'Shoes' by D.Knape
19th March 2019
The edges of Europe: poets, actors and musicians perform events in London pub
Poets, actors and musicians will get together in a London pub over the weekend of 23-24 March to perform events “from the edges and in-between places of Europe”. There will be three sessions in three ...
17th March 2019
Staying alive: me and Mr MacCaig
There’s a sequence in one of Eddie Izzard’s shows where he’s riffing on supermarket shopping. At some point he remarks that if an old lady bumps you with her shopping trolley (which, by the way, will ...
17th March 2019
Write Out Loud at Bolton Socialist Club tonight
Bolton Write Out Loud meets at Bolton Socialist Club on Sunday 17 March for another welcoming night of open-mic poetry. Get there from 7.30pm for an 8pm start. Your hosts are Jeffarama! and Gordon Zol...
17th March 2019
Matt Abbott to perform 'Two Little Ducks' show on Brexit and refugees in Marsden tonight
Spoken word poet Matt Abbott will be performing his Two Little Ducks show, which is based on his experiences as a volunteer with refugees in Calais but is also an attempt to explain why his area – Wak...
15th March 2019
Alice in Winterland: Julie Egdell, Smokestack
My favourite version of Lewis Carroll’s best known work, the psychedelic fairytale ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ is not the slightly saccharine (but still endlessly strange) Disney version, nor t...
14th March 2019
'What if I just sat there? she asks. It's a free country, I tell her'
One of the many challenges in life is in knowing where you're supposed to sit. I slid into the wrong pew at a funeral 40 years ago and still smart from the hard looks I got. Here's a church pew poem b...
14th March 2019
Write Out Loud Wigan at the Old Courts tonight
After a Valentine’s Day return to its old haunt the Tudor last month, Write Out Loud Wigan returns to the Old Courts in Wigan on Thursday 14 March for another night of free, open-mic poetry with organ...
14th March 2019
Deadline nears for competition judged by Roger McGough
Roger McGough will be judging a compettion named after him and organised by Arts Richmond. The theme is Time, entrants must be 16 or over, and poems will be limited to no more than 200 words. The dead...
11th March 2019
Write Out Loud at Stockport art gallery tonight
Stockport Write Out Loud will be meeting at Stockport art gallery on Monday 11 March to share poems at its open-floor poetry night. Each month a collage poem is produced from readers’ contributions, a...
11th March 2019
The Write Out Loud Poem of the Week is 'The Racing Stable' by M.C Newberry
This week's Poem of the Week is 'The Racing Stable' by M.C Newberry, a poetic ode to the thrill of a new horse racing season. The writing engulfs us in the passions and excitements of the day of the r...
11th March 2019
Readings and open mics: a beginner's guide
Extraordinary to be sitting in the sun, in a T-shirt, watching blackbirds nest-building in the hawthorn. This time last year it was snowing. A poet friend of mine, Zoe Walkington, says poetry is a win...
10th March 2019
Messages Written on Envelope Backs: Ayelet McKenzie, Dempsey & Windle
Ayelet McKenzie has lived in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, for 32 years. She has published two pamphlet collections, and two previous full collections, The Patient is Disappointing and Courting the Asyl...
9th March 2019
Loud and proud: marking Women's Day!
It’s International Women’s Day today – and to mark the occasion Manchester publishers Flapjack Press are staging a free event at Manchester Central Library hosted by Rosie Garland and featuring Flapja...
8th March 2019
In it to win it: a guide to success in poetry competitions
Let’s get something out of the way right from the beginning. The odds of your winning a poetry competition are dramatically increased if you enter. Simultaneously, so are the chances of losing, but no...
4th March 2019
Dorothy Webb's 'The Silent March of 2001' is Poem of the Week
This week’s Write Out Loud Poem of the Week is ‘The Silent March of 2001’ by Dorothy Webb, a powerful piece remembering the often forgotten side of the foot and mouth outbreak of 2001. The poem relate...
4th March 2019
'Her lower lashes curl in toward a view that's hers alone'
Pauletta Hansel lives in Cincinnati, and today's poem is from her book Palindrome, from Dos Madres Press in Loveland, Ohio. It's a collection of poems about her mother's dementia, and although there h...
4th March 2019
Actor injured in incident outside Scottish Poetry Library after tribute event
An actor was allegedly stabbed in Edinburgh on Saturday after taking part in an event at the Scottish Poetry Library. Tam Dean Burn had been speaking at the event, a tribute to the late poet Tom Leona...
4th March 2019
Deadline nears for Brian Dempsey Memorial competition
The founder of Cheltenham poetry festival, Anna Saunders, will be judging the Brian Dempsey Memorial poetry competition, organised by publishers Dempsey & Windle. There is a pamphlet prize, for entrie...
3rd March 2019
Poetry comes alive in Leamington as town plans first festival this summer
An innovative new poetry festival that includes involvement with local schools will take place this summer in a town originallly immortalised in a poem by Sir John Betjeman.
The first Leamington po...
2nd March 2019
Sense Me: Annum Salman, AuthorHouse
A well-informed article recently published by the Guardian discussed poetry’s wind of change over the last few years, and mentioned young poets such as Rupi Kaur, whose bestselling works can be found ...
1st March 2019
Archers star Ben Norris to compere slam at StAnza festival
A member of the cast of long-running radio series The Archers is one of the “stars of the future and new voices” that will be taking part in Scotland's International StAnza poetry festival between 6-1...
1st March 2019
