Pascale Petit wins Keats-Shelley poetry prize with 'Indian Paradise Flycatcher'
Pascale Petit has won the £1,000 Keats-Shelley poetry prize with her poem ‘Indian Paradise Flycatcher’, in response to the competition theme of Songbird, marking the composition 200 years ago of Percy Bysshe Shelley's ‘To a Skylark’ and the publication in book form of John Keats's ‘Ode to a Nightingale’.
Pascale said: “I entered two poems, added ‘Indian Paradise Flycatcher’ almost as an afterth...
29th April 2020
Merseyside poets invited to contribute to World in Lockdown 'patchwork' poem
Poets on Merseyside are being invited to contribute to a lengthy ‘patchwork’ poem that documents the lockdown mood in the region.
The World in Lockdown People's Poem is being curated by poet Barry Woods, assisted by poet Michelle Wright. Barry said: “We want a lengthy patchwork-style poem that do...
27th April 2020
Beware of 'Zoom-bombers': online organisers urged to step up security
An online poetry organiser is urging others to beware of the growing problem of ‘Zoom-bomber’ trolls disrupting events. The Stay-at-Home! online Literary Festival is warning that organisers should ema...
22nd April 2020
Carol Ann Duffy launches poetry project in response to pandemic
The former poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, has launched an international poetry project with other poets including Imtiaz Dharker, Roger McGough and Andrew McMillan,in response to the coronavirus pand...
22nd April 2020
'Alone, all alone': celebs offer daily online readings of Coleridge's Ancient Mariner
Celebrities including Lemn Sissay, Iggy Pop, Hilary Mantel, Jeremy Irons, Tilda Swinton and Marianne Faithfull will be reading daily from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' fo...
21st April 2020
Comedian and football fan Frank Skinner to launch poetry podcast
Comedian and poetry fan Frank Skinner is to launch a poetry podcast, and will be talking about poems “the way I talk about football. I’m passionate about both and believe there is a real space for som...
15th April 2020
Poetry School adapts face-to-face courses for Zoom
The Poetry School will be offering some of its summer term face-to-face courses via Zoom. It already offers regular online courses, and now three of its face-to-face ones have been “adjusted for Zoom”...
15th April 2020
Poets give thanks to transport workers in moving poem-video
Poetry is proving it has the power to comfort and to console in these times. The nation is turning to it as never before – on TV and radio, and in newspapers, too. Countless poems have been posted by ...
15th April 2020
Bolton Write Out Loud goes online tonight
Bolton Write Out Loud will be the third Write Out Loud night to go online, on Wednesday 15 April at 7.30pm. Co-organiser Jeff Dawson is seeking a dozen readers to take part via the video conferencing ...
15th April 2020
Barnsley appoints Ian McMillan as Poet in Lockdown
The Bard of Barnsley, Ian McMillan, has a new post in his home town. Barnsley Museums has appointed the presenter of BBC Radio 3’s The Verb as its Poet in Lockdown, with the job of inspiring others to...
13th April 2020
Apples and Snakes to livestream spoken word shows
The spoken word performance organisation Apples and Snakes is launching a new initiative – Apples and Snakes @ Home – in this time of lockdown, with a series of hour-long livestreamed poetry and conve...
13th April 2020
Popular poetry group launches anthology after being flooded with pandemic poems
Less than a month ago, poet Janine Booth set up a Facebook group for fellow poets wanting to write about the issues and experiences that people were facing during the coronavirus crisis – and was amaz...
10th April 2020
Poet and teacher Kate Clanchy on Orwell prize longlist
A book by poet and teacher Kate Clanchy has been included on the longlist of 12 for the Orwell prize for political writing. Clanchy’s book Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me (Picador) is about...
9th April 2020
New NHS poetry anthology raises £2,500 for Covid-19 Emergency Fund
Profits from a poetry anthology about the NHS, These are the Hands, have raised £2,500 for the NHS Charities Together Covid 19 Emergency fund since the anthology's launch less than three weeks ago. Th...
9th April 2020
Four contemporary poets respond to Wordsworth in BBC Radio 4 programme
BBC Radio 4 marked the 250th anniversary of William Wordsworth’s birthday with poems from four contemporary poets – Helen Mort, Kim Moore, Jacob Polley and Zaffar Kunial – in a programme called The Ne...
9th April 2020
Royal Mail launches Romantic Poets stamps to mark Wordsworth anniversary
A set of stamps commemorating the Romantic Poets to mark the 250th anniversary of William Wordsworth’s birth go on sale from today, Tuesday 7 April. As well as the quote from a Wordsworth poem, pictur...
7th April 2020
BBC radio programme You and Yours urges poetry-writing listeners to get in touch
The BBC Radio 4 programme You and Yours says it wants to hear from anyone who has taken to writing poetry as a result of the pandemic. In an item last week the programme looked at why some people, inc...
6th April 2020
Michael Rosen's poem 'These are the Hands' read on Today programme as author remains 'poorly' in hospital
A poem by Michael Rosen, ‘These are the Hands’, that is the title poem of a timely new poetry anthology about the NHS, was read on BBC Radio 4’s morning Today programme on Thursday at around 8.30 am b...
5th April 2020
Stockport Write Out Loud holds first online meeting
Stockport Write Out Loud, which usually meets at Stockport art gallery, has held its first meeting online. The group, which normally meets once a month, is switching to bi-monthly meetings via the vid...
4th April 2020
ITV ends London news programme with a poem
ITV’s London News has been ending its half-hourly bulletin just before 6.30pm this week with a poem by a London poet. Here’s a video of one of the poets, Ollie Feather from south London, reading Hour ...
2nd April 2020
