Let's dance: Emma Press seeks submissions for new anthology
The Emma Press is inviting submissions for its next anthology, on dance, aimed at capturing its “exhilaration and joy”. They say: “We want poems about first dances, last dances, slow dances, panicky dances, school discos, dance lessons, dance competitions, dancing in your bedroom, ballet, tango, quickstep, freestyle, street dancing, hip-hop, Zumba, softshoe, tap, Northern Soul, dancing around a to...
30th April 2014
The Museum of Disappearing Sounds: Zoë Skoulding, Seren
Writing on her staff profile page for Bangor University, where she is senior lecturer in the school of English, Zoë Skoulding says: “I perform poetry with field recordings and electronic music as an exploration of relationships between language and the physical environment.” This cross-art nature of...
30th April 2014
'We like oddball, fringe-dwelling weirdos.' Burning Eye's call to performance poets
Calling all performance poets yet to publish a first collection – performance poetry publisher Burning Eye is waiting to hear from you. Burning Eye’s publisher, Clive Birnie, pictured at the London Po...
30th April 2014
Forget Barbie: women seek poems for anthology celebrating the body
Four women editors are inviting submissions to a new poetry anthology inspired by “a passionate desire” to celebrate women’s bodies, “leaving Barbie ... in her box for good”. Sue Jones-Davies, Dee Orr...
29th April 2014
Nominations deadline for Saboteur awards is end of April
Nominations have opened for the 2014 Saboteur awards, which include best spoken word performer, best spoken word night, and best spoken word show, as well as new categories for best reviewer and best ...
27th April 2014
'Yes. I remember Adlestrop.' Village's competition to mark poem's centenary
One of England’s most famous poems is the subject of a competition on its centenary. ‘Adlestrop’, by Edward Thomas, was written about a stop made by his train at a deserted country station in June 191...
27th April 2014
Tributes follow death of Lorraine Charlesworth, co-host of Write Out Loud at Middleton
Sunday’s meeting of Write Out Loud Middleton on 27 April will be held in memory of Middleton’s recent co-host Lorraine Charlesworth, who has died suddenly. Her fellow host at Middleton, Norman Warwick...
27th April 2014
The bright side of Elvis McGonagall, to be aired on Radio 4
Stand-up poet, armchair revolutionary, comedian and broadcaster Elvis McGonagall takes to the airwaves on 30 April when the first episode of ‘Elvis McGonagall Takes A Look On The Bright Side’ goes out...
26th April 2014
Steve Ely and Kim Moore join Marsden poets for Cuckoo festival jam
Two leading poets will be reading at Marsden’s famous Railway Inn, home of the legendary Write Out Loud poetry jam, on Saturday 26 April as part of a Write Out Loud fringe event at the West Yorkshire ...
26th April 2014
Armitage, Hegley and Wright lead star line-up at Wenlock
Simon Armitage, John Hegley, Daljit Nagra, Frieda Hughes, Luke Wright, Elaine Feinstein, Glyn Maxwell and David Morley are just some of the star names at Wenlock poetry festival, in the Shropshire tow...
24th April 2014
Write Out Loud's Risk a Verse at the Red and Green Club in Huddersfield on Thursday
Write Out Loud’s newest monthly open mic event, Risk a Verse at the Red and Green Club, Milnsbridge, Huddersfield, is on Thursday 24 April at 7.30pm. Bring a couple of poems, or just your ears to hear...
24th April 2014
Forward and Costa winner to judge Poetry London competition
Forward and Costa poetry prize winner Michael Symmons Roberts will be judging Poetry London magazine’s £1,000 competition. The deadline is 2 May. More details
20th April 2014
Roddy Lumsden to judge Ware poetry competition
Roddy Lumsden will be judging the £600 Ware Poets open competition. The deadline is 30 April. More details
20th April 2014
Deadline nears for Cornwall poetry competition
Imtiaz Dharker will be the judge of the £500 Cornwall contemporary poetry festival competition, with a deadline of 30 April 2014. The festival, organised by Falmouth Poetry Group, will take place on 2...
20th April 2014
Back at the mic: Write Out Loud Bolton returns
Write Out Loud Bolton is back on Sunday 20 April after a three-month break, hosted by Jeff Dawson, pictured, aka Jeffarama!, and Gordon Zola. The start is 7.30pm for 8 for the open mic event at the B...
20th April 2014
Performance poet Jess Green's attack on Michael Gove and plea for teachers is runaway YouTube hit
A five-minute poem attacking the education secretary, Michael Gove, has proved a runaway success on YouTube, amassing over 200,000 hits. Stories about the video have been featured by the Independent n...
19th April 2014
Carol Ann Duffy gives reading to aid literary festival
The poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, is to give a special reading at the Orangery in Wakefield on Easter Saturday, 19 April, at 6pm to help raise funds in support of Wakefield Lit Fest. The poet laurea...
18th April 2014
Portrait of the artist as a young reporter: tour of Dylan Thomas haunts this weekend
Dylan Thomas fans have a chance to tour some of his Swansea haunts this Easter weekend. The two-hour tour, which is being led by Fluellen Theatre Company, starts from the Maritime Quarter’s Dylan Thom...
18th April 2014
John Cooper Clarke: 'Poetry is not something you retire from. There is no heavy lifting involved'
John Cooper Clarke has talked of turning 65, living in Essex, how Pam Ayres was a great inspiration to him – and how the only politician whose language “I even remotely understand” is Ukip’s Nigel Far...
16th April 2014
Travel the Pennine way: Write Out Loud at Marsden tonight
Travel is the theme of Write Out Loud at Marsden, at the library, in Marsden Mechanics Institute, on Wednesday 16 April. Travel is what Marsden is about, with the A62, once the Liverpool- Manchester-L...
16th April 2014
Write Out Loud Sale at the Waterside tonight
Ian Whiteley and Jeffarama! (aka Jeff Dawson) are the guests poets at Write Out Loud Sale, at the Waterside arts centre, Sale, on Tuesday 15 April. It’s hosted by John Darwin, entry is £3/£2, and it s...
15th April 2014
Write Out Loud at Stockport art gallery tonight
Members of Write Out Loud Stockport meet on Monday 14 April 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...
14th April 2014
Winning run: John Foggin triumphs again with second poetry prize
John Foggin has won the Lumen/Camden poetry competition, his second big poetry prize within a few months. John, pictured at Puzzle Hall Poets in Sowerby Bridge last year, is based in Ossett, West York...
11th April 2014
My Family and other Superheroes: Jonathan Edwards, Seren
This collection, in parts nostalgic and emotional, reveals a poet preoccupied with heart and hearth. However, Jonathan Edwards’ characters and places stop short of being caricature, and his appeal to ...
10th April 2014
Poets in all their glory at Write Out Loud Wigan tonight
Bawling, drunken, old, young, new and subtle poets - some funny, some melancholy, some political and some absurd. That’s the promise at Write out Loud Wigan, at the Tudor House hotel on Thursday 10 Ap...
10th April 2014
Chance of a lifetime as three northern writers win The Verb awards
Three northern writers - Louise Fazackerley, Matt Miller, and John Hamilton May - have been given the chance to work with BBC Radio 3’s The Verb as recipients of the Verb New Voices award.
Verb New...
10th April 2014
He wrote in the trenches, and died in 1918. But Isaac Rosenberg did not see himself as a war poet
Frances Spurrier writes about Isaac Rosenberg, a poet who was killed in the first world war. Some of his best-known poems deserve their place alongside those of Owen and Sassoon. Rosenberg died on pat...
9th April 2014
In the name of Dorothy: festival of women's poetry at Grasmere
Rebecca Goss, pictured, will be taking part in a panel discussion on “writing motherhood” with TS Eliot prizewinner Sinead Morrissey and Carolyn Jess-Cooke at the Dorothy Wordsworth festival of women’...
8th April 2014
Leaf encounter: Linda France wins National Poetry Competition
Linda France has won this year’s £5,000 National Poetry Competition with her poem ‘Bernard and Cerinthe’. It imagines an erotic encounter in a greenhouse between a shy man and an enticing flower. Judg...
6th April 2014
Maggie Sawkins wins £5,000 Ted Hughes award with multimedia look at addiction
Maggie Sawkins has won this year’s £5,000 Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry for Zones of Avoidance, a multimedia live literature production written and performed by Sawkins and directed by Mark ...
5th April 2014
It's National Poetry Month: read all about it, says Winston Plowes
It’s National Poetry Month in the US and Canada – and for a lot of poets in the UK, too, who will be striving throughout April to produce a poem a day, using a wild variety of prompts.
4th April 2014
On the trail of Ted Hughes: more twists in tale of biographer's row with estate
The estate of Ted Hughes has hit back at claims after a biographer abandoned plans to publish his book with Hughes’s poetry publisher, Faber. According to reports in the Sunday Times and the Guardian,...
4th April 2014
Carol Ann Duffy leads poetry reading outside Pentonville jail in books protest
The poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, has led a protest poetry reading outside Pentonville prison in north London, against a government ban on sending books and other essentials to prisoners. Jo Shapcot...
3rd April 2014
Dizraeli and Hannah Silva top bill at Wise Words festival
Performance poet Dizraeli, and Hannah Silva, shortlisted for the Ted Hughes award, top the bill at Canterbury’s Wise Words festival, from Friday 4 April to Sunday 6 April. There’s an inclusive feel to...
2nd April 2014
The Killing of Sophie Lancaster: a tragedy that continues to haunt
There are the sounds of children playing as the audience files in, shouts and laughter; it could be a playground in a park. With the knowledge of what we are about to see, the sounds are eerie, sinist...
2nd April 2014
Aid for inspiration: poets win Literature Wales bursary awards
A filmmaker embarking on her first poetry collection; a poet and journalist who is tracking down 150 poets from six continents to ask them about their inspiration; and a publisher of contemporary expe...
1st April 2014
