Alice Oswald on the scent of poetry
Scents - subtle, powerful, fragrant or odiferous – will be the subject of Alice Oswald’s poetry conversation evening on Tuesday 12 June at Sharpham House, Ashprington, near Totnes. Participants are invited to bring a poem or poetic response to read, perform or show in reply. Poetry can be interpreted as broadly as you wish. Suggested donation: £5. It starts at 7.30pm. More details and Map
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31st May 2012
Lincolnshire tales by McMillan, Clarke, Lochhead - and Tutu
A poetic drama featuring words by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and fables by poets Ian McMillan, Gillian Clarke and Liz Lochhead is to form the centrepiece of Lincolnshire’s contribution to the Cultural Olympiad.
Golden Fables 2012, which has been commissioned by Lincoln-based cultural solutions U...
31st May 2012
Live Poetry: An Integrated Approach to Poetry in Performance by Julia Novak
This is a cracking book, especially for anyone wanting to understand this movement, this growing, UK-wide phenomenon of people getting together to read poems to each other, in open-mic, spoken word...
31st May 2012
The Write Out Loud interview: Kenneth Steven
Kenneth Steven is a children’s author and poet, living near Perth. His services were recently retained by organisers of the Wigan Words festival and I was fortunate to work alongside him at a loca...
30th May 2012
Word Soup Womanhood at Preston
Ann Wilson, Kim Moore and Sarah Miller are among the poets appearing at Word Soup Womanhood, Lancashire Writing Hub’s latest Live Lit Night at the Continental, in South Meadow Lane, Preston, on 31 ...
29th May 2012
Last calls for poetry contests
Get your skates on to the postbox. It’s the last call for Wirral festival of Firsts poetry contest. The deadline is 1 June. What’s more, the closing date for the renowned Bridport poetry competitio...
27th May 2012
Richard Tyrone Jones: the heart of the matter
Poet and writer Richard Tyrone Jones suffered a massive heart attack in 2010, at the age of 30.
Now (almost) fully recovered he has written Richard Tyrone Jones’s Big Heart, a new show about h...
27th May 2012
Write Out Loud Middleton's Ken Eaton-Dykes takes centre stage
Write Out Loud Middleton’s 2011 poet of the year, Ken Eaton-Dykes, has the guest slot at this Sunday’s open mic get-together at the Ring O’Bells pub, St Leonard’s Square, Middleton, on 27 May. Entr...
26th May 2012
Luggage-label poetry in the park at Hebden Bridge
From air raids to autism, curry to contemporary art, luggage-label poetry is springing up, attached to natural and man-made objects in Hebden Bridge’s Calder Holmes Park from 26-29 May. The poet be...
26th May 2012
Watch out - guerrilla poets are about
Guerrilla poets will be roaming Gatehouse of Fleet on Saturday 26 May as part of the Dumfries and Galloway festival’s Big Lit Day in the town. The poets will be accosting folk – in the nicest possi...
25th May 2012
Wordsworth Trust winners at Grasmere
Four winners of the Wordsworth Trust book and pamphlet competition will be reading from their collections at the Jerwood centre at Town End, Grasmere, on Saturday 26 May at 2.30pm. Winners Kim Moor...
25th May 2012
Performance Poet Publication Launch
Here’s a poetry book launch with a difference. Burning Eye Books was established to turn performance poets into page-published ones; a superb idea.
They launch their first title in Bristol this...
23rd May 2012
After adoption: write about your experiences
Adoptee and poet Anwen Lewis is offering a course of five evening workshops to adopted adults in the north-west who would like to explore and express their experience in creative writing. Workshops...
22nd May 2012
Write Out Loud Sale on Tuesday
Steven Vickers, Rebecca Audra Smith and Shirley May are the guests at Write Out Loud Sale’s open mic at the Waterside arts centre, Sale, on Tuesday 22 May, which is hosted by Rod Tame. First time r...
21st May 2012
Roll up for the Lamplight poetry slam
There are still a few places left for would-be contestants for the Lamplight poetry slam at Stanley, Co Durham, presented by Leisureworks in association with Talking Pen and Lamplight arts centre. ...
18th May 2012
That poetry podium feeling: Greenheart prize-winner Laura on a grand night out
Back in December 2011, I read a news article on WOL about a national poetry competition run in conjunction with the Leigh and Wigan Words literary festival. The core theme was the local environmen...
18th May 2012
What a lot of nonsense: celebrating Edward Lear's 200th birthday
An exhibition of illustrations has been launched at the Poetry Cafe in London in honour of Victorian nonsense writer and artist Edward Lear, and to mark his 200th birthday. Lear’s most famous work ...
18th May 2012
Write Out Loud Bolton on Sunday
Charlotte Henson is guest poet at Write Out Loud Bolton on Sunday 20 May, at its new home of the Brooklyn pub, in Green Lane, Bolton. Guest MC is Bill Brierley, and event mastermind is Jeff Dawson ...
18th May 2012
One man and his shed: John Davies in Brighton
A poet of whom it has been said, “what Wordsworth did for daffodils, John Davies does for sheds”, pops up in Hove on Friday 18 May in an event that is part of the Brighton Festival Fringe. John Dav...
18th May 2012
Write Out Loud Marsden tonight
Write Out Loud Marsden, right in the heart of Simon Armitage country and Pennine poetry trails, reconvenes on Wednesday 16 May under the expert eye of WOL co-founder Julian Jordon. The open mic eve...
16th May 2012
Deadline nears for Warrington poetry contest
The 18 May deadline is only a few days away for a competition with health, wealth and happiness as the themes. Well Warrington Network’s poetry and short story competition will be judged by prize-w...
14th May 2012
Write Out Loud Stockport tonight
Take your places in the serene surroundings of Stockport art gallery on Monday 14 May for Write Out Loud Stockport. Share your poems at this friendly, open-floor poetry night, where beginners are e...
14th May 2012
Liverpool legend Brian Patten at Norfolk poetry festival
One of the legendary Liverpool poets, Brian Patten, is appearing at Poetry-next-the-sea, at Wells-next-the sea, Norfolk, a festival taking place from 11-13 May. Patten made his name in the 1960s, a...
11th May 2012
Head for St Ives for poetry in the square
It must be spring! The St Ives literature festival in Cornwall starts on Saturday 5 May and runs until Sunday 12 May. There's a host of events at the St Ives Arts Club, St Ives Library and Café Art...
11th May 2012
Aldeburgh poetry festival wins big lottery grant
The future of Aldeburgh poetry festival has been safeguarded, after it has won significant arts lottery funding. This year’s festival from 2-4 November will be expanding into the world-famous conce...
11th May 2012
The Heart and the Subsidiary: Fatima Al Matar
A formidable intelligence roars through these poems, published by AuthorHouse, with a tenacious grasp of the idea that the smallest thing contributes to the whole. Or, perhaps, that no thing in our...
11th May 2012
Dominic Berry's Wizard: When the world comes knocking at the door
Dominic Berry’s poetry-fantasy-theatre extravaganza Wizard, seen at the Cockpit theatre in north London, is a cri de coeur on behalf of those who need to weave spells to make sense of the world abo...
11th May 2012
Open mic performers wanted at Petersfield
An open mic venue is pleading for more floor performers – because so many of its audiences are turning up just to hear the star guests.
Write Angle at Petersfield is boasting another star turn ...
11th May 2012
Ways with Words
With Hay imminent, does the world need another Literature Festival? The answer appears to be yes as Ways with Words lands at Opera Holland Park from 18th - 20th May 2012. The line up includes Jun...
11th May 2012
The bolshiest? You decide at Write Out Loud Wigan
The venue that boasts of being the bolshiest open mic in the north-west is back. After last month’s slam Write Out Loud Wigan returns to the Tudor on Thursday 10 May from 8-11 pm. There’s a special...
7th May 2012
Sixty poems to mark Queen's 60 years
Leading poets, including Gillian Clarke, Geoffrey Hill, Brian Patten, Liz Lochhead, Christpher Reid, Wendy Cope, John Burnside, Simon Armitage, Philip Gross, Sean O’brien and Jo Shapcott, as well a...
3rd May 2012
Mab Jones bursts into flower at National Botanic Garden
A poem last year about a giant, spiky plant from the Andes planted the seed of an idea … and now Write Out Loud’s regular performance poetry diarist, Mab Jones, has been appointed the first poet in...
3rd May 2012
Poetry Performance Enhancement - one of Walsh's workshops
You’d better book early for this! Tony Walsh (pictured with John Cooper Clarke at Latitude festival) is one of the finest poetry performers on the circuit, one whose success has taken him to great ...
3rd May 2012
Dominic Berry's Wizard goes on tour
After its sell-out nights in Manchester Dominic Berry is taking his Wizard poetry-fantasy-theatre show on tour. After appearing in Petersfield last week, on 1 and 2 May he is in London, at the Cock...
2nd May 2012
Love, escape and survival in Germany and Russia
A poetry collection by the daughter of a couple who fled Hitler’s Germany and were imprisoned in Russia and interned in England will be launched at the Poetry Cafe in London tomorrow night, Wednesd...
1st May 2012
