Why Dr John Cooper Clarke loves to be beside the seaside
Dr John Cooper Clarke, the Bard of Salford – and of seaside resorts in Essex, too, these days – has penned a poem in praise of the coast for the National Trust. His ode includes these lines: “A nice cuppa splosh and a round of toast / A cursory glance at the morning post / A pointless walk along the coast / That’s what floats my boat the most.”
Cooper Clarke has taken the title Dr after his hon...
30th July 2015
'Shellshocked' live venue pledges to carry on after losing Arts Council funding
A live venue that aims to promote writing at the grassroots says it is “shellshocked” after discovering that its renewed bid for two-year funding has been turned down by Arts Council England.
The Spotlight club in Lancaster is re-applying to ACE as well as looking for other sources of funding af...
30th July 2015
Billy Collins to judge €10,000 Ballymaloe poetry prize
Billy Collins will be judging the €10,000 Ballymaloe poetry prize for a single unpublished poem. The competition is run in association with The Moth magazine. The four shortlisted poems will appear in...
30th July 2015
'Looking beyond the obvious': Write Out Loud interviews Owen Lowery
Owen Lowery is a former British judo champion and poet. He suffered a spinal injury while competing and is now a tetraplegic. In an interview he tells Greg Freeman about reading his poetry in public w...
30th July 2015
Deadline nears for Carers UK competition
Cheryl Moskowitz will be judging the Carers UK creative writing competition for poems and short stories. The organisers say: "While we're inviting entries about all aspects of caring, this year we're ...
27th July 2015
Write Out Loud Middleton cancelled tonight
We are informed that Write Out Loud Middleton at the Ring O Bells tonight has had to be cancelled at the last minute for unforeseen reasons. Please watch this space for more information about the next...
26th July 2015
John Gilham is new editor of Dream Catcher magazine
York poet John Gilham has been appointed the editor of the literary journal Dream Catcher. Gilham has been on the editorial board of Dream Catcher since Stairwell Books took over the magazine and his ...
25th July 2015
Deadline nears for £500 Wells literature festival competition
Peter Oswald will be judging the £500 Wells festival of literature poetry competition. The deadline is 31 July. There will be a poetry reading and prizegiving on 11 October. More details
23rd July 2015
Risk a Verse at the Red and Green Club in Huddersfield tonight
Last month’s Risk A Verse poetry night at the Red and Green club, in Milnsbridge, Huddersfield, saw new readers at a super session as Eddie Hughes took over the reins as compere. For this, his second ...
23rd July 2015
Trevor Meaney and JB Barrington at Greater Manchester Fringe festival
Two spoken word artists - Edinburgh Fringe performer Trevor Meaney and previous Greater Manchester Fringe award winner JB Barrington - will be performing their shows at this year’s Greater Manchester ...
23rd July 2015
'Godfathers of hip hop' Last Poets are back in the UK
The Last Poets – Umar Bin Hassan, Abiodun Oyewole and Babatunde – will be appearing at Pop Brixton in London on Thursday 23 July for an evening of conversation, questions from the audience, and live p...
23rd July 2015
Big Charlie Poet and Matt Abbott at Write Out Loud Sale tonight
Big Charlie Poet and Matt Abbott are the guests at Write Out Loud Sale on Tuesday 21 July at the Waterside arts centre, Sale. Entry is £3/£2 to this open mic event, hosted by John Darwin. It begins a...
21st July 2015
Wild West meets Black Country with dialectician Dave Reeves
Tuesday 21 July 2015 is the 150th anniversary of what is generally accepted as the first shootout in the Wild West - just one of the events that poet Dave Reeves will be celebrating in verse when he ...
21st July 2015
A new year resolution that changed lives: Jo Bell's 52 Project launches anthology
A poetry project that changed lives, created a close-knit poetry community, and emboldened many to gain the confidence to get themselves published, has launched an anthology of its work at Stratford-u...
20th July 2015
From Cardiff to Patagonia and beyond: poets help pupils reach for the stars
Pupils from three primary schools in Cardiff took part in a finale on Monday that featured a real live poetry tree, a countdown to a rocket launch into space, aliens and astronauts, and a whistlestop ...
19th July 2015
Write Out Loud Bolton at the Brooklyn tonight
Comperes Jeffarama! and Gordon Zola will welcome you to Write Out Loud Bolton on Sunday 19 July at the Brooklyn pub, Green Lane, Bolton. Entry is £1 plus raffle to this open mic event, which starts at...
19th July 2015
Everything's coming up roses for poets at Wisley arts fest
John Hegley, AF Harrold, Dominic Berry and Dan Simpson will be performing in the poetry tent at the Royal Horticultural Society gardens at Wisley in Surrey as part of Wisley’s arts fest over the weeke...
17th July 2015
Editor Grant Tarbard calls time on The Screech Owl
Editor Grant Tarbard has been forced to close The Screech Owl, a poetry print magazine and ezine beloved by its contributors. Tarbard, who made the announcement on Tuesday, said he had made the decis...
17th July 2015
Armitage ready to investigate the role of rap in modern poetry
Simon Armitage has said he will use rap and hip hop to investigate definitions of modern poetry in his forthcoming role as the new professor of poetry at Oxford University. In an interview with the Da...
17th July 2015
Small Hands: Mona Arshi, Liverpool University Press
There is an obvious motif of hands running through Mona Arshi’s wonderful debut collection, Small Hands - hands and palms that have “dents” and “pleats”. Rain crops up many times in the poems, too, of...
15th July 2015
Reach for the sky at Write Out Loud Marsden tonight
The theme is Sky at this month’s meeting of Write Out Loud Marsden on Wednesday 15 July. Compere of the open-floor night at Marsden library, Marsden Mechanics Hall – Mr Blue Sky himself, Julian Jordon...
15th July 2015
Afghan women writing in secret, and Iraqi, Syrian and Kurdish poets on the front line
Afghan women who gather in secret in recite and write poems of war, grief, separation, and love, and Iraqi, Syrian and Kurdistani poets offering dispatches from the front line are just some of the hig...
15th July 2015
Dark Islands: Tom Chivers, Test Centre
In this collection of poems Tom Chivers, the innovative publisher of Penned in the Margins, transmits with often dazzling language a vivid and troubling vision in which the old and modern Thames takes...
13th July 2015
Write Out Loud at Stockport art gallery tonight
Members of Write Out Loud Stockport will be meeting at Stockport art gallery on Monday 13 July at 7pm. Entry is a £1 donation to this open-floor poetry night. More details and Map
13th July 2015
'Between image and language': new anthology of concrete poetry in the 21st century
Concrete poetry is … “somewhere between image and language … between art and poetry … between order and chaos”. These definitions – and a number of others - appear on the blog of Victoria Bean and Chr...
12th July 2015
Winston's Spoke-n-Word bike encounters pelicans and Godiva at Glastonbury
That champion of “found” poetry, Winston Plowes, has been producing poems from his unique Spoke-n-Word random poetry generating bicycle outside the Poetry & Words tent at Glastonbury festival. Accord...
12th July 2015
Vanessa Kisuule heads Spread the Verb at Poole festival
Vanessa Kisuule will be appearing at Poole Festival of Words on Thursday 23 July in Spread the Verb, a spoken word showcase at Poole museum at 7pm that also features Bournemouth poet laureate James Ma...
10th July 2015
The poetry of basketball, and other bright ideas: how to win Arts Council funding
How can you make a living as a poet? You can’t, is the customary reply. Ah, but have you considered applying for a grant from Arts Council England? As ACE’s relationship manager for literature, Gemma ...
9th July 2015
Write Out Loud Wigan at the Old Courts tonight
The crowds are swelling at Write Out Loud Wigan at the Old Courts – last month it was standing room only. Entry is free to this open mic night, which begins at 8.30pm on Thursday 9 July. More details ...
9th July 2015
PJ Harvey to publish poetry in collaboration with photographer
Musician PJ Harvey is to publish her first collection of poetry later this year. Bloomsbury is publishing The Hollow of the Hand, Harvey’s collaboration with photographer and filmmaker Seamus Murphy, ...
8th July 2015
Deadline nears for Bare Fiction's £1,000 debut poetry collection competition
Andrew McMillan will be judging Bare Fiction magazine’s debut poetry collection competition. First prize is £1,000, publication of your first poetry collection, and 50 free copies. Second and third pr...
8th July 2015
Deadline nears for Live Canon first collection competition
Glyn Maxwell will be judging the Live Canon first collection competition, which has a deadline of 15 July. In the first instance, you are asked to submit 16 A4 pages of the manuscript. The longlist wi...
6th July 2015
Andrew Marr and BBC's Radio 4 to mark National Poetry Day with epic day of broadcasting
Broadcaster and journalist Andrew Marr will mark National Poetry Day on Thursday 8 October this year by telling the story of Britain on BBC Radio 4 through its poetry, from the earliest verses written...
6th July 2015
Poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy to judge £1,000 Plough poetry prize
The £1,000 Plough poetry prize will be judged by the poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy. The deadline is 30 November. More details
PHOTOGRAPH: POETRY SOCIETY / HAYLEY MADDEN
6th July 2015
John Lennon's nonsense poetry to be performed at Edinburgh
John Lennon’s nonsense poetry is to be performed in a show at the Edinburgh Fringe festival in August. Baldynoggin Productions will be performing In His Own Write in its entirety for the first time by...
6th July 2015
'My aim is to inspire and be inspired': Lemn Sissay voted in as next chancellor of Manchester University
The award-winning poet, writer and broadcaster Lemn Sissay MBE has been elected as the next chancellor of the University of Manchester, the university said on Monday. He beat Sir Mark Elder, director ...
5th July 2015
End of July deadline for Foyle Young Poets of the Year
Liz Berry and Michael Symmons Roberts will be judging this year’s Foyle Young Poets of the Year award which looks for 15 top winners and 85 commended poets aged 11-17 from all over the world.
This ...
4th July 2015
The Pity: first world war anthology, Poetry Society
This Poetry Society anthology, published in 2014, was an initiative to celebrate the centenary of the Great War. They chose four poets who would represent different "poetics and perspectives" to write...
1st July 2015
