The software glitch should be over now and you are OK to upload your poems in shops again. We have extended the deadline until the morning to give you chance to upload any final poems for the Bolton Arts Trail. Looks like it was just a bug in the system, pesky things! Humble apologies for all the botheration, and a huge thank you to you all for your patience and persistence in trying the workarounds. Hopefully all is OK now. -------- Submissions are invited for original poems to be displayed alongside other art works in town centre shops during Bolton’s week-long arts festival from 14 June. It’s a superb opportunity for poets, amateur or established, to have their work read by hundreds of people in Bolton’s town centre and by thousands of regular visitors to the Write Out Loud website, the UK’s biggest online poetry community. The final selection will also appear in a Bolton Arts Festival anthology and website.  Our website shows a list of participating shops with basic information and links where available. Poets are invited to write a poem on a theme of, or inspired by, the individual shop, and submit it online. The poems will be appear on the website, where people can comment and rate them out of 10, the final selection being curated by Write Out Loud founder Julian Jordon. Serious or humorous, all poems suitable for public readership are welcome. “I am hoping that, for example, the pasty VAT issue might give us some pastry-based political poetry,” he says. Having established Write Out Loud as a poetry-loving creative community in Bolton in 2003, then in five other towns, Julian is convinced the region’s creative spirit will bring some fascinating verse that will contribute to a very successful festival. The deadline for receipt of poems is midnight on Wednesday 6 June 2012. So, get out your pen and paper, look at the list of shops and start writing, commenting and voting. Come on you poets! To upload your poem, find the shop you want to write about and click the button Word of caution: Read the terms and conditions carefully, and proofread and edit your work before submitting. To view existing entries and rate the poems, click on and click on the number of stars out of ten. Bolton Arts Festival, 14 – 21 June, 2012 across the town centre, and on university and college campuses.