Happy international women’s day! From Newcastle to Southend to Falmouth, there are poetry events taking place to celebrate it. In Newcastle there’s an evening of reading and discussion of poetry by women, at the Press Book House. Local poets will read their own work as well as poems by “beloved aunts and sisters of poetry” throughout the ages and around the world.

In Thorpe Bay, Southend, at Café Caio, local poets and professional actors will be taking part in a “woman-fest of literature”. Talking Women is organised by the Knicker Lady for Mumba Children’s Project, which collects new knickers for poor women in a small village in Zambia and needs funds to set up a sanitary towel project. It starts at 7.30pm.

In Falmouth Natasha Trethewey, who was US poet laureate from 2012-14, will be giving a public reading at Falmouth Art Gallery, at 6pm.

At Keats House in north London Jo Shapcott will recite and discuss women's poetry. The free event starts at 7pm.

And to mark this day leading performance poet and Write Out Loud regular Laura Taylor has posted a video of her hard-hitting feminist poem ‘Unsolicited’. You can watch it here