A new spoken word open mic night is being launched in Todmorden, with a star line-up of guests – John Clarke and Jimmy Andrews, from Wakefield’s Red Shed, Write Out Loud favourite Winston Plowes, from just down the road in Hebden Bridge, and Alison McCabe.

Magic Words, on Tuesday 13 March from 7.30pm to 10.30pm, is the brainchild of locally-based writer and performer Emma Decent, who said: “First come, first served for the open mic, bring your four mins! Or simply your open...

Louise Fazackerly, winner of last year’s Wigan heat in the Superheroes of Slam competition; rising local star Eve Machin; and Rosie Garland, just back from performing in Las Vegas, are the three guest poets at Tuesday’s Write Out Loud Sale, at Waterside Arts Centre, sale, at 7.30pm. Entry is £3/£2 for this open mic event, with first-time readers especially welcome. But open mic slots are available on a first come, first served basis. If you want a spot, get there early....

The editor of Poetry Review, Fiona Sampson, is leaving the Poetry Society to develop her career in other directions, the Poetry Society announced today. The society said: “She is in great demand as a reader of her work, a teacher and lecturer, and as a judge of poetry competitions. Relinquishing the editorship of Poetry Review will give her the time to extend her very considerable achievements in all these areas, and shift her editorial work to a more international focus.”
In a wide...

Gerry Potter brings his one-man show The Men Pomes – “a mixture of poetics, theatre and stand-up” about working-class men “as you’ve never seen them before” - to Studio Salford above the Kings Arms on Salford’s Bloom Street next week, at 8pm from Wednesday 29 February to Saturday 3 March. Tickets at £7/£5 can be bought at the door on the night or online. Read Dominic Berry’s interview with Gerry Potter about The Men Pomes on Write Out L...

The former BBC war correspondent, independent MP and Unicef ambassador, Martin Bell, will be reading from his recently-published poems at the Words by the Water literature festival at Keswick, running from 2-11 March. Last autumn Bell published For Whom The Bell Tolls, described as a “collection of light and dark verse” and a “personal response to his life”. Bell has written poems about Tony Blair and Iraq, Radovan Karadzic, last summer’s riots, the Arab spring, and...

Pulp frontman and cultural man about town Jarvis Cocker will be reading from his song lyrics on Wednesday 22 February, at 7pm, at the Lady Mitchell Hall, West Road, Cambridge. Entry is free, with no tickets required. There will also be a Q & A. The event is one of a series in a Cambridge University project examining the links between music lyrics and poetry, and is organised by Australian poet John Kinsella. Prof Kinsella, also a novelist and critic, said: “I’ve always felt that...

An appearance by poet and comedian John Hegley and an open mic competition, plus a writing workshop are the poetic highlights of Otley Word Feast taking place from 9-11 March in the centre of the West Yorkshire town. The poetry writing workshop, Sensations, is from 1.30pm to 3.30pm on Saturday 10 March at Otley Courthouse. The open mic contest – three minutes to impress - kicks off at 3pm the same day at Korks wine bar on Bondgate. More details and Map. John Hegley performs at Otley Court...

In case you didn’t already know, this week marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens - and we at Write Out Loud thought it time to remind you that he wrote a few poems, too. Here’s one of his better ones, below:

The Ivy Green
Oh, a dainty plant is the Ivy green,
That creepeth o’er ruins old!
Of right choice food are his meals, I ween,
In his cell so lone and cold.
The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed,
To pleasure his dainty whim:
And the mo...

In honour of Valentine's Day, Becky Cherriman, pictured, is offering a poetic journey through the lexicon of love at the Heart café, Bennett Road, Headingley, Leeds, at 8pm on Friday 10 February. Don't expect it to be all hearts and flowers … Becky's work is known for its honest and often uncomfortable intensity. The evening will also feature live music and a reading from poet, Clare Neruda. Tickets on the door will be £6, including a drink....

Nobel Prize-winning poet, Wislawa Szymborska, has died aged 88 in her native Krakow, Poland.
Merseyside Polonia, on behalf of Merseyside’s Polish community would like to express sadness at such a great loss to Polish and world literature and join in mourning with Wislawa Szymborska’s family, friends, and the wider world of literature. We would like to dedicate to Ms. Szymborska our upcoming poetry event, Love in Every Language, on the 9th February (more info in Write Out Loud calend...

Oxford’s professor of poetry, Sir Geoffrey Hill, has rapped Carol Ann Duffy, the poet laureate, over the knuckles over her linking of modern poetry with texting. In a lecture at Oxford entitled Poetry, Policing and Public Order, Hill, who was knighted in last month’s New Year honours, and is known for the “difficulty” of his own poetry, said: “When the laureate speaks of the tremendous potential for a vital new poetry to be drawn from the practice of texting she is...

Top performance poets will be joining the stellar line-up at StAnza 2012, which takes place over five packed days in March, with more than 90 events around the historic centre of the university town of St Andrews. The atmosphere at StAnza’s Poetry Café is unique: audiences are treated to fast and furious verse, comic, observant and topical, which they can enjoy over lunchtime snacks and drinks.
Young Dawkins, pictured, is the 2011 Scottish slam poetry champion, and represented Sco...

An anthology of new poetry from established and emerging writers will be launched on 7 March, at Bar 1:22, 120 New Street, Castlegate, Huddersfield. A Complicated Way Of Being Ignored is published by Grist, whose philosophy is to place competition winners alongside established writers in order to raise their profile and help them establish the first step to becoming professional writers. The latest anthology features 36 original, previously unpublished poems, and will be distributed free to sele...

Don Parry will be providing poetry and music as special guest at Write Out Loud Middleton on Sunday, 26 February, at the Ring O’Bells, St Leonard’s Square, Middleton, at 7pm. Entry is a £2 donation. Everyone is free to read their poems in a supportive and encouraging environment. More details and Map

An anthology of new writing by women, featuring the work of 34 UK and international writers, will be launched at Whitechapel Art Gallery in east London, on Wednesday, 29 February, at 7pm. Loose Muse reflects the work of women who meet on the second Wednesday of each month at the Poetry Café in Covent Garden.
Poet and organiser Agnes Meadows, who has been co-ordinating the event, since 2005, said: “Over the past six years Loose Muse has grown into a unique event with a solid reputa...

Wizard, a new poetry-fantasy-theatre show by Manchester poet Dominic Berry – described as one man and his kettle against the world – is being staged at Contact, Oxford Road, Manchester, from Wednesday 28 March to Saturday 31 March. Suitable for ages 14-plus, tickets are £8/£5. The show starts at 8pm, with an after-show discussion on Thursday 29 March.
When an agoraphobic wizard shares his world of tea-loving carpet goblins and a zombie-slaying dish rack with a neighbour...

A new poetry group in the north-east, Out The Box, is making a last call for submissions for the first issue of its magazine. It describes itself as a “platform for writers to get their words in print and read out there in the north-east … and beyond …” and wants “inspirational emerging and established poets/prose writers” to submit work for consideration, either poems up to a maximum of 40 lines each, or prose with a limit of 1,200 words. Successful contrib...

Here’s something a bit different: a well-stocked weekend literature festival in Les Deux Sevres, north of the Loire Valley in France. A bilingual lit-fest, in fact, with principal guest writer, poet and novelist Helen Dunmore, http://www.helendunmore.com/poetry.asp T. S. Eliot prize short-listed and Orange Prize winner; and our own, David Cooke, http://www.writeoutloud.net/profiles/davidcooke.
And it’s not expensive, entry being only €5, which seems to be for the entire weekend...

The Poetry Society has had its funding restored by the Arts Council after a period of calm following the row last summer that led to a spate of resignations, an emergency general meeting, and the board of trustees agreeing to stand down. The Poetry Society said: “Funding had been withheld since July and was restored once the Poetry Society had met a number of conditions demonstrating good governance, following the election of a new board of trustees in September 2011.”

Ste...

Siblings John Darby and Christine Yates will be keeping it in the family when they take on the role of joint comperes at the Tudor, New Market Street, on Thursday night, 9 February, at Write Out Loud Wigan’s February open mic shindig. Entry is free, and the fun starts at 8.30pm. More details and Map

London's Troubadour coffee house was THE place to be seen for the folksinger/songwriter of the 60s and early 70s. Where Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Paul Simon, Tom Paxton, Joni Mitchell, Bert Jansch, Sandi Denni and other luminaries of the folk revival played, you can witness its modern equivalent, the live-poetry movement, which is alive, growing and giving a voice to a new generation (encouraged and supported by Write Out Loud).
We owe our title to the lyrics of Tom Paxton’s song, whic...

Geoff Stevens, poet and editor of the small press poetry magazine Purple Patch for the last 35 years, has died in a hospice in Birmingham after a short illness.
His partner, Geraldine Wall, said he died peacefully in the early hours of Thursday morning, 2 February. She added: “It has been a shocking and very sad time for all of us.” In a message to subscribers, breaking the news of Geoff’s illness, she added: “Purple Patch was Geoff’s pride and joy. I want to thank...

Five north-west performance poets – Gemma Lees, Jess Green, Scott Devon, Rod Tame and Charlotte Henson – will be appearing in Once More With Feeling, the first performance poetry event at Bury College, on Thursday 9 February from 6pm-7.30pm. The venue is the college’s Beacon theatre. Entry: £3. More details and Map...

A Chinese dissident who sent out a poem on Skype called It’s Time is facing a stiff jail sentence for “inciting subversion of state power”. Activist Zhu Yufu went on trial on Tuesday this week in Hangzhou, after being arrested last April. A version of the poem that has circulated on the internet says: "It's time, Chinese people! / The square belongs to everyone / The feet are yours / It's time to use your feet and take to the square to make a choice." Zhu has...