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No holds barred as performance poet Joy France fights her corner in 'battle rap'

by Greg Freeman

She started out by making a nervous debut a number of years ago on the open-mic stage at Write Out Loud Wigan. After establishing a reputation as a warm and popular performance poet, she appeared in Nationwide TV adverts and on building society posters as well. Now Joy France has shown she doesn’t give a stuff about stereotypes by throwing herself into the in-your-face performance genre of ‘battle rap’. In doing so she has att...

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News and Opinion

News » Poet laureate drawn back to home village with book of poems about Marsden

by Greg Freeman

The poet laureate Simon Armitage is next month publishing a new collection of poems focused on Marsden in West Yorkshire – the Pennine village where h...

18th Feb 2020 5:49 pm

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Competitions » Call of the wild ... enter poetry festival's £200 competition

by News desk

Ben Ray, pictured, and Cheltenham poetry festival founder Anna Saunders will be judging entries for the festival’s £200 Wild! Poem competition. Entrie...

31st Jan 2020 2:30 am

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Events » Write Out Loud Woking at the Lightbox on Thursday

Write Out Loud Woking returns to the Lightbox art gallery in Woking on Thursday 27 February. Sign up from 7.30pm for the 8pm start for this open-mic p...

23rd Feb 2020 11:15 pm

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Interview » ‘As a mother, it's my job to tell these stories’: Louise Fazackerley

by Greg Freeman

Wigan performance poet and BBC New Voices winner Louise Fazackerley has broken new ground with her poetry collection The Lolitas. Its subject matter i...

16th Feb 2020 10:51 am

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Competitions » Deadline nears to enter Geoff Stevens collection prize

by News desk

The deadline is 29 February to enter the Geoff Stevens Memorial Poetry Prize, to have a poetry collection published by Indigo Dreams. There are two wi...

16th Feb 2020 11:21 pm

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American Life in Poetry » 'Our souls have been longing to go home ... the body doesn't agree'

by Ted Kooser, US poet laureate

Robert Bly is one of the last living major American poets of his generation, and WW Norton recently published his Collected Poems. I and many other po...

24th Feb 2020 12:27 pm

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Review » Priest Turned Therapist Treats Fear of God: Tony Hoagland, Bloodaxe

by Greg Freeman

The American poet Tony Hoagland died in 2018 aged 64. This Bloodaxe collection can serve as an introduction for those previously unaware of him, and s...

24th Feb 2020 4:55 pm

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