Write Out Loud's April Newsletter
Yo Dudes & Dudettes
[Oh dear he’s trying to be hip again: Ed]
Welcome to the April Newsletter from Write Out Loud, the organisation that encourages participation in poetry.
This month we’ve got more news about our website, a request for reviewers, news of a substantial sponsorship deal with the University of Bolton and early notice of a new online review from Salt Publishing. Whilst this months article, written by Agnes Meadows (who runs regular poetry events Loose Muse and Angel Poetry), argues that London is the poetry capital of the world - hey don’t blame me I’m only an innocent bystander.
We’re beginning the process of turning the Write Out Loud web site into a full-blown ezine and the first part of that process is the recent launch of an online Review section. Now we are looking for submissions from prospective reviewers of poetry journals, magazines, readings, open mic nights, festivals, gigs, anthologies, courses, workshops… and editors & publishers send us copies of your product for review. For more information contact editor@writeoutloud.net
On www.writeoutloud.net there’s a lot of lively social-networking going on, particularly in the blogs and comments section. If you’ve got your profile on site you may be surprised to find that someone has commented on your work - check it out and see who’s talking about you and what they’re saying. If you haven’t posted your profile on the Poets’ Showcase why not do it now? It’s easy to do and you can join the fun!
We’ve also revamped the gig guide to make it easier to access & read as well as giving you a facility to look up gigs by town/city.
In the real world, Write Out Loud has been experimenting with holding different types of event. Earlier this month we held two successful events at a Ucan centre in Bolton and next week (Tuesday 29th April) we’re trying out a regular early evening, café poetry at Caffe (sic) Nero in central Wigan. If you can make the early 7pm start we’d be delighted to see you there.
Last month we reported sponsorship of our Rochdale organisation by Bright Books. This month we’re pleased to report that our national organisation has been given substantial sponsorship from the University of Bolton which will mean both organisations working more closely together in the future.
Elsewhere Salt Publishing has announced the expansion of its free online magazines with the launch of a new literary review, Horizon, set to appear in September. Jane Holland, who will run the magazine for the next three years, is looking for quality contributions, so have a look at the web site to find out what it’s all about www.saltpublishing.com/horizon/
As usual we urge you to tell us about your events and continue checking www.writeoutloud.net not only for the comprehensive gig guide but also for News from the poetry world, details of competitions, workshops, reviews and much more.
See you at a poetry event near you soon
The Press Team
www.writeoutloud.net
YO LONDON - POETRY CAPITAL OF THE
WORLD!
By Agnes Meadows
For years now London has seen itself as the very poor relation in the international poetry capital stakes, playing a feeble second fiddle to New York. The Big Apple irrefutably held the number one spot.
It was deemed as hipper, brighter, and all-round better, with venues like the fabulous Nuyorican Poets Café, considered by many as the best poetry venue in the world, to help it hold on to its crown.
Never mind the likes of Byron, Betjemen or even Benjamin Zephaniah. Whether New York poets were rapping, hip-hopping, slamming, or just plain versifying, they were mean-streets ahead of their London counterparts. They had delivery style, a pizzazz on the spoken word stage that left us awestruck, and a performance ethos that ran through their work with raw energy. Any New York poet that visited the UK was greeted with massive enthusiasm, their work revered, their books and CD’s bought by the truck load, their performances venerated.
London poets just couldn’t compete. Unless they went to New York, of course, in which case they came in for a fair amount of adulation themselves - something about the accent, the myth of English education, and the “’alo Mary Poppins” quirkiness of both what we were saying and the way we were saying it.
But over the past couple of years there’s been a real poetic sea-change. We’ve begun to produce poets in the capital who can both write AND perform, so audiences get style and content, instead of work that’s finely tuned to an academic elite, emotionally incomprehensible and read with as much passion and feeling as the central dirge at Elena Rigby’s funeral. They’ve been paying attention to what’s been happening across the water, and loosened up in the performance stakes. And instead of writing for the audience, London poets write to please themselves, exploring things that really mean something to them without loosing sight of quality or depth.
Several times over the past six months I’ve heard that the Big Smoke has finally wrested the poetic crown from the Big Apple and that we now hold the title of the best place on the planet for poetry and poets, where you’re guaranteed to see and hear great stuff. Our poets can attack the government and its questionable foreign policies with impunity, without being regarded as unpatriotic. We don’t have to write poems stuffed full of victims, so we’re not prey to endless ‘victim’ poetry, just because we know it will ignite the right response in whoever’s listening.
Far from being a dying art form enjoyed by an elderly, middle class, white elite, performance poetry and spoken word is the fastest growing art form both within the capital and outside of it. Every week in venues of all dimensions and textures, London plays host to dozens of poetry events, from the Voice Box and Queen Elizabeth Hall at the newly developed South Bank Centre or the creative maze that is Barbican Centre, via the notoriously cramped Poetry Café in the heart of Covent Garden, to the café at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, or the hundred and one pubs, cafés and book shops with poetry readings and workshops happening in them every night. And each week thousands of poetry lovers of all ages, rich and poor, fat and thin, across cultures, genders and beliefs, meet up just for the love of poetry.
In short London’s poetry and poets rock!
[Oh dear he’s trying to be hip again: Ed]
Welcome to the April Newsletter from Write Out Loud, the organisation that encourages participation in poetry.
This month we’ve got more news about our website, a request for reviewers, news of a substantial sponsorship deal with the University of Bolton and early notice of a new online review from Salt Publishing. Whilst this months article, written by Agnes Meadows (who runs regular poetry events Loose Muse and Angel Poetry), argues that London is the poetry capital of the world - hey don’t blame me I’m only an innocent bystander.
We’re beginning the process of turning the Write Out Loud web site into a full-blown ezine and the first part of that process is the recent launch of an online Review section. Now we are looking for submissions from prospective reviewers of poetry journals, magazines, readings, open mic nights, festivals, gigs, anthologies, courses, workshops… and editors & publishers send us copies of your product for review. For more information contact editor@writeoutloud.net
On www.writeoutloud.net there’s a lot of lively social-networking going on, particularly in the blogs and comments section. If you’ve got your profile on site you may be surprised to find that someone has commented on your work - check it out and see who’s talking about you and what they’re saying. If you haven’t posted your profile on the Poets’ Showcase why not do it now? It’s easy to do and you can join the fun!
We’ve also revamped the gig guide to make it easier to access & read as well as giving you a facility to look up gigs by town/city.
In the real world, Write Out Loud has been experimenting with holding different types of event. Earlier this month we held two successful events at a Ucan centre in Bolton and next week (Tuesday 29th April) we’re trying out a regular early evening, café poetry at Caffe (sic) Nero in central Wigan. If you can make the early 7pm start we’d be delighted to see you there.
Last month we reported sponsorship of our Rochdale organisation by Bright Books. This month we’re pleased to report that our national organisation has been given substantial sponsorship from the University of Bolton which will mean both organisations working more closely together in the future.
Elsewhere Salt Publishing has announced the expansion of its free online magazines with the launch of a new literary review, Horizon, set to appear in September. Jane Holland, who will run the magazine for the next three years, is looking for quality contributions, so have a look at the web site to find out what it’s all about www.saltpublishing.com/horizon/
As usual we urge you to tell us about your events and continue checking www.writeoutloud.net not only for the comprehensive gig guide but also for News from the poetry world, details of competitions, workshops, reviews and much more.
See you at a poetry event near you soon
The Press Team
www.writeoutloud.net
YO LONDON - POETRY CAPITAL OF THE
WORLD!
By Agnes Meadows
For years now London has seen itself as the very poor relation in the international poetry capital stakes, playing a feeble second fiddle to New York. The Big Apple irrefutably held the number one spot.
It was deemed as hipper, brighter, and all-round better, with venues like the fabulous Nuyorican Poets Café, considered by many as the best poetry venue in the world, to help it hold on to its crown.
Never mind the likes of Byron, Betjemen or even Benjamin Zephaniah. Whether New York poets were rapping, hip-hopping, slamming, or just plain versifying, they were mean-streets ahead of their London counterparts. They had delivery style, a pizzazz on the spoken word stage that left us awestruck, and a performance ethos that ran through their work with raw energy. Any New York poet that visited the UK was greeted with massive enthusiasm, their work revered, their books and CD’s bought by the truck load, their performances venerated.
London poets just couldn’t compete. Unless they went to New York, of course, in which case they came in for a fair amount of adulation themselves - something about the accent, the myth of English education, and the “’alo Mary Poppins” quirkiness of both what we were saying and the way we were saying it.
But over the past couple of years there’s been a real poetic sea-change. We’ve begun to produce poets in the capital who can both write AND perform, so audiences get style and content, instead of work that’s finely tuned to an academic elite, emotionally incomprehensible and read with as much passion and feeling as the central dirge at Elena Rigby’s funeral. They’ve been paying attention to what’s been happening across the water, and loosened up in the performance stakes. And instead of writing for the audience, London poets write to please themselves, exploring things that really mean something to them without loosing sight of quality or depth.
Several times over the past six months I’ve heard that the Big Smoke has finally wrested the poetic crown from the Big Apple and that we now hold the title of the best place on the planet for poetry and poets, where you’re guaranteed to see and hear great stuff. Our poets can attack the government and its questionable foreign policies with impunity, without being regarded as unpatriotic. We don’t have to write poems stuffed full of victims, so we’re not prey to endless ‘victim’ poetry, just because we know it will ignite the right response in whoever’s listening.
Far from being a dying art form enjoyed by an elderly, middle class, white elite, performance poetry and spoken word is the fastest growing art form both within the capital and outside of it. Every week in venues of all dimensions and textures, London plays host to dozens of poetry events, from the Voice Box and Queen Elizabeth Hall at the newly developed South Bank Centre or the creative maze that is Barbican Centre, via the notoriously cramped Poetry Café in the heart of Covent Garden, to the café at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, or the hundred and one pubs, cafés and book shops with poetry readings and workshops happening in them every night. And each week thousands of poetry lovers of all ages, rich and poor, fat and thin, across cultures, genders and beliefs, meet up just for the love of poetry.
In short London’s poetry and poets rock!
Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:27 am
