A momentous occasion has taken place in the poetry realm, an event rarer than hen’s teeth. Write Out Loud ‘old timer’ Graham Sherwood took to the stage for the very first time at Waterstones in Milton Keynes, as part of the 2025 MK Lit Fest celebrations. 

Graham won the 2024 MK Lit Fest poetry co...

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Victoria Gatehouse is a zoologist, award-winning poet and children’s writer. Her poetry has been broadcast on BBC radio and published in several leading magazines. Her pamphlet The Mechanics of Love (...

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A campaign has been launched to preserve William Wordsworth’s family home at Rydal Mount in the Lake District, as a site of literary heritage. The poet lived there from 1813 to his death in 1850. It i...

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In October last year a unique creative venture involving Marsden-born poet laureate Simon Armitage, his LYR band and Marsden Mechanics was launched. The project invited the people of Marsden to engage...

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As part of our 20-year anniversary celebrations, Write Out Loud will be looking back at significant moments for us and the wider poetry world over the last two decades. They don’t come much more signi...

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There is plenty of poetry among the literary events at Hexham book festival in Northumberland next month. On Thursday 8 May Pam Ayres will be talking about her new collection, Doggedly Onward: A Life ...

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Write Out Loud regulars who have delighted in the entertaining and crafted poems of RA (Andy) Porter that have been posted here will be pleased to hear that his high-spirited verses have been spotted ...

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Bloodaxe … what an arresting name for a poetry publisher. I may have first come across Neil Astley’s name when my wife gave me the second anthology in the Bloodaxe Staying Alive series, Being Alive, a...

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The Write Out Loud team has perhaps been more focused on our 20th anniversary and fundraising poetry competition than the recent World Poetry Day. Mea culpa! 

And yet we consider ourselves internat...

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Fiona Larkin has won this year’s £5,000 National Poetry Competition with ‘Absence has a Grammar’, which was described by judges Romalyn Ante, John McAuliffe and Stephen Sexton as “very impressive, ing...

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This collection of one hundred short poems is inspired by the life of Carmelite nun Thérèse of Lisieux, who died in 1897 aged just 24. In her elegant introduction to the poems, Sarah Law explains how ...

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Following Anthony Anaxagorou's mind-stretching masterclass, re-released last week, we've now re-launched Caroline Bird's workshop, giving you a whole new set of challenges to stretch and stimulate you...

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Third and final in our masterclass series, is Matt Abbott's workshop in which he provides a number of triggers for writing about personal history, ones that get attendees re inspired to  jot down a fe...

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Maggie Harris was born in Guyana and now lives in Broadstairs, Kent. She has won the Guyana Prize for Literature, was regional winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2014, and won the Wales Poet...

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A north-east poet who was first published as a teenager by Bloodaxe Books is celebrating 40 years of writing poetry by launching a new pamphlet next month. Elaine Cusack’s launch event also marks a re...

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Want to give your poetry a boost with new ideas, new skills, and new challenges?  Here's how: watch the videos of our series of masterclasses from professional poets at the top of their game.

Write...

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Faber is to publish The Poems of Seamus Heaney later this year, edited by Rosie Lavan and Bernard O’Donoghue with Matthew Hollis. It’s described as the definitive edition of  Heaney’s poetry, featurin...

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What will you be doing on World Poetry Day, Friday 21 March? North Tyneside council’s Northumberland Park has come up with a topical and possibly controversial idea – an AI poetry trail around the par...

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This first full-length collection by Cardiff-based poet Emily Cotterill follows on from her debut poetry pamphlet The Day of the Flying Ants published by Smith / Doorstop in 2019 which was selected by...

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It was a foggy night on Teesside and a warm if slightly melancholy evening for the final farewell of Smokestack Books, which publisher Andy Croft closed for new titles last Christmas after 20 years. P...

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All good things must come to an end – or at least, a pause, in the case of Hexham’s very popular poetry event Words on the Wall. There was an impressive turnout for what masterly compere Joe Williams ...

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This year’s Spring Poems on the Underground posters include Foyle Young Poet Lewis Corry. The poster set was launched with readings outside the tube station at Covent Garden by Lewis, plus poets Niall...

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The poet laureate, Simon Armitage, is lining up the next leg of his 10-year tour of the UK’s libraries. Each spring this decade, Armitage is giving readings in libraries across the UK  and his journey...

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Most readers coming to this site will be interested in the future of poetry in changing times. The Bookseller announced in December 2023 that poetry was “on course for a record year”, partly due to an...

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Sometimes slim volumes open up much bigger worlds and pack a punch beyond 30 pages of text. The title and the cover of Janus suggest a gaze, both forward and backward. The structure of the book, thoug...

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Write Out Loud took to the road on Saturday at the Moonraking festival in Slaithwaite, West Yorkshire, with our first ever pedal-powered poetry event – the Pedal-Powered Pop-Up Poetry tent. The succes...

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The Poetry Hour is staging a reading by actors of the works of Emily Dickinson, pictured, and Sylvia Plath at the British Library, in the week of International Women’s Day. The reading will take place...

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A poetry magazine that is published once a year has reached its £2,000 target after just seven days of a cash appeal to keep it going. Poet and novelist Richard Skinner said 14 Magazine, which publish...

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The confirmation of £5 million of government investment in the National Poetry Centre in Leeds has been welcomed by the poet laureate Simon Armitage as evidence that his brainchild “will become a real...

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Manchester is celebrating International Mother Language Day 2025 with two newly appointed Multilingual City Poets, Charlotte Shevchenko Knight and Nóra Blascsók.

Charlotte Shevchenko Knight is a po...

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An important part of Write Out Loud’s 20th anniversary year is expanding our work with children and young people. And what better way to start than by linking up again with poet and performer Louise F...

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Growing concerns over the development of artificial intelligence has compelled the ALCS (Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Authority) - which recovers money for authors that they are due – to issue ad...

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Helen Mort will be judging the 2025 Rialto Nature and Place poetry competition. First prize is £1,000, and the deadline is 1 April 2025. More details

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Rory Waterman will be judging the £600 Ver Poets competition. The deadline is 30 April. More details

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Clevedon LitFest is now open for submissions for its Motorcitysixty poetry competition, which marks the 60th anniversary of the first Motown Revue tour outside the US in 1965.

Entrants worldwide, a...

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Award-winning poet Dominic Berry is the guest at Write Out Loud Bolton open-mic night at Bolton Socialist Club on Sunday 2 February. Dominic, who has twice won the Saboteur award for performance poets...

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In a few days’ time Write Out Loud will be launching a big poetry competition to mark our 20th anniversary year. We’re very excited about it! The theme of the competition will be ‘Echoes’ – and it wil...

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