And now for something completely different ... try writing a nonet for World Poetry Day!
We’re approaching World Poetry Day, on Thursday 21 March. ‘Standing on the Shoulders of Giants’ is this year’s theme chosen by Unesco, which set up World Poetry Day in 1999 with the aim of supporting linguistic diversity through poetic expression and increasing opportunity for endangered languages to be heard. It is seen as an occasion to honour poets, revive oral traditions of poetry recitals and...
19th March 2024
Programmes you may have missed: Rick Stein on Cornwall's Charles Causley
An episode of Rick Stein’s Cornwall recently repeated on BBC2 features the Cornish poet Charles Causley, who spent his life in the Cornish border town of Launceston. Stein talks to the Cornish writer Patrick Gale, who has written about Causley’s life, including his service with the Navy during the s...
16th March 2024
National Poetry Centre coming to Leeds gets £5m levelling-up boost
The National Poetry Centre planned for Leeds, which was announced by Simon Armitage as one of his ambitions as poet laureate, has received a £5 million funding boost from the government’s Department f...
15th March 2024
All the Birds: Mark Totterdell, Littoral Press
14th March 2024
Foyle Young Poets of the Year award is open for entries
The Foyle Young Poets of the Year award is once again open for entries. It’s organised by the Poetry Society and supported by the Foyle Foundation, and invites new poems from young writers aged 11–17 ...
14th March 2024
Write Out Loud Wigan at the Old Courts tonight
Write Out Loud Wigan is at the Old Courts, Crawford Street, Wigan on Thursday 14 March from 7.30pm. More details
14th March 2024
Liz Berry wins £30,000 Writers prize for novel in verse
Liz Berry has won the £30,000 Writers’ prize, formerly known as the Rathbones Folio prize, for her collection The Home Child, a novel in verse inspired by the poet’s great-aunt, who at the age of 12 w...
14th March 2024
Wirral Poetry Festival competition is open for entries
David J Costello be judging the Wirral Poetry Festival open poetry competition. First prize is £250, and the deadline is 31 May. More details
10th March 2024
Graham Mort to judge Frogmore Press prize
Graham Mort will be judging the Frogmore Press poetry prize. The prize is 250 guineas, and the deadline is 31 May. More details
10th March 2024
Out of Gaza: new anthology includes poems by two Palestinian poets killed by bombings
A new anthology about Gaza which includes poems by two poets who have been killed during intensive Israeli attacks on the Palestinian enclave - in response to atrocities committed by the Palestinian g...
8th March 2024
National Poetry Centre coming to Leeds gets £5m levelling-up boost from government
The National Poetry Centre planned for Leeds, which was announced by Simon Armitage as one of his ambitions as poet laureate, has received a £5 million funding boost from the government’s Department f...
8th March 2024
Best-selling artist Taylor Swift 'related to reclusive Emily Dickinson'
The hugely successful US singer-songwriter Taylor Swift is related to the renowned 19th century American poet Emily Dickinson, a genealogy company has revealed. The link, reported in the Guardian, i...
5th March 2024
Over the Edge: Norbert Hirschhorn, Holland Park Press
Norbert Hirschhorn is a public health physician, commended in 1993 by President Bill Clinton as an American Health Hero in the tradition of physician-poets. More recently he was the recipient of the P...
3rd March 2024
What a performance! Robert Garnham looks back at ‘faffing around’ and ‘flopping at slams’
Comedy performance poet Robert Garnham has published a collection of essays, covering topics ranging from advice on “how not to do the Edinburgh Fringe”, fishing for poetic material off the coast of D...
3rd March 2024
Two years on: tireless poet of war in Ukraine issues new collection to mark grim anniversary
A poet who has regularly and untiringly posted poems about the war in Ukraine on Write Out Loud since Russia’s invasion has produced a new selection of his work to mark the second anniversary of Vladi...
3rd March 2024
Lifeboat station runs poetry competition to mark RNLI's 200th anniversary
An open poetry competition, Carry Us Home, to celebrate 200 years of the RNLI is being run by Sheringham lifeboat station in Norfolk. The judge is Moniza Alvi, and the deadline is 5 April. Poems are i...
1st March 2024