Let battle commence: Wendy Klein, Dempsey & Windle
Wendy Klein is an American poet who has lived in England for many years. Her great-grandfather fought in the American Civil War, and was a slave-owner “whose beliefs could not have been more different from my own”, she says at the outset, in her introduction to her short collection of poems based on his wartime letters home.
I would say at a guess – or at least, speaking personally - that there...
29th October 2020
Write Out Loud relives some memorable live poetry moments
During the coronavirus shutdown Write Out Loud has been looking back at some wonderful live poetry moments over the last few years … and re-running some of our favourite reviews to refresh memories, and to remind ourselves that this won’t last for ever. In advance of 11 November and Remembrance, her...
28th October 2020
Andrew Motion and the poetry of war, 2015
When the BBC sent Andrew Motion to talk to Harry Patch, who was then Britain’s last surviving first world war solder, and who died in 2009 at the age of 111, it was “my most interesting commission whi...
28th October 2020
Poetry from the allotments to give you a glow ... Steve Pottinger, Emma Purshouse, and Dave Pitt
If you’re looking for something to cheer you up in these dispiriting times of Covid phase two, look no further … I stumbled across this on social media the other day, a wonderful film-poem by the mast...
27th October 2020
'He was down to nothing, a gypsy’s fare'
BJ Omanson was raised near the Spoon River in Illinois, site of Edgar Lee Master’s Spoon River Anthology, and he has compiled a fine book of poems in Masters’ tradition called Stark County Poems, publ...
27th October 2020
Caroline Bird's 'The Air Year' wins £10,000 Forward prize for best collection at online ceremony
Caroline Bird has won the £10,000 Forward prize for best collection with The Air Year, it was announced on Sunday at a special online ceremony. After receiving the award, she thanked her Carcanet publ...
25th October 2020
'I will be happy if the whole world knows': Nigerian poet protests at Lagos killings in poem on Write Out Loud
A young Nigerian poet has used Write Out Loud as a platform to draw attention to protests in his country that are believed to have claimed the lives of at least 12 people, and brought condemnation fro...
25th October 2020
Margaret Atwood returns to poetry with first collection in more than 10 years
The bestselling and award-winning Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood – author of The Handmaid’s Tale, Cat’s Eye, and Alias Grace among many others - publishes her first book of poetry for over a decade...
25th October 2020
The Wednesbury Mangle Theory: Marion Cockin, Offa's Press
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first recorded use of the word ‘mangle’ in English dates from 1598 when John Florio, in his dictionary A World of Words described it as “a kind of press...
24th October 2020
Tony Walsh, London, 2015
One of spoken word’s leading ambassadors and heroes, Tony Walsh, came down south from the north-west on Thursday night to tread the boards of a former Victorian music hall in London.
Walsh was topp...
21st October 2020
'A man trying to extricate himself, afraid to open his eyes'
Often, for me, it’s a single image that really makes a poem, and in this poem by Jeff Worley, from his chapbook Lucky Talk, published by Broadstone Books, it’s “a man conducting an orchestra/ of bees....
19th October 2020
The Blunted Axe: David Greygoose, Dreich
Followers of David Greygoose will know him from the medieval folk tales in his novel Brunt Boggart. As David Ward he has been the power behind the Liverpool Windows Project, supporting poetry in the c...
17th October 2020
Resilience is the theme for Freedom From Torture poetry competition
The Freedom From Torture organisation that supports torture survivors is staging a poetry competition with the theme of Reslience in advance of its three-day literary festival next month. The deadline...
16th October 2020
Foyle Young Poets award celebrates huge rise in number of poems entered as winners announced
The Poetry Society has announced today the top 15 winners and 85 commended poets of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2020 at a virtual prize-giving ceremony.
15th October 2020
Ten contenders on TS Eliot prize shortlist are revealed
The 2020 TS Eliot prize shortlist has been announced by judges Lavinia Greenlaw, Mona Arshi and Andrew McMillan, chosen from 153 poetry collections submitted by British and Irish publishers. The list ...
15th October 2020
Linton Kwesi Johnson shares PEN Printer prize with missing Eritrean poet detained since 2001
An Eritrean poet, Amanuel Asrat, who was arrested in 2001 when editor-in-chief of the leading Eritrean newspaper Zemen, and has been held incommunicado since, has been named International Writer of Co...
14th October 2020
How we brought more readers to poetry - Neil Astley on Bloodaxe’s Staying Alive series, and the new anthology
On National Poetry Day, Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley launched Staying Human, the fourth in his hugely popular series of world poetry anthologies that began in 2002 with Staying Alive (sub-title: ‘real ...
14th October 2020
'My love, I am pledging to this republic, for however long we stand'
Jehanne Dubrow is the wife of a recently retired naval officer and has written very moving poems about their life. This fine love poem is from an as-yet unpublished manuscript. She lives in Texas and ...
12th October 2020
December deadline for Roger McGough prize on theme of 'identity'
The £150 Arts Richmond Roger McGough poetry prize is open for entries on the theme of ‘identity’. The deadline is 18 December. More details
11th October 2020
Simon Armitage and Jade Cuttle to judge £5,000 Gingko eco-poetry prize
The £5,000 Gingko prize for eco-poetry, in association with the Poetry School, will be judged this year by the poet laureate Simon Armitage, and Jade Cuttle. This year there is also a separate £500 pr...
11th October 2020
Last day for posting poems on Places of Poetry map as anthology is published
Last year’s popular Places of Poetry project, in which poets were able to post their poems on a map of England and Wales, is being revived for a few days from the start of October.
In 2019 poets we...
11th October 2020
'Going off like some lavish parade into the great overcrowded silence'
Edwin Muir’s poem 'The Horses' published many years ago, envisioned a future in which the work horse would return, and with them we’d have a new beginning. Today, some of our fellow creatures aren’t t...
10th October 2020
Platinum Blonde: Phoebe Stuckes, Bloodaxe
Phoebe Stuckes is an award-winning poet, four times winner of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year award, former Barbican Young Poet and Ledbury poetry festival’s young poet in residence in 2015. She als...
10th October 2020
Poetry by Heart launches seventh national recitation competition for pupils
The Poetry by Heart organisation has launched its 2021 national poetry recitation competition for pupils. The competition is free to enter. Students aged 7-18 (key stages 2, 3, 4 and 5) choose a poem ...
10th October 2020
Louise Glück awarded Nobel literature prize for 'austere beauty' of 'unmistakeable poetic voice'
The American poet Louise Glück has been awarded the 2020 Nobel prize in literature for her “unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal”.
Glück, who is w...
8th October 2020
Write Out Loud Poetry Jam, Marsden, 2016
The annual Write Out Loud poetry jam at Marsden? That’s just another open mic, isn’t it? Well, no, actually. This is the fifth consecutive year I’ve attended the yearly shindig on the Sunday morning o...
8th October 2020
Happy to be alive, grateful to the NHS: recovering Michael Rosen talks about Covid
The poet and author Michael Rosen, who spent 47 days in intensive care earlier this year after contracting Covid-19, and came close to death, has talked about his rehabilitation, and about how it has ...
7th October 2020
Herd Queen: Di Slaney, Valley Press
Poet, publisher and animal sanctuary founder Di Slaney has an MA in creative writing from Nottingham Trent University and owns Candlestick Press. Her debut pamphlet, Dad’s Slideshow, was published by ...
3rd October 2020
Dr John Cooper Clarke to launch 'I Wanna Be Yours' autobiography
The Bard of Salford, Dr John Cooper Clarke, will be launching his memoir I Wanna Be Yours, published by Picador, on 15 October with a live online event at Vout-O-Reenee's in London. He will be joined ...
3rd October 2020
Write Out Loud's Beyond the Storm anthology plays its part in a different kind of National Poetry Day
Write Out Loud played its part during National Poetry Day, with BBC Radio Leeds broadcasting a 'montage' of selected poems from our Beyond the Storm anthology of poems about the Covid era during the d...
3rd October 2020
Pascale Petit's 'Mama Amazonica' wins inaugural £5,000 Laurel prize
Pascale Petit’s seventh poetry collection Mama Amazonica has won the inaugural eco-poetry Laurel prize, which was inaugurated by the poet laureate Simon Armitage. The announcement was made at an onlin...
3rd October 2020
Dr John Cooper Clarke to launch 'I Wanna Be Yours' autobiography
The Bard of Salford, Dr John Cooper Clarke, will be launching his memoir I Wanna Be Yours, published by Pan Macmillan, on 15 October with a live online event at Vout-O-Reenee's in London. He will be j...
3rd October 2020
Ireland's Derek Mahon, whose poem caught pandemic mood, dies aged 78
One of Ireland’s leading poets, Derek Mahon, whose poem ‘Everything Is Going to be All Right’ is said to have captured the national mood during the pandemic, has died at the age of 78, the Irish Times...
2nd October 2020
