Owen Sheers and Elvis McGonagall at Ledbury poetry festival
Award-winning poet Owen Sheers has kicked off the Ledbury poetry festival, which started on 29 June, and goes on until 8 July. Among many options, poetry from the Being Human Bloodaxe anthology is performed on Sunday 1 July; Elvis McGonagall appears at a Bang Said The Gun session in the evening of the same day; there’s a Poems and Cider night on Thursday 5 July; and a workshop on page to stage ...
30th June 2012
Slam dunk at Hebden this Sunday. Sign up now
Poets will be be pouring in to sign up for the slam at the town that has been dunked in the rising waters of the Calder in this week's floods. Hebden Bridge Arts Festival - reported elsewhere in our news section - has
Radio 4 Saturday Live regular Kate Fox, pictured, performing a short set at t...
30th June 2012
Windermere implosion: many poems read
The popular Imploding Inevitable festival is back for a third year over 29-30 June at Fell Foot Woods, Windermere, with a poetic lineup that includes Mark Mace Smith, Ann Wilson, Seni Seniviratne,...
29th June 2012
Steph Pike and Steven Waling at Bury's Once More With Meaning
Steph Pike and Steven Waling are July’s guests at Once More With Meaning, Bury’s singular open mic night. The event takes place at a large performance space at the Met theatre, accessible on Sunday...
29th June 2012
Robin Hood Book's Manchester launch today
An anthology of angry poetry, the Robin Hood Book of verse versus austerity, is to get its Manchester launch at Ashton-under-Lyne library today at 1.30pm. Among its 131 contributors those reading a...
29th June 2012
Imagine, a poem in every shop
One day, perhaps all towns will be like Bolton, which had an original poem on display in each of 36 town-centre shops, cafés, hairdressers and the theatre, so as to bring poetry to a wider audience...
25th June 2012
Poetry contest to celebrate Preston Guild
Preston Poets’ Society are inviting entries for a competition celebrating the Preston Guild, a historic event dating back to 1179 and marked in the town every 20 years. The competition is to write ...
25th June 2012
Closing date nears for Ted Hughes contest
The 6 July closing date for entries for the Elmet poetry prize in the Calderdale Ted Hughes writing competition is coming up fast. The judge is Kathleen Jamie and first prize is £300. Each entry sh...
24th June 2012
Religious and spiritual poems wanted for cathedral competition
Not much time left to enter Manchester Cathedral’s 14th International Religious Poetry Competition, with a first prize of £450. Closing date is 29 June. Poems should be broadly religious or spiritu...
24th June 2012
Pascale Petit to judge Essex poetry competition
Pascale Petit is the judge of this year’s Essex open poetry competition. Its closing date is 30 July. The top prize is £1,000, with second £250, third £100, and three runner-up prizes of £25. The p...
24th June 2012
Write Out Loud Middleton tonight
It’s a 7pm sharp start for Write Out Loud Middleton, at the Ring O’Bells, St Leonard’s Square, Middleton, tonight, 24 June. Entry is a £3 donation for this open mic event where everyone is welcom...
24th June 2012
One woman and a boat: poetry surgeries on canal in Birmingham
Birmingham’s poet laureate, Jan Watts, is offering one-to-one surgeries with new and emerging poets on her boat, the Tegla, which is moored on the canalside in Birmingham city centre this month. Th...
22nd June 2012
Wanted: poets at Skelmersdale music festival
A music festival organiser is looking for poets to fill the 5-10 minute gaps between the bands at the Inside/Outside festival, at the Engine Rooms, Westgate, Skelmersdale. It's on Friday 22 June, a...
21st June 2012
Bilingual Lit-fest in France, mostly gratuit!
Here’s something a bit different: a well-stocked weekend literature festival in Les Deux Sevres, north of the Loire Valley in France. A bilingual lit-fest, in fact, with principal guest writer, poe...
20th June 2012
Slam champion Ben Mellor's top performance tips
Award-winning slam poet Ben Mellor has offered three top tips for performance poets: learn it; eye contact; and practice. In an interview called Ask the Expert with the performing arts network webs...
20th June 2012
Should five-year-olds be made to learn poems by heart?
Poet Simon Armitage has expressed his deep reservations about the plan by the education secretary, Michael Gove, to ensure five-year-old pupils learn to recite poems by heart. In an article on the ...
20th June 2012
Saving the Earth, one poem at a time
Write Out Loud is supporting the Rio+20 summit on sustainable development from 20-22 June in the best way we can, by urging folks to write poems about it. Write Out Loud’s founder Julian Jordon is ...
20th June 2012
Solomon Scribble at Write Out Loud Sale
Solomon Scribble, pictured, Sian S Rathore, and Fergus Evans are guest poets are Write Out Loud sale on Tuesday 19 June at the Waterside arts centre, Sale. First time readers are especially welcom...
18th June 2012
Yes, you Cam! Calling all 'political' poets
Poets on Write Out Loud often have plenty to say on the topics of the day. Well Versed, the weekly poetry column of the daily socialist newspaper Morning Star, is looking for submissions from new a...
16th June 2012
Stage to page - does it work? Slinky Espadrilles, by Ash Dickinson
What do you do, when you review
A poetry book that disperses
written verses, meant to be read
out loud to a crowd,
who use their ears to catch
a snatch of orally-uttered words,
...16th June 2012
Change of venue for Write Out Louders at Cadence festival
The venue has changed for Write Out Louders heading for this year's Cadence festival at Tyldesley in Greater Manchester on Saturday, 16 June. The new venue is Independent House, Chapel Street, Tyl...
15th June 2012
Great expectations for Portico's poetry contest
A poetry competition with Charles Dickens as the theme has been launched by Manchester’s Portico library. The deadline for entries is 31 July, and there will be two awards; the Portico poetry prize...
14th June 2012
When you're in a hole ... poets wanted to help opencast mining fight
A poetry contest has been launched as part of a campaign to save an area of south Wales from opencast mining. The deadline is 30 June, and entry costs only £1. Entrants have a chance of getting a ...
14th June 2012
Write Out Loud Wigan tonight
It may be raining outside and even in your heart … but that’s no excuse for not leaving your troubles with the hat-check girl, and heading into the Tudor House hotel in Wigan for another rip-roarin...
14th June 2012
Only connect: Paragram wants submissions for anthology
A group of Surrey writers are widening the net and asking for submissions for their next anthology, with the theme Connections. Paragram welcome any genre of poetry or prose: mystery, literary, hum...
12th June 2012
And now for something completely different ...
Experimental artists Peter Jaeger, Ira Lightman, and Helmut Lemke will be performing at Manchester Other Room, on Tuesday 12 June at 7pm, now at a new venue at The Castle, Oldham Street, Manchester...
11th June 2012
Join the collage at Write Out Loud Stockport
Write Out Loud Stockport returns to Stockport art gallery on Monday 11 June at 7pm for another open mic event that is especially welcoming to beginners. Entry is a £1 donation. Read John Keane’s c...
11th June 2012
Closing date nears for Myslexia's £2,000 contest
The closing date is 18 June for Myslexia’s £2,000 women’s poetry competition, to be judged by the national poet of Wales, Gillian Clarke. The entry fee is £7 for up to three poems of any length, an...
11th June 2012
Poems back in the shops - apologies for the buggeration
The software glitch should be over now and you are OK to upload your poems in shops again. We have extended the deadline until the morning to give you chance to upload any final poems for the Bolto...
9th June 2012
Fancy putting your poems to music?
There’s been a bit of discussion on these pages recently about rhythm in poetry. Well here’s a chance to collaborate with musicians, experimenting with text and sound to produce short pieces and a ...
4th June 2012
Patience Agbabi remakes the Canterbury Tales
Patience Agbabi, whose poems have been broadcast on television and radio all over the world, the London Underground and human skin, will be appearing at the Latitude club, Norwich Arts centre, on W...
1st June 2012
Sissay sold short in Scribble celebration?
I can think of no finer place to celebrate the poetic outcomes of community writing projects than Oldham Library, not just because of its contribution to the existence and direction of Write Out Lo...
1st June 2012
Jackie Kay to judge £1,000 Arran poetry contest
Poet and novelist Jackie Kay is to judge the McClellan poetry prize, which is awarded in memory of Robert McLellan, the poet, playwright and short story writer who spent his working life in High Co...
1st June 2012
