Saboteur award winner Steve Nash: the Write Out Loud interview
York-based poet Steve Nash is still reeling after beating such names as Kate Tempest and Hollie McNish to win the title of best spoken word performer in the recent Saboteur awards: "I was sat in the audience at the awards ceremony, and I just sat and stared into space for what felt like a very long time before it sank in enough for me to acknowledge what had happened." He talks to Greg Freeman abo...
29th June 2014
Lightning, rain, and Metallica: Rob Auton turns Glastonbury festival into words
The Glastonbury festival website's poet in residence, Rob Auton, will be appearing on the Poetry&Words stage at the festival today, in a line-up that also includes Michael Rosen, Jess Green, Raymond Antrobus, Helen Gregory and Attila the Stockbroker. Auton, who will be reappearing at the Edinburgh F...
29th June 2014
Fans of Edward Thomas take the time to stop and remember 'Adlestrop'
One hundred years ago – 23 June 1914 – a famous poem about a railway halt was born when Edward Thomas’s train made an unscheduled stop at Adlestrop. The resulting poem is not very long - only 16 lin...
25th June 2014
'It's still a game that anyone can play with anyone, anywhere': Hollie McNish captures that World Cup moment
Top performance poet Hollie McNish may have launched a bid to become the next poet laureate. She is at least certain to capture all football lovers’ hearts with her latest poem, ‘This Game Means So Mu...
23rd June 2014
Write Out Loud Middleton at the Ring O' Bells on Sunday
Eileen Earnshaw is the guest poet at Write Out Loud Middleton, on Sunday 22 June at the Ring O’ Bells, St Leonards Square, Middleton, starting at 7.30pm. Entry is £2 to this open mic event, hosted by ...
21st June 2014
Spoken word stars on bill as Out-Spoken moves to new venue in Camden
Top performance poet Hollie McNish, and Chris Redmond, host of spoken word/music show Tongue Fu, are the star guests on Thursday 19 June at Out-Spoken, which has moved from its humble beginnings in a ...
19th June 2014
Write Out Loud at the Red and Green Club in Huddersfield tonight
Another day, another Write Out Loud night. Risk A Verse, Write Out Loud’s newest open mic night at the Red and Green Club, Milnsbridge, Huddersfield, is being held a week earlier this month, at 7.30pm...
19th June 2014
Write Out Loud at Marsden library tonight
Come on down for another open-floor poetry evening at Write Out Loud Marsden, at Marsden library, Marsden Mechanics Institute, on Wednesday 18 June, at 7.30pm. Hosted by Write Out Loud founder Julian ...
18th June 2014
Zach Roddis and Tom Gill at Write Out Loud Sale tonight
Spoken word artists Zach Roddis and Tom Gill are the guests at Write Out Loud Sale open mic night at the Waterside arts centre, Sale, on Tuesday 17 June at 7.30pm. Entry is £/£2. Get there early to s...
17th June 2014
Poetry as a shooting script: Paul Muldoon on movies, rhyme, rock and roll
The cowboy film is close to Paul Muldoon’s heart, even though he fears the Western may be a doomed genre. The Pulitzer prizewinning poet, who emigrated to America in 1987, talked about his enthusiasm ...
15th June 2014
Countdown to Bolton's poetry festival at Write Out Loud on Sunday at the Brooklyn
It’s a big night at Write Out Loud Bolton on Sunday 15 June. The event is also a curtain-raiser for Worktown, Bolton’s poetry festival, and a number of writers with poems in the festival anthology ar...
14th June 2014
Poets should engage with ordinary people much more, says Forward prize chairman Paxman
The chairman of the Forward Prize judges, BBC TV presenter Jeremy Paxman, has warned that poets today have stopped talking to the public and are only addressing each other. He was speaking after the u...
13th June 2014
The Tudor roar at Write Out Loud Wigan tonight
Never mind the opening of the World Cup - step into the spotlight and enjoy your own fanfare at Write Out Loud Wigan on Thursday 12 June at the Tudor House hotel. This famed open mic event with its ow...
12th June 2014
Louise Fazackerley on her BBC award, living in Wigan, and Jarvis Cocker
Wigan poet Louise Fazackerley, a well-known figure at Write Out Loud and other spoken word events in the north-west, and now a winner of BBC Radio 3’s Verb New Voices award, has written a blog for the...
12th June 2014
Write Out Loud at Stockport art gallery tonight
Members of Write Out Loud Stockport will be meeting on Monday 9 June at Stockport art gallery to read and discuss their poetry, and to contribute to the collage poem that is composed after each monthl...
9th June 2014
Steve Nash and Sophia Walker win Saboteur spoken word awards
Yorkshire-based Steve Nash, pictured, has been voted best spoken word performer in the 2014 indie lit Saboteur awards. Nash, who beat last year's Ted Hughes award winner Kate Tempest to first place, p...
8th June 2014
Maya Angelou, 'black woman's laureate' and worldwide inspiration, dies aged 86
The American poet and writer Maya Angelou has died at her home in North Carolina at the age of 86. A statement from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, where she had served as a professor of Amer...
5th June 2014
Winston's poetry invention puts the spoke in word
Poet and dedicated cyclist Winston Plowes has invented a “poetry generating” bicycle – and is planning to take it to Glastonbury. Winston, who is the Pop-up Poet at the forthcoming Hebden Bridge arts ...
4th June 2014
Liverpool Poet Brian Patten reading at Teddington Word Cafe
One of the most popular poets of the 1960s, Brian Patten, is making a rare London appearance early next month at the Word Cafe in Teddington, south-west London, on Thursday 5 June. Patten made his nam...
2nd June 2014
