Glasgow poet laureate Jim Carruth to judge £1,500 Wigtown poetry competition
Glasgow’s poet laureate, Jim Carruth, will be judging the £1,500 Wigtown poetry competition. Peter Mackay and Frances Robson will be judging the Scottish Gaelic and Scots categories. The deadline is 29 May. More details
30th April 2015
Ted Hughes award winner Sir Andrew Motion reading in Teddington tonight
The former poet laureate, Andrew Motion, will be moving to the US in July after being appointed Homewood Professor in the Arts at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. His new collection, Peace Talks, will be published in June. Motion, who recently won the Ted Hughes award for new work, will be rea...
30th April 2015
Brian Patten, John Hegley, and tribute to Hovis Presley at Live From Worktown festival
Brian Patten, Mandy Coe and John Hegley will be headlining Live From Worktown, Bolton’s festival of words, with the main festival events running in the week beginning 18 May. Live From Worktown also f...
30th April 2015
Deadline close for £1,000 Poetry London competition
Glyn Maxwell will be judging the £1,000 Poetry London magazine competition. The deadline is 1 May. More details
30th April 2015
Michael Rosen for adults: plenty of laughs, but few of them political
To be honest, I came away a tad disappointed after seeing Michael Rosen at Wenlock poetry festival on Saturday night. It wasn’t as if the man feted for his children’s poetry and applauded by some for ...
29th April 2015
Who's your favourite performer? Deadline nears for Saboteur nominations
Nominations have opened for the annual Saboteur awards, with categories that include best one-off event, best magazine, best poetry pamphlet, best spoken word performer, best regular spoken word night...
28th April 2015
'Poetry suddenly could be fun ... it was all very Liverpool'
Brian Patten is returning to the north-west next month, with an appearance at Bolton’s Live from Worktown festival. Patten is one of the Liverpool Poets, who with Adrian Henri and Roger McGough made p...
28th April 2015
Glenys Feeney: north-west poet and compere 'with sparkling wit'
A poetry organiser in the north-west has paid tribute to “a dear friend” with a “big heart and sparkling wit” after the death of poet and compere Glenys Feeney, pictured on the right.
Christopher C...
27th April 2015
Tŷ Newydd writing centre launches fundraising campaign
A fundraising campaign has been launched for a writing centre in Wales that is celebrating its 25th anniversary. In April 1990, Ty Newydd writing centre in Llanystumdwy, Gwynedd, opened its doors to i...
26th April 2015
Michael Higgins at Write Out Loud Middleton at the Ring O'Bells tonight
Guest poet Michael Higgins will be bringing his spoken verse and song to Write Out Loud Middleton on Sunday 26 April, at the Ring O’Bells, St Leonard’s Square, Middleton. Entry is a £2 donation to thi...
26th April 2015
Remembering the Lancashire Fusiliers at Gallipoli readings in Bury and Rochdale
Poets will be commemorating the losses suffered by the Lancashire Fusiliers and all the deaths at Gallipoli on the centenary of the first world war campaign on 25 April with readings in Rochdale centr...
25th April 2015
Sean O'Brien and shades of green at Cheltenham poetry festival
Environment and the natural world is the theme of this year’s Cheltenham poetry festival, from 22 April to 3 May, which includes a reading sponsored by the Campaign to Protect Rural England by Sea...
24th April 2015
Write Out Loud's Risk a Verse at Huddersfield tonight
Write Out Loud’s Risk a Verse returns to the Red and Green Club, at Milnsbridge, Huddersfield, on Thursday 23 May at 7.30pm. Entry is free to this open mic event, where all are welcome to read their o...
23rd April 2015
The Speakers' Corner, York: cosy, crowded, eclectic. Give them a round of applause!
The friendly, welcoming hosts, Laura and Andy, have moved The Speakers’ Corner to the exquisite, community-owned Golden Ball, a time-warp pub with several good (real, of course) ales, and artisan brea...
22nd April 2015
Look back in anger, forward in hope: poets mix it with politics in election anthology
The question of anger in political poetry was raised at the launch of an anthology aimed at encouraging people to vote, in one of London’s most popular poetry venues, the Betsey Trotwood pub in Farrin...
22nd April 2015
Monkey Poet at Write Out Loud Sale tonight
Matt Panesh (Monkey Poet) and Fat Roland are the guests at Write Out Loud Sale on Tuesday 21 April at the Waterside arts centre, Sale, at 7.30 pm. Entry is £3/£2 to this open mic event, hosted by John...
21st April 2015
Poetry of protest: why Manchester's John G Hall strikes a chord across the Atlantic
The latest fusillade of poetic political bullets has been fired from Manchester via Cleveland, Ohio, thanks to John G Hall, whose latest collection, Poems for Explosion, has been brought to the page b...
20th April 2015
Perfect! This year's Wenlock poetry festival notches up new firsts
One of the friendliest poetry festivals around, situated in one of the nicest spots in the country, is gearing up for a weekend of firsts. Wenlock poetry festival in Shropshire was founded by Anna Dre...
20th April 2015
Julie Mellor the judge as deadline nears for £100 Red Shed competition
Julie Mellor will be judging the Wakefield-based Red Shed poetry competition. The first prize is £100, and the deadline is 25 April. More details
20th April 2015
Write Out Loud is back at the Brooklyn in Bolton tonight
Bolton Write Out Loud is back after a winter break on Sunday 19 April at the Brooklyn pub in Green Lane, Bolton. The open mic night starts at 7.30pm, with comperes Jeff Dawson and Gordon Zola.
19th April 2015
Remembering Günter Grass, and his controversial poem about Israel
The Nobel prizewinning German novelist Günter Grass, who has died aged 87, is most famous for his novel The Tin Drum, about the second world war. But in 2012 he also published a controversial poem abo...
16th April 2015
Deadline nears for £600 Ver Poets competition
Anne-Marie Fyfe, poet and host of Coffee-House Poetry at the Troubadour, will be judging the £600 Ver Poets competition. The deadline is 30 April. Entry form
15th April 2015
Write Out Loud at Marsden library tonight
Write Out Loud’s founder, Julian Jordon, will be convening another gathering of Write Out Loud Marsden on Wednesday 15 April at Marsden library, Peel Street, Marsden at 7.30pm. Entry is £2 to this ope...
15th April 2015
Ted Hughes award goes to Andrew Motion's 'Coming Home'
The former poet laureate, Sir Andrew Motion, has won the Ted Hughes award for new work in poetry for his series of poems based on interviews with soldiers in Afghanistan. Coming Home is a series of po...
15th April 2015
Roger Philip Dennis wins National Poetry Competition
An artist and tutor running painting workshops from his studio in Devon has won the Poetry Society’s £5,000 National Poetry Competition. ‘Corkscrew Hill Photo’ by Roger Philip Dennis was described by ...
15th April 2015
Standing up for poetry as candidates are asked to perform
The 2015 general election is officially under way – and the poetry world is getting in on the act. Organisers of Cheltenham poetry festival are holding Vote for the Verse, a Poetry Election, in which ...
14th April 2015
Young spoken word voices at Free Word Centre tonight
Two groups of young writers will take to the stage at Free Word Centre in Farringdon Road, London, to perform new spoken word pieces on Tuesday 14 April. Becci Fearnley, Sean Wai Keung, Andrea Queens ...
14th April 2015
Write Out Loud at Stockport art gallery tonight
Members of Write Out Loud Stockport will be meeting at Stockport art gallery on Monday 13 April at 7pm to read and discuss their own poetry. Entry is a £1 donation. Each month a collage poem is create...
13th April 2015
Duffy and Armitage back Poets and Players in bid for new arts grant
Leading figures in the poetry world, including the poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, Simon Armitage, Imitiaz Dharker, Michael Symmons Roberts, David Constantine, and Liz Berry, have rallied to the suppo...
13th April 2015
Publishers and poets take to the stage at London Book Fair
This year’s London Book Fair, from 14-16 April at Olympia, includes for the first time a Poetry Pavilion curated by Inpress Books, sellers of books by independent publishers. Over the three days publi...
12th April 2015
Deadine nears for £600 Ware poetry competition
Carrie Etter will be judging the £600 Ware open poetry competition. The deadline is 30 April 2015. Entry form
12th April 2015
Deadline nears for £300 Buxton festival poetry competition
Helen Mort will be judging the £300 Buxton festival poetry competition, which has the theme of Time. The deadline is 20 April. More details
12th April 2015
The 'Grandfather of Albion' at 80: Write Out Loud interviews Michael Horovitz
Veteran poet, performer and impresario Michael Horovitz - a key figure with Allen Ginsberg behind the celebrated Albert Hall poetry incarnation of June 1965 – celebrated his 80th birthday at Easter wi...
9th April 2015
Jeff Dawson comperes Write Out Loud Wigan tonight
Jeff Dawson, MC at Write Out Loud Bolton, will be compering Write Out Loud Wigan at the Old Courts, Crawford Street, Wigan, on Thursday 9 April. Entry is free to this open mic event, which starts at 8...
9th April 2015
US poetry festival links up with UK in Texas 2 London
Poets Matt Black, pictured, Agnes Meadows, and Kayo Chingonyi will be taking part in a live-link-up with the renowned Austin poetry international festival on Friday 10 April in London. The festival in...
6th April 2015
More Bees Bigger Bonnets: Steve Pottinger, Ignite
More Bees Bigger Bonnets is Steve Pottinger’s fourth collection of poems, and according to publisher Ignite Books, his best yet. A bold claim? We shall see.
Born and bred in the West Midlands, he h...
4th April 2015
Nobel poet Tomas Tranströmer dies in Stockholm aged 83
The Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer, who won the Nobel prize for literature in 2011, has died in Stockholm at the age of 83. His sparse, no-frills output was highly praised from the moment his first co...
2nd April 2015
Wanted: 'poet-type' to front new band
A guitarist-songwriter has asked Write Out Loud to help in his search for a “poet-type, with presence” to front a new “edgy, grooveable, rock n’ roll band” that he is putting together.
Angel Rivers...
2nd April 2015
'It's about what comes from your heart and soul': how 'amazing' project helped pupils learn to love poetry
A project to get primary school children in Halifax writing and performing their own poetry has been declared an overwhelming success by teachers and pupils. PoetryQuest, created and run by arts educa...
2nd April 2015
Far from a comfort zone: Maggie Sawkins on a scary journey, and the friends she found along the way
The winner of the Ted Hughes award for new work in poetry will be announced in a few days’ time. Meanwhile on Saturday night last year’s winner, Maggie Sawkins, launched Zones of Avoidance, a collecti...
2nd April 2015
Carol Ann Duffy poem read at reburial of Richard III
The third cousin of King Richard III, 16 times removed, read a poem by the poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy at the reburial of the king’s remains at a service at Leicester cathedral on Thursday. Benedict...
1st April 2015
