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'Taking the poem inside you': pupils battle it out for place in Poetry By Heart finals

Throughout England secondary school pupils aged 14-18 are standing up to recite in public two poems that they have learned by heart. The regional and county contests for Poetry By Heart, an organisation set up by the former poet laureate, Sir Andrew Motion, are taking place, to find finallists to battle it out next month in Cambridge. I was at the Surrey heat on Wednesday night, as a member of the...

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Young Write Out Loud

Cocktail of sun, sea and Sheffield provides joyous mix at the Troubadour

Mix ingredients from the Caribbean with a pinch or two from Sheffield and Derbyshire. Think of love, death, and a day spent at home instead of going to work. Three poets -  Malika Booker, Peter Sansom and Paul Maddern – linked up at the Troubadour on Monday night when they took part in What We Shoul...

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Review

London literary weekend aims to redress festivals imbalance for writers of colour

Malika Booker, Jane Yeh, RA Villanueva, Karen McCarthy Woolf, Anthony Anaxagorou and Raymond Antrobus are among the poets that will be taking part in a new literature festival in London next weekend t...

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News

Deadline nears for £500 Poets & Players competition

Jackie Kay will be judging Manchester’s Poets & Players £500 poetry competition. The deadline is 29 February. More details

 

PHOTOGRAPH: GREG FREEMAN / WRITE OUT LOUD 

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Competitions

Underneath the arches ... three spoken word stars at new venue in Bristol

Three spoken word stars - Salena Godden, pictured, Sabrina Mahfouz, and Vanessa Kisuule - are lined up at appear together at a new underground arts venue in Bristol next month. Joelle Taylor, regular ...

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News

'Maybe it's what we don't say that saves us'

After my mother died, her best friend told me that they were so close that they could sit together in a room for an hour and neither felt she had to say a word. Here's a fine poem by Dorianne Laux, ab...

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American Life in Poetry

Write Out Loud's David Andrew heads off for philosophy stint in Iceland

Write Out Loud’s David Andrew is taking up a new challenge next month. Our long-standing Gig Guide editor and now board member will be philosopher in residence for a month at a “creative centre” at St...

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News

Riot of poetry plus two laureates at City Voices in Wolverhampton

The West Midlands is a region of hidden gems. One such gem is the City Voices poetry evening in Wolverhampton. Now in its 15th year, it has hosted visiting poets each and every month since it was firs...

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Tales from the venues

A Gap in the Rain: Barbara Cumbers, Indigo Dreams

Barbara Cumbers is a poet whose work makes you think of sudden inundations and new landscapes, the slow movement and shape-shifting of continents. Her first full collection, ‘A Gap in the Rain’, (Indi...

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Review

Hebden Bridge stages poetry night in aid of flood appeal

Rose Condo, pictured, and Rosie Garland will be the guest poets at a spoken word open mic night in aid of the Calder valley flood appeal at the Fox and Goose pub in Hebden Bridge on Thursday 18 Februa...

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News

Yesterday's Music Today: Knives, Forks and Spoons Press

This is a wonderfully varied anthology that, like a good compilation tape (remember those?), never settles down into the obvious, and can veer from Billie Holiday to the psychedelia of Gong in the tur...

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Review

Irascible, ill-mannered, worthy but dull? An evening with Wordsworth includes his bad points

“You’ll have to stay another night. The Wordsworth Trust’s running a poetry session in the café tomorrow.” Jane Rousseau – no relation to Jean Jacques – was adamant, even offering to let me stay for f...

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Review

Poetry from the heart at Write Out Loud Marsden tonight

Forget February fourteenth, select the seventeenth to consider affairs of the art of poetry. Romantic fools, or foolish romantics might focus on the heart as a theme at Write Out Loud Marsden at Marsd...

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News

Write Out Loud Sale at the Waterside arts centre tonight

There are plenty of open mic slots available at Write Out Loud Sale at the Waterside arts centre, Sale on Tuesday 16 February. Your hosts are Sarah Pritchard and Mo Harrop, and it starts at 7.30pm. En...

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News

'The older we get the stranger my husband becomes'

It's said that each of us undergoes gradual change and that every seven years we are essentially a new person. Here's a poem by Freya Manfred, who lives in Stillwater, Minnesota, about the changes in ...

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American Life in Poetry

Shall I compare thee to a selfie stick? Dos and don'ts of first-person poetry

Can a poem be considered as a selfie stick? And how much “I” should there be in poetry? These were a couple of key questions considered by poets Fiona Sampson, Tim Liardet, RA Villanueva, and Fiona Mo...

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Review

Malika Booker will be chairing the Forward prize judges

Writer and spoken word artist Malika Booker will be chairing this year’s judging panel for the Forward poetry prizes. The panel also includes poets George Szirtes and Liz Berry, singer-songwriter Trac...

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News

Stepping up to the mic: Steve Pottinger is Write Out Loud's new chief executive

Write Out Loud is delighted to announce that poet Steve Pottinger has agreed to become its chief executive to oversee the next stage of this unique poetry organisation’s development. With his fantasti...

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News

Writing project to celebrate Batley and Dewsbury - with linkup to Tunisia

Two creative writing and poetry workshops that will celebrate Batley and Dewsbury, past and present, and link up with a similar initiative in Tunisia will be taking place at Batley library later this ...

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Workshops

Sweetheart deal tonight for Write Out Loud in Wigan

It’s a Valentine’s special at Write Out Loud Wigan on Thursday 11 February. The message is: Bring your words of love, romance, sex, even anti-valentine! This free open mic night starts at 8.30pm at th...

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News

Louise Fazackerley to open new spoken word night in Wakefield

Louise Fazackerley will be the guest poet at a new monthly spoken word night in Wakefield opening later this month, organised by Wakefield’s A Firm of Poets, in partnership with Sheffield-based Word L...

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News

Northern poets Kim Moore and Andrew Forster selected for Read Regional campaign

Kim Moore’s debut collection, The Art of Falling, and Andrew Forster’s Homecoming have been selected by arts organisation New Writing North in their list of 10 titles from the north of England for thi...

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News

'Our small talk numbing as a dial tone, serious as prayer'

A friend told me recently that he tries to keep in touch with people he's known even though they don't put any effort into doing that themselves. Here's William Trowbridge, who lives in Missouri, maki...

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American Life in Poetry

VerseMobbers look for recruits to create public poetry encounters

A London-based group of poets that aims to create “public poetry encounters”, writing, creating and then performing together ”in unusual and unexpected places” are looking for more recruits. VerseMobb...

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News

Write Out Loud at Stockport art gallery tonight

Members of Write Out Loud Stockport will be meeting at Stockport art gallery on Monday 8 February for another open-floor poetry reading, starting at 7pm. Each month the group produces a collage poem b...

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News

Nicaragua declares poet a national hero to mark centenary

Parliamentarians have declared a revered Nicaraguan poet a “national hero” on the centenary of his death, the Telesur news agency reported. Rubén Darío was given the accolade by the national assembly ...

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News

Poets back National Libraries Day as campaigners fight closures

There will be poetry events in libraries up and down the country on Saturday 6 February to mark National Libraries Day, with campaigners hoping it will also draw attention to the number of libraries f...

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News

Wanted: poems about Yorkshire for new anthology by Valley Press

Scarborough-based Valley Press is calling for submissions for an anthology of poetry about Yorkshire, to be published in October this year, from writers based anywhere in the world. Poems can be on an...

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Publications

Deadline nears for £500 York literature festival competition

Carole Bromley will be judging the £500 York literature festival / YorkMix poetry competition. The deadline is 14 February. More details

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Competitions

Small Nuclear Family: Mel Pryor, Eyewear Publishing

Small Nuclear Family is a debut collection. This, too, is the first time that a collection from the excellent Eyewear Publishing has been reviewed on this site. A wrong hereby righted. I love the appe...

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Review

Deadline nears for poetry competition in aid of cold weather shelters

George Szirtes will be judging the 2015-16 Camden Lumen poetry competition in aid of the Cold Weather Shelters project for the homeless. The winner have 20 pages of poetry published in a perfect bound...

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Competitions

Luke Wright brings award-winning Edinburgh show about Blair years to London

Luke Wright will be appearing in his latest show, What I Learned From Johnny Bevan, which won two awards at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, in a three-week run starting in February at London’s Soho thea...

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News

Poet reprieved from execution but still faces 800 lashes and long jail term

A Saudi court has overturned the death sentence of a Palestinian poet accused of renouncing Islam, and imposed an eight-year prison term and 800 lashes instead. The decision by a panel of judges came ...

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News

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