How to get your poetry published - or not, as the case may be
Want to get your poetry published? Confused about which route to take? One publisher is offering a pathway through this potential maze. Helena Nelson, of Happenstance Press, has published How (Not) to Get Your Poetry Published, a revised and updated version of a pamphlet that quickly sold out when issued in 2009.
In her foreword to the new book she warns that “poetry publishing has grown even...
30th April 2016
New spoken word night in Wigan with Louise Fazackerley
Performance poet Louise Fazackerley is co-hosting a new spoken word night in Wigan on Saturday 30 April. The Papercut at the Old Courts in Wigan will have one guest spoken word artist, one guest comedian and a mini-slam.
Louise said: “The idea is to have a high quality, entertaining spoken word n...
29th April 2016
Let's hear it for the Shakespeare 400 Sonnetathon at the British Museum
Liz Berry, pictured, read Shakespeare’s sonnets in her Black Country accent, and took us from the British Museum a little closer to Stratford-on-Avon and the West Midlands. Jo Shapcott described readi...
28th April 2016
Bang Said The Gun back in Manchester
Ian McMillan and Luke Wright are the guest poets as renowned spoken word night Bang Said The Gun makes its reappearance in Manchester on 28 April at the Dancehouse theatre.
Dan Cockrill and Martin ...
28th April 2016
Deadline nears for Red Shed poetry competition
John Foggin will be judging the £100 Red Shed open poetry competition. The deadline is 30 April. More details
27th April 2016
Elvis McGonagall and Steve Pottinger in Huddersfield tonight
There’s a performance poetry extravaganza in the offing when Elvis McGonagall, stand-up poet and star of the Edinburgh Fringe, emerges from his godforsaken rural idyll at the Graceland Caravan Park to...
27th April 2016
Schools project opens eyes to power of poetry
Last year Write Out Loud published news of a schools poetry project involving poets Winston Plowes and Keith Hutson working with pupils in four schools in West Yorkshire. This year Winston and Keith h...
27th April 2016
Deadline nears for £1,000 Poetry London competition
Sean O’Brien will be judging the £1,000 competition run by Poetry London magazine. The deadline is 2 May. More details
26th April 2016
MPs to watch Luke Wright's show about the Blair years at special Commons performance
Luke Wright will be performing his award-winning solo show, What I Learned From Johnny Bevan, about the hopes and broken dreams of the New Labour years, at the houses of parliament next week. The invi...
26th April 2016
Cheers! Pub poems wanted for book and beermats
Otley Word Feast Press in West Yorkshire is inviting poems about pubs from poets throughout the UK, “to celebrate pubs and their significance in our communities”. Successful poems will be published in...
26th April 2016
Clasp: late modernist poetry in London in the 1970s, Shearsman
London has been a very important centre for experimental, late modernist, avant garde, linguistically innovative, whatever-you-call-it poetries since the 1960s. Not the only place, as a previous volum...
25th April 2016
'The way we need to learn to live with wasting'
I can't help wishing that dogs lived as long as we do. I have buried a number of them, and it doesn't get any easier. In fact, it gets harder. Here's Mark Vinz, a Minnesota poet, from his book Permane...
24th April 2016
Sonnet marathons and poetry posties mark big Shakespeare anniversary
Saturday 23 April marked the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death – and the poetry world put on events across the country to celebrate the bard’s words.
Poet in the City staged a contin...
24th April 2016
Philip Gross to judge £600 Ware poetry competition
Philip Gross will be judging the £600 Ware open poetry competition. The deadline is 30 April 2016. More details
24th April 2016
Deadline nears for Saboteur award nominations
A set of awards that recognises the huge amount of activity that operates below the radar of the big poetry prizes has opened for nominations. The Saboteur awards, organised by Sabotage Reviews, has 1...
23rd April 2016
Owen Lewis and Denise Bundred win £5,000 Hippocrates poetry prizes
Owen Lewis and Denise Bundred have won the £5,000 Hippocrates prizes for poetry and medicine. Lewis, a clinical psychiatry professor at Columbia University, New York City, won the open international ...
21st April 2016
Write Out Loud Bolton is back - at new venue tonight
Write Out Loud Bolton is back after its winter break – at a new venue. From now the open mic might hosted by Jeff Dawson (aka Jeffarama!) pictured, and Gordon Zola will be on the third Tuesday of each...
21st April 2016
Deadline nears for £600 Ver Poets competition
Andrew McMillan will be judging the £600 Ver Poets 50th anniversary open competition. The deadline is 30 April 2016. More details
20th April 2016
Write Out Loud at Marsden library tonight
David Lindsay, Write Out Loud’s gig guide editor, and host of Cleckheaton’s Talking Zebras, is once more the guest host at Write Out Loud Marsden on Wednesday 20 April, with regular host Julian Jordon...
20th April 2016
Volunteers rally round to ensure there will still be poetry in Aldeburgh this year after festival crisis
Poetry is returning to Aldeburgh in November this year with a three-day festival organised by a group of volunteers, backed by a wave of goodwill and enthusiasm from the poetry world.
While uncert...
20th April 2016
Abigail Parry's 'Arterial' wins €10,000 Ballymaloe prize
Abigail Parry has won the €10,000 Ballymaloe international poetry prize with her poem ‘Arterial’. Parry, who was given the award at the Irish Writers Centre in Dublin on Wednesday,is a former toymaker...
19th April 2016
'Mannequins weirdly sexy behind big glass windows'
My father spent his life in the retail business, and loved almost every minute of it, so I was especially pleased to see this poem by David Huddle, from his new book, Dream Sender, from Louisiana Stat...
19th April 2016
'Rose Petals' by Nicola Beckett is Write Out Loud's Poem of the Week
The new Write Out Loud Poem of the Week is ‘Rose Petals', by Nicola Beckett. On her brief profile summary she says she has been “dubbed a confessional poet”. One reader of the poem described it as “be...
18th April 2016
Mick Yates, Jennifer A McGowan, Abegail Morley (Indigo Dreams)
The books under review here are all published by Indigo Dreams, a Devon-based press which publishes 50 poetry books a year. The press also runs the annual Geoff Stevens Memorial Poetry Prize which the...
18th April 2016
American's student poets on a mission during National Poetry Month
You couldn’t imagine it happening in Downing Street – or maybe we just haven’t heard about it. But when five US youngsters were named National Student Poets last year, America’s First Lady, Michelle O...
15th April 2016
Write Out Loud at the Old Courts in Wigan tonight
Louise Coulson is the guest compere at Write Out Loud Wigan at the Old Courts, Crawford Street, Wigan, on Thursday 14 April. Entry is free to this open mic night, which stars at 8.30pm. More details a...
14th April 2016
American poet Eric Berlin's 'Night Errand' wins National Poetry Competition
An American freelance editor living near Syracuse in New York has won the £5,000 National Poetry Competition. Eric Berlin’s poem ‘Night Errand’ was praised by judges Sarah Howe, Esther Morgan, and Dav...
13th April 2016
Char March at Write Out Sale at the Waterside tonight
The award-winning Char March is guest poet at Write Out Loud Sale at the Waterside arts centre, Sale, on Tuesday 12 March. The open mic event begins at 7pm, and entry is £3. More details
12th April 2016
'Watching the world swim fast and shining, right before his eyes'
Richard M Berlin is a doctor and poet, or a poet and doctor, and in this poem from his book Practice, from Brick Road Poetry Press, he honours the wisdom each of us gains through experience.
...
11th April 2016
Write Out Loud at Stockport art gallery tonight
Members of Write Out Loud Stockport will be meeting on Monday to share their poems at Stockport art gallery. Each month members produce a collage poem. You can read the March poem here. It starts at 7...
11th April 2016
Linton Kwesi Johnson and Hollie McNish at Liverpool's WOW festival
Dub poetry legend Linton Kwesi Johnson will be performing at Liverpool’s month-long WOW (Writing on the Wall) festival next month. Johnson, the first black poet to have his work included in Penguin’s ...
10th April 2016
Write Out Loud's first Poem of the Week: 'The lovers' by Mike Watts
Write Out Loud’s first Poem of the Week is ‘The lovers’ by Mike Watts, which was chosen by a member of our editorial team from all the poems posted on our blogs last week. As you can see, one enthusia...
10th April 2016
Put something in the bonnet? Steve Pottinger and other friendly faces in Chester
There’s a poetry night with a distinctly Write Out Loud flavour at Chester on Sunday 10 April. Even Bigger Bonnets features Steve Pottinger, Write Out Loud’s chief executive, plus Write Out Loud stalw...
10th April 2016
David Morley wins Ted Hughes award with 'box of fireworks' collection
David Morley has won the £5,000 Ted Hughes award for new work in poetry for his collection The Invisible Gift, described by the judges as “a box of fireworks”. He was presented with the award by the p...
8th April 2016
Jean 'Binta' Breeze and Tony Harrison at Teesside's T-junction festival
Tony Harrison and Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze will be appearing at the T-junction poetry festival in Middlesbrough, in a lineup that also includes poets from Finland, Pakistan, Latvia, and Bosnia. Those takin...
8th April 2016
'Privileged' poets engage with writers at risk at English PEN festival
The idea was: pair 30 poets with 30 writers at risk from regimes around the world, and commission new work from each of the free writers to draw attention to the plight of those that are not free, or ...
7th April 2016
'He liked to watch the old houses stir awake'
Susan Aizenberg lives and teaches in Omaha, and the following poem is from Quiet City, published by BkMk Press. My father, and perhaps yours, too, found a little pleasure in an early morning walk.
...5th April 2016
Memorandum: Vanessa Gebbie, Cultured Llama
What is there still to say in poetry about the first world war? Vanessa Gebbie, a Welsh writer living in England who has won awards for her short stories, flash fiction and poetry, including the 2012 ...
5th April 2016
Wigan student Jessica Mason wins Poetry By Heart contest for pupils
A student from a sixth form college in Wigan has won this year’s Poetry By Heart competition for secondary school pupils. Jessica Mason, pictured right, from St John Rigby College recited three poems ...
5th April 2016
Coming soon ... picking a Poem of the Week on Write Out Loud
Write Out Loud is launching a new feature called Poem of the Week, to recognise the high quality of poetry that is regularly produced on this site. Each week a member of Write Out Loud’s editorial tea...
3rd April 2016
'Step back onto the sidewalk, sir': searching for the poetic side of Donald Trump
Populist presidential candidate Donald Trump had a less-than-secret meeting with other Republicans on Monday 21 March to try to improve his relationship with fellow members of what is called here the ...
2nd April 2016
'A parade down 5th Avenue, bonnets in lavender, powder blues'
When I was a boy, because of the song, I thought there really was an Easter parade, but the Easters came and went without one. But here's a glimpse of just a little piece of a parade by Kim Dower, who...
2nd April 2016
