Spoken word from Kat Francois and Ian McMillan tonight to mark battle of the Somme centenary
Spoken word will be a key part of an event to mark the centenary of the first world war’s battle of the Somme at the Imperial War Museum on Thursday 30 June. Poet Kat Francois will be performing Raising Lazarus, her play about her relative’s role in the British West Indies Regiment, while poet and broadcaster Ian McMillan and documentary photographer Ian Beesley tell a story of the first world war...
30th June 2016
Andrew McMillan wins Eric Gregory award
Andrew McMillan is one of this year’s five Eric Gregory award winners, it was announced this week. The awards are given annually to young poets. Other winners this year are Sam Buchan-Watts, Dom Bury, Jen Campbell, and Alex MacDonald. Each author receives £4,500, and the prizes were presented by Joh...
30th June 2016
Deadline nears for £1,000 Ledbury poetry festival competition
Imtiaz Dharker will be judging the £1,000 Ledbury poetry festival competition. The deadline is 7 July. More details
29th June 2016
Last Monday at Rio: 'We range from 18-80 with a shifting mash of styles'
A couple of summers ago I headed north in the camper van for a holiday in Scotland, and took the opportunity to drop in on the Last Monday at Rio poetry night in the west end of Glasgow. It was brilli...
27th June 2016
'Sinuous body we've never glimpsed, that haunts about our shrubs'
This past autumn, pruning a big lilac bush, I found a snakeskin that some bird had woven into its nest. Here's a poem about another find, from Stephen Behrendt, who lives and teaches in Nebraska. His ...
27th June 2016
Greta Stoddart to judge £500 Wells literature festival poetry competition
Greta Stoddart will be judging the £500 Wells festival of literature poetry competition. The deadline is 30 June. More details
27th June 2016
'The Snurdle-urdle-urdle' by Lynn Dye is Write Out Loud Poem of the Week
The new Write Out Loud Poem of the Week is ‘The Snurdle-urdle-urdle’ by Lynn Dye, a cautionary tale about a creature who takes liberties after knocking on the door and begging to be allowed to take a...
26th June 2016
Write Out Loud Middleton at the Ring O' Bells tonight
Members of Write Out Loud Middleton will be meeting at the Ring O’ Bells, St Leonards Square, Middleton on Sunday 26 June for a night of open-mic poetry, hosted by Eileen Earnshaw. Entry is a £2 donat...
26th June 2016
Collected Poems vol 3: Bill Griffiths, Reality Street
First of all, let’s deal with the figures. This book contains nearly 500 pages of poetry and covers a five-year period. Two other volumes, each equally lengthy, have covered the period from 1966-1991....
24th June 2016
Vahni Capildeo, Ian Duhig, Choman Hardi, Alice Oswald and Denise Riley on £15,000 Forward prize shortlist
The multi-tongued and multicultural poet Vahni Capildeo; Leeds-based poet Ian Duhig; Kurdish poet Choman Hardi, who sought asylum in the UK in the 1990s; Devon-based gardener and classicist Alice Oswa...
23rd June 2016
Penguin revives Modern Poets series
Penguin is reviving its Modern Poets series with the first of its new volumes called If I'm Scared We Can't Win, featuring Anne Carson, Emily Berry, and Sophie Collins.
In the 1960-70s the Penguin ...
23rd June 2016
Deadline nears for Manchester cathedral poetry competition
Jo Bell will be judging the £450 Manchester cathedral poetry competition, for poems that the organisers say should be “broadly religious or spiritual in nature”. The deadline is 24 June. More details ...
23rd June 2016
'We're off to Never Never Land' by Matthew James is Poem of the Week
The poem ‘We're off to Never never land - Paracetamol, cucumber sandwiches and the lost rent boy Version 2’ by Matthew James is Write Out Loud’s Poem of the Week. Congratulations to Matthew for the l...
21st June 2016
Write Out Loud Sale at the Waterside tonight
Write Out Loud Sale will be meeting at the Waterside arts centre, Sale, for another night of open mic poetry on Tuesday 21 June. First-time readers are especially welcome. Open mic spaces are availabl...
21st June 2016
Write Out Loud at Bolton Socialist Club tonight
Write Out Loud Bolton will be meeting on Tuesday 21 June for a night of open-mic poetry at Bolton Socialist Club. Your hosts are Jeffarama! and Gordon Zola. Entry is £1 plus raffle, and it starts at 7...
21st June 2016
Write Out Loud Woking at the New Inn tonight
After its successful launch in May Write Out Loud Woking is back at the New Inn, Send, on Monday 20 June. Sign up from 7.30pm for 8pm start with hosts Greg Freeman and Rodney Wood. Entry is free to th...
20th June 2016
Former world slam champ Buddy Wakefield at Wakefield spoken word night
A former world poetry slam champion, Buddy Wakefield, will be performing in Wakefield, UK, later this month. The US poet, who won the world poetry slam championship in 2004 and 2005, will be performin...
18th June 2016
Writing the revolution: ferocity and finesse at Laura Taylor's 'Kaleidoscope' launch
The rights of consumers in the face of despotic big business, women’s freedom to decide what happens to their own bodies, and the liberty to speak your mind without the threat of state censorship were...
17th June 2016
Laura Mucha's Cinderella poem wins Caterpillar poetry prize
Laura Mucha has won this year’s Caterpillar prize for the best poem for children with a poem written in the form of a goodbye note from Cinderella to her ‘Dear Ugly Sisters’.
Mucha, who is 33 and l...
17th June 2016
Kaleidoscope: Laura Taylor, Flapjack
Hats off to Flapjack Press for continuing to deliver their mission to explore the synergy between performance and the page. The concept is well tested in Laura Taylor’s debut collection, Kaleidoscope....
15th June 2016
Get in the flaming June mood at Write Out Loud Marsden tonight
Where does the phrase Flaming June come from? Possibly from Sir Frederic Leighton’s 1895 painting, Flaming June, pictured. June has also inspired many poems such as ‘June’ by Carl Sandburg, Louis Mac...
15th June 2016
Goth performer Suz Winspear is Worcestershire's new poet laureate
Goth poet and performer Suz Winspear has been named Worcestershire’s new poet laureate. She was awarded the title at the launch of this year’s Worcestershire’s LitFest and Fringe on Friday night at Wo...
14th June 2016
Young competitors to read with poet and musicians at arts festival
Shortlisted and winning young poets in a town’s poetry competition will be invited to take part in a special reading on 25 June at Bourne Hall, Ewell, in Surrey, as part of Epson and Ewell’s first art...
14th June 2016
Write Out Loud at Stockport art gallery tonight
Write Out Loud Stockport will be meeting at Stockport art gallery on Monday 13 June to share poems at this open-floor poetry night. Each month a collage poem is made from members’ contributions – you ...
13th June 2016
'She tells him she's leaving him and he bakes a pie'
Faced by a loss, and perhaps by a loss of words, many of us find something to do with our hands. Here's a poem about just that by Arden Levine, published in 2015 in an issue of Agni magazine. Ms Levin...
13th June 2016
Digital can alter the kind of poetry we write. But is there still a 'gut love' for print?
The success of poetry chart-topper Warsan Shire, allied to the celebrity of Beyoncé; the power of the internet in helping to produce new kinds of poems; and the way that digital has changed the econom...
13th June 2016
'Spoon With A View' by Jonathan Humble is Write Out Loud's Poem of the Week
‘Spoon With A View’, a comic poem about ageing by Jonathan Humble, is the new Write Out Loud Poem of the Week. Jonathan, a deputy headmaster, says on his profile that he has also worked as painter, a ...
13th June 2016
Frieda Hughes to read at Ted Hughes poetry festival in Mexborough
Frieda Hughes will be reading at the poetry festival dedicated to her father Ted Hughes in Mexborough on 25 June at 6pm. This is the second year of the festival organised by the Ted Hughes Project, wh...
11th June 2016
Deadline nears for £5,000 Troubadour poetry prize
Jane Yeh and Glyn Maxwell will be judging this year’s £5,000 Troubadour intenational poetry prize. The deadline is 21 June. More details
11th June 2016
Deadline nears for £1,000 McLellan poetry competition
David Constantine will be judging the £1,000 McLellan poetry competition, run by the Arran Theatre and Arts Trust as part of the annual McLellan arts festival. The deadline is 19 June. More details
9th June 2016
'You don’t need expensive kit. Just a mind and a mouth, a pen and some paper': Laura Taylor
Back in 2010 Laura Taylor joined the Write Out Loud website, and soon afterwards took the stage for the first time, at a Write Out Loud open mic night in Bolton. In the years that have followed she ha...
9th June 2016
Write Out Loud Wigan at the Old Courts tonight
In an ironic – and certainly untimely - fixture clash, the venue where Laura Taylor cut her performance poetry teeth is having its regular open mic poetry night on Thursday 9 June, the same night as h...
9th June 2016
Selected Poems: Talking Zebras open-mic poetry group, Cleckheaton
Cleckheaton was previously only noted for the production of textiles and midget gems; and having its railway station nicked. Until, that is, the arrival of Talking Zebras, a curious mutation from thei...
8th June 2016
Poetry Book Society charity relinquishes quarterly selections and TS Eliot prize roles
The Poetry Book Society (PBS) is winding down after more than 50 years, with all three staff made redundant, the Bookseller has reported. The PBS was founded in 1953 and has worked as a book club for ...
8th June 2016
The Green Dress Whose Girl is Sleeping: Russell Jones, Freight Books
Russell Jones is a young Edinburgh-based poet who has published three pamphlets and whose recent debut collection, The Green Dress Whose Girl is Sleeping, displays a facility with differing forms, fro...
7th June 2016
Louise Fazackerley at Puzzle Poets Live in Sowerby Bridge tonight
Leading performance poet Louise Fazackerley, who has garnered praise from Will Self and Ian McMillan, will be the guest at Puzzle Poets Live at the Blind Pig, Sowerby Bridge on Monday 6 June. The gue...
6th June 2016
Deadline nears on £400 Havant poetry competition
Stephanie Norgate will be judging the £400 Havant literary festival poetry competition, on the theme of ‘The Wild’. This year’s competition includes a new award for the best poem by an unpublished po...
5th June 2016
'Vial' by David Blake is Write Out Loud's Poem of the Week
The new Write Out Loud Poem of the Week is ‘Vial’ by David Blake. David is in his mid-20s, and lives in Bristol. He has been interested in poetry “since primary school”, and began writing it again at ...
5th June 2016
'You Should Have been Here Yesterday' by Suki Spangles is Write Out Loud Poem of the Week
‘You Should Have Been Here Yesterday (Copenhagen Unicorns And Stockholm Starfish)’ by Suki Spangles is the new Write Out Loud Poem of the Week. Suki told us: “Although I have been writing poetry on an...
5th June 2016
Helen Mort to judge £500 Bare Fiction poetry prize
Helen Mort will be judging this year’s £500 Bare Fiction magazine poetry prize. The deadline – for separate flash fiction and short story categories, too – is 31 October. More details
PHOTOGRA...
4th June 2016
Soldiers of the Caribbean: Kat Francois lifts lid on untold stories from the first world war
You might assume that Raising Lazarus, a play by performance poet, actor and comedian Kat Francois about her relative's role in the British West Indies Regiment, had been timed to coincide with the ce...
3rd June 2016
Going wild at the Saboteur presentations: Abi Palmer's 'Alchemy' takes new award
An interactive poetry project that invites people to experiment with different combinations of physical and poetic elements won the new wild card category at the Saboteur awards on Friday night. Abi P...
3rd June 2016
Away With Words: end of the line, start of something special
Write Out Loud has always taken pride in providing a platform for poetry nights around the country to publicise what they’re doing and to show how poetry thrives in what are – perhaps – unexpected pla...
2nd June 2016
Charlotte's stage: poets will flock to Haworth for Poetry at the Parsonage festival
More than 100 poets are due to appear in Haworth over the weekend of 2-3 July at the Poetry at the Parsonage festival, part of the celebrations to mark the 200th anniversary of Charlotte Bronte’s birt...
1st June 2016
