'My mother found herself as a working single parent in 1960s London'
Jacqueline Saphra launched her new collection of poems, All My Mad Mothers - described as an “unreliable memoir” - on Wednesday night in London. In this blog for Write Out Loud, she talks about her mother – “a loving, chaotic, and confused free spirit” – moving to London from South Africa in the 1960s. She looks at feminism, ageing, and mortality, and at how far attitudes to women have changed ove...
30th May 2017
'She mortally threatened, wholly unaware that I do this daily'
The University of Minnesota Press has published a wonderful new collection of bee poems, If Bees Are Few, which may in some small way help the bees and will certainly offer some honey to poetry lovers. Here's just one poem, by Heid Erdrich, who lives in Minnesota. Her most recent book is Cell Traffi...
29th May 2017
Matt Abbott in platform protest, Steve Pottinger issues party broadcast
A leading performance poet took immediate action after spotting a group of government ministers at his local railway station. Matt Abbott filmed himself proclaiming his pro-Labour poem ’#JC4PM’ as min...
28th May 2017
'As if the song would come again' by Mikhail Smith is Poem of the Week
The new Write Out Loud Poem of the Week is ‘As if the song would come again’ by Mikhail Smith, a poem about loss and regret. In his responses to our questions, he explains the poem a little more: “The...
28th May 2017
'Villa Nil' by Ray M is Write Out Loud's Poem of the Week
The new Write Out Loud Poem of the Week is ‘Villa Nil’ by Ray M. ‘Villa Nil’ marks the end of another football season, and is also – note the title - a villanelle, a 19-line poetic form consisting of ...
27th May 2017
Poetry heroes: chance to read favourite poems at Manchester event tonight
John G Hall and Shirley May will be the headline poets at Homer to Heaney, where established and newer poets recite the work of their heroes, at Fuel café, Withington, Manchester, on Saturday 27 May f...
27th May 2017
The Dance of a Thousand Losers: Geneviève L Walsh, Flapjack
Geneviève L Walsh is a Yorkshire-raised Londoner who began performing her work in 2012. She founded Halifax's Spoken Weird after a year on the open mic circuit, a night that came into creation “thanks...
24th May 2017
Deadline nears for £5,000 Bridport poetry competition
Lemn Sissay will be looking for poems that “electrify me, seduce me, grip me by the neck, carry me, whisper to me and sing to me” when he judges the £5,000 Bridport poetry prize. The deadline is 31 Ma...
24th May 2017
'How strange it seemed to look down on your life from somewhere else'
During the twelve years we've been doing this weekly column, today's poem will be the first time I've offered you a plane ride. It's just one of a number of fine poems from Patricia Hooper's book, Sep...
23rd May 2017
Dominic Berry wins Saboteur award for best spoken word performer
Dominic Berry has won this year’s Saboteur award for best spoken word performer, it was announced on Saturday night at the awards evening in London. Manchester-based Dominic, who pipped Hollie McNish,...
22nd May 2017
Bringing Stanley back to life: anthology of poets inspired by Spencer's art
To Cookham Dean village hall in Berkshire on Friday night, for the Stanley Spencer poetry competition anthology reading. The hall was packed with more than 30 poets waiting their turn to read – around...
22nd May 2017
Write Out Loud at Bolton Socialist Club tonight
Write Out Loud Bolton will be meeting at Bolton Socialist Club on Sunday 21 May at 7.30pm for an 8pm start. Entry is £1 plus raffle to this open mic poetry event compered by Jeffarama! and Gordon Zola...
21st May 2017
Penelope Shuttle to judge £700 Torbay poetry festival competition
Penelope Shuttle will be judging the £700 Torbay poetry festival competition. The deadline is 31 August. More details
19th May 2017
Boxing clever: young Theatre Royal poets put mental health issues into words
The visual performance aids are just 10 cardboard boxes, with one poet guiding the audience through the show, putting on a posh accent, as if it was an exhibition. The Theatre Royal Stratford East’s Y...
17th May 2017
I must be living twice: Eileen Myles, Serpent's Tail
Eileen Myles is a compelling reader of her own works, and looks on the cover of this hardback selected and new poems as if she’s channelling Patti Smith. The studied air of cool pervades this whole co...
16th May 2017
Write Out Loud Sale at the Waterside tonight
Martin Zarrop and Joel Sadler-Puckering are the guest poets at Write Out Loud Sale on Tuesday 16 May at the Waterside arts centre, Sale. Entry is £3/£2 to this open mic event. It starts at 7.30pm - bu...
16th May 2017
Write Out Loud Woking celebrates first anniversary at the New Inn tonight
Write Out Loud Woking will be celebrating its first anniversary at the New Inn, Send, near Woking, on Monday 15 May. Entry is free, and you can sign up from 7.30 onwards for the open mic. It starts at...
15th May 2017
Kathy D'Arcy and Alisha Kaplan win Hippocrates prizes for poetry and medicine
Kathy D’Arcy, pictured, from Cork, and Alisha Kaplan, from Toronto, are the 2017 winners of the Hippocrates health professional and open prizes for poetry and medicine, it was announced at Harvard Med...
15th May 2017
'My dishes in the sink, my brownie breakfast, my braless day'
Here's a celebration of one day in the week, the kids with the father, a brownie for breakfast, everything right with the world. January O'Neil lives in Massachusetts, and this poem first appeared in ...
15th May 2017
London, Swansea, New York, Australia, Italy: Dylan Day has global reach
Readings at a favourite pub haunt of Dylan Thomas in London; performances, a walk, jazz, talks and film in his birthplace Swansea; and events in New York, Australia, and Italy will all form part of th...
14th May 2017
Mind the gap: Sarah Howe's weekend poetry course on what's left unspoken
TS Eliot prize winner Sarah Howe will be running a residential weekend course next month aimed at helping poets to think about poetry as “an art of gaps and implication, where what’s left unspoken is ...
14th May 2017
From books to magazines: new poetry fair in London on Saturday
Free Verse, organisers of the annual Poetry Book Fair in London, are staging a new event next month – a poetry magazine fair. Print magazines such as Acumen, Agenda, Ambit, Butcher's Dog, The Frogmore...
12th May 2017
Casually Discussing The Infinite: Stu Buck, Snow Leopard
'Casually Discussing The Infinite' is the long-awaited debut collection by Write Out Loud regular Stu Buck. American publisher Snow Leopard has a healthy list of previously published writers, each se...
12th May 2017
Lessons of New Cross: poet Jay Bernard at the Last Word festival
In 1981, 13 young black people were killed in a house fire in New Cross, south-east London. The fire is shrouded in mystery and controversy; it was never confirmed whether the fatal blaze was accident...
12th May 2017
Write Out Loud Wigan at the Old Courts tonight
Write Out Loud will be convening at the Old Courts, Wigan on Thursday 11 May for another night of free, open mic poetry. It begins at 8pm in the Bailiff bar. More details and Map
11th May 2017
New poetry competition offers a prize every fortnight
A publisher has launched a poetry competition in which a winner is declared every fortnight. Eyewear’s Fortnight New Poem prize “is meant to celebrate poetry in a fast-paced digital world, where too o...
10th May 2017
Write Out Loud at Stockport art gallery tonight
Write Out Loud Stockport will meet on Monday 8 May to share poems at Stockport art gallery. Each month a collage poems is produced from group contributions, and you can read April’s here. Entry is a £...
8th May 2017
'You're what roof I have, frail thing, you're my argument against the whole sky'
I recently had the privilege of editing Connie Wanek's Rival Gardens: New and Selected Poems,for the University of Nebraska Press. I had been in Duluth a number of years ago, and the following poem, n...
8th May 2017
'To earth we return' by elPintor is Write Out Loud Poem of the Week
The new Write Out Loud Poem of the Week is ‘to earth we return’ by elPIntor, a short and powerful love poem. ElPIntor’s profile page says: “I've enjoyed my stay here at WoL much more than I would've a...
7th May 2017
Poetry and much more at festival in Charles Causley's centenary year
The Charles Causley festival taking place in Launceston from 1-5 June has a special significance this year - 2017 is the centenary of the birth of the Cornish poet. Causley, who died in 2003, wrote f...
5th May 2017
Composers, singers and poets collaborate at Leeds Lieder festival
The Leeds Lieder festival celebrates the performance and composition of song and of poetry in many languages – and a well-established event, the Composers and Poets Forum and Showcase, once again prov...
3rd May 2017
Catching Light: Helen Boyles, Indigo Dreams
Helen Boyles is an honorary associate in the Department of English with the Open University and has worked since 2002 as an associate lecturer on undergraduate courses in the arts and language faculti...
3rd May 2017
Fore! Golf's laureate aims to inspire more people to take up the game
The poetry of golf, anyone? National Golf Month, which begins on 1 May, has appointed its first golf laureate to help reverse the decline in the game and inspire people to take up the sport.
London...
2nd May 2017
Deadline nears for £1,000 Poetry London competition
Liz Berry will be judging Poetry London’s £1.000 poetry competition. The deadline is 2 May. More details
2nd May 2017
TV writer and producer Henry Normal returns to his poetry roots with Manchester book launch
A leading writer, comedian and TV producer with credits such as The Royle Family and Gavin & Stacey is returning to his poetry roots with the launch of a collection of 70 poems selected from his early...
1st May 2017
