Spoken word vs poetry on the page: Podcasts
The poetry podcast has been around for a few years, but has it passed under the radar for a lot of people?
Dublin-based poet and all-round creative Dave Lordan has tried something new, as he does. If you have an hour to spare, maybe in the car or while soaking up the sun on holiday (or in your garden) you could do a lot worse than downloading and listening to The Spoken Word Show with Dave Lo...
30th April 2018
Citizens: Ian Parks, Smokestack
It rains in a lot of Ian Parks’ poems. I was tempted to work out the percentage. He is writing out of South Yorkshire and the post-industrial north of England, a home I share. Our urban landscape and its surroundings are indeed filtered through rain, an apt metaphor for days spent out of the light...
30th April 2018
‘Killing the Piano’ by Joe Williams is Write Out Loud’s Poem of the Week
Our final Write Out Loud Poem of the Week for April is ‘Killing the Piano’ by Joe Williams. Joe’s a performance poet from Leeds, and – as you’ll see if you check out his Write Out Loud profile – has q...
30th April 2018
Sandeep Parmar and BAME poetry critics
Ledbury Poetry Festival in collaboration with award-winning poets Sandeep Parmar and Sarah Howe recently founded The BAME Ledbury Emerging Poetry Critics scheme to encourage diversity in poetry review...
30th April 2018
A poetry smorgasbord at the 2018 Hay Festival
Nestling gently on the English/Welsh border, the 31st Hay Festival takes place this year from 24th May to 3rd June in the small and beautiful historic town of Hay-on-Wye, a place also famous for bein...
27th April 2018
Elvis McGonagall and Susan Evans at literary festival in Woking
Two performance poetry stars will be appearing at a literary festival in Woking on Saturday 28 April. Elvis McGonagall, who has had two series of his sitcom broadcast on BBC Radio 4, and Susan Evans, ...
26th April 2018
Shortlists announced for Saboteur awards
After whittling down 5,000 nominations from across the globe - more than double than last year - the shortlists for this year’s Saboteur awards have finally been announced. Featuring strong LGBT, art...
25th April 2018
Winchester 2018 Poetry Festival: Line-up and Programme announced
The Winchester Poetry Festival has become a major player in the poetry world with a reputation for innovative programming and for sponsoring and nurturing new talent. This year’s Festival takes place...
23rd April 2018
‘The Unlucky Vicar’ by Hugh is Write Out Loud’s Poem of the Week
As April draws to a close, the new Write Out Loud Poem of the Week is ‘The Unlucky Vicar’ by Hugh. A light-hearted piece which shows that men of the cloth are as prey to human frailties as the rest of...
23rd April 2018
'The unspoken building up like thunderheads'
Family life can shove one up against another, and here's a poem by Jeffrey Harrison that gets to that. It was originally published in Five Points, one of our most respected literary journals. Harrison...
22nd April 2018
Positively Cuckoo Pennine Poetry
Junior poets will be flocking to Marsden, West Yorkshire, on Saturday 21st April for the village's 25thannual Cuckoo Day festival. Local legend has it that villagers built a wall around the cuckoo to ...
21st April 2018
Momtaza Mehri is new London Young People's Laureate
Momtaza Mehri has been named as London’s new Young People’s Laureate. Momtaza, aged 24, will work with the London writers network Spread the Word for a year on youth-focused residencies across the ca...
21st April 2018
From Martha’s Vineyard to Swansea with Anne-Marie Fyfe
London-based poet Anne-Marie Fyfe, organiser of the Coffee-House Poetry and Open Mic at the Troubadour on Old Brompton Road and former Chair of the UK’s Poetry Society is off on her travels once again...
20th April 2018
How do you do? Write Out Loud at Marsden tonight
The theme at Marsden Write Out Loud at Marsden Mechanics, Peel Street on Wednesday 18 April is manners. Bring poems on this subject, or on any other subject at all, to this open-floor poetry night sta...
18th April 2018
'We will carry them home like the weight of guilt'
There's lots of fine writing about fly fishing, from A River Runs Through It on down, but good old pole-and-bobber fishing gets short shrift. Here's a bobber-fishing poem by P Ivan Young, who lives i...
17th April 2018
Write Out Loud Sale at the Waterside tonight
Kate Garrett and Angi Holden are the guest poets at Write Out Loud Sale on Tuesday 17 April at the Waterside arts centre, Sale. Entry is £3/£2 to this open mic poetry night, which starts at 7.30pm. Mo...
17th April 2018
There are Boats on the Orchard: Maria C McCarthy, Cultured Llama
Author, poet and editor Maria C McCarthy, winner of the Society of Authors’ Tom-Gallon Trust short story award in 2015, has an MA in creative writing from the University of Kent. This attractively pr...
16th April 2018
A Blade of Grass: New Palestinian Poetry, ed. by Naomi Foyle, Smokestack
The Arab world is full of poetry, and always has been, but for most people, I suspect it’s a completely closed world. With the possible exception of Rumi, and the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, badly trans...
16th April 2018
'Epitaph for Gregory O'Donoghue' by Frances Macaulay Forde is Write Out Loud's Poem of the Week
The new Write Out Loud Poem of the Week is ‘Epitaph for Gregory O’Donoghue’ by Frances Macaulay Forde, a tribute to the Irish poet who died in 2005. In the poem Frances recalls workshops with O’Donogh...
16th April 2018
Write Out Loud Woking at the New Inn tonight
Write Out Loud Woking meets at the New Inn, Send, near Woking on Monday 16 April for another night of open mic poetry with hosts Greg Freeman and Rodney Wood. Entry is free. Sign up from 7.30pm for 8p...
16th April 2018
Exmoor Society calls for poems inspired by local surroundings
Celebrating its 60th anniversary, the Exmoor Society is looking for poems inspired by the area for its 2018 competition. Open to anyone aged 16 and over, poems should be no longer than 40 lines, and ...
10th April 2018
Red Shed Deadline
Writing for reading aloud could win you one of the big prizes in the Red Shed Poetry competition, according to this year’s judge Maria Isakova Bennett (pictured).
She vows to read every entry aloud...
10th April 2018
‘Cycle of Life’ by Anya is Write Out Loud’s Poem of the Week
The new Write Out Loud Poem of the Week is ‘Cycle of Life’ by Anya. This is a thoughtful, reflective piece which attracted a lot of comment when it first appeared in our blogs. As she explains in her ...
10th April 2018
'The Robin' by Charlotte Bergman is Write Out Loud's new Poem of the Week
This week’s Poem of the Week is 'The Robin' by Charlotte Bergman. On her profile she says:
“I am a 19 years-old acting student from England. I'm also a singer, Lover of all things Harry Potter, He...
9th April 2018
