"Totally Thames" Festival Programme Announced
Totally Thames’ fantastic annual season of over 100 events celebrating the River Thames is back for the month of September. This year’s programme will look at the river as an inspiration and source of creativity connecting London to other cities around the world. It will also celebrate the heritage of our river and illuminate the long-standing traditions and unique stories the river holds.
Tota...
31st July 2018
Creativity in the Fight Against Climate Change
As someone who spends a lot of time immersing soul and senses in the forest, convinced that our symbiotic relationship with trees extends beyond the dynamics of oxygen and carbon dioxide to something more spiritual, I was delighted to stumble across the recently established Bind Collective.
This ...
31st July 2018
Reconciliation by Ray Pool is Write Out Loud's Poem of the Week
This week’s Write Out Loud Poem of the Week is Reconciliation by Ray Pool. This is the third time Ray's work has been selected as Poet of the Week, so many congratulations to him once again. Ray is ...
30th July 2018
Ten: Poets of the New Generation, ed. by Karen McCarthy Woolf, Bloodaxe
This is the third in a series of anthologies - the first was published in 2010 - which were intended to correct a perceived imbalance in the publishing of poets of black and minority ethnic (BAME) or...
30th July 2018
There's Always Time For Some Ogden Nash
Emotion carries weight much like a tackle box but unlike a tackle box, it should not be reserved solely for the good times. There are so many events that happen in people’s lives to write poetry about...
29th July 2018
Bare Fiction Boost for Low Income Writers
Bare Fiction, a print magazine that publishes and promotes new writing in poetry, fiction, short stories and theatre, put out a call via an email newsletter, Facebook and Twitter for low income writer...
29th July 2018
Modern Times; Don't decry Manchester students' Actions
This week we saw a widely reported news story in the UK about students at Manchester University who defaced a mural on their campus displaying Rudyard Kipling’s The White Man’s Burden. The poem, they...
29th July 2018
Pearls of Wisdom from one of our Poet Laureates
Emily Galvin is the Staffordshire Poet Laureate. After bumping into her at a recent event where I was able to hear her perform some of her work I took the opportunity to grab a quick interview about ...
26th July 2018
Last call for Foyle Young Poets Award entries
“For me poetry isn’t about ‘understanding’ it’s about experiencing, like a dream, or a movie played on the inside of your eyelids.” – Caroline Bird (pictured), Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award Winn...
25th July 2018
Poets: Voices of Prophecy and Custodians of Truth
Poetry is often the voice of courage, found in every generation, a voice which often exposes the truth and challenges the times in which we live. It can also be the voice of prophecy which has as its...
24th July 2018
Ledbury 2018: A review
The Ledbury Poetry Festival takes place over ten days each July (29th June – 8th July in 2018) and has long been a key event in the poetry world. Now in its 22nd year, Ledbury is the UK's largest poet...
24th July 2018
Our Poem of the Week is ‘Purpose is defeated’ by Kporho Vwede Daniel
This week, we’ve chosen Purpose is Defeated, by Kphoro Vwede Daniel from Warri, in the Delta state of Nigeria. His poem holds a mirror up to the political situation in his country, and his answers to ...
23rd July 2018
Way More Than Luck: Ben Wilkinson, Seren
I found Ben Wilkinson’s work, as represented in this collection from Seren, direct but nuanced. The poems are well crafted in a range of forms. The three sections of the book have distinct themes. Th...
22nd July 2018
Omphalos: A Return to the Source of Poetry
Omphalos: A Return to the Source of Poetry
‘I would begin with the Greek word, omphalos, meaning the navel, and hence the stone that marked the centre of the world, and repeat it, omphalos, omphalo...
22nd July 2018
Please don't apologise: Swear!
Swearing, profanity, expletive or just plain crude, does the risk of causing offence outweigh the literary effect a writer or performer can achieve by using a rude word? Parental Warnings aside, shou...
21st July 2018
Are You Content with Write Out Loud's Content?
Write Out Loud has a long tradition of bringing more people to poetry through offering a superb selection of resources, information exchange and platform for on-line publishing, reading and discussion...
21st July 2018
Feeling the Buzz: Hive City Legacy at The Roundhouse
Nine fierce femmes of colour fill the stage for 75 minutes of physical performance mixing spoken word, song, dance, circus skills. It’s cleverly paced, telling a story of integration of a single lone...
18th July 2018
Addressing The Poetry Periphery
A lack of diversity in British poetry remains a conspicuous issue. In 2016 almost 10% of poets published by a major press in the UK were black or Asian. This has risen from the 2005 figure, where only...
17th July 2018
Competing For Audience Attention: Is Poetry Enough?
Why do people go to poetry events? Or, perhaps more pertinent in the light of some of my recent experiences might be the question; Why don’t people go to poetry events? Thankfully the success of man...
17th July 2018
The English River: Virginia Astley, Bloodaxe
I came across Virginia Astley way back in 1983 with the release of her first solo album From Gardens Where We Feel Secure - an almost entirely instrumental piece that fused ambient sound recordings of...
16th July 2018
‘Bye bye blackbird’ by Ray Pool is Write Out Loud’s Poem of the Week
With his poem Bye Bye Blackbird, Write Out Loud regular Ray Pool finds himself awarded the accolade of Poem of the Week for the second time. Members of our team met up at a Walthamstow tea-room, ate ...
16th July 2018
War Girls: Women Poets of the First World War
Ruth Sillers’ moving performance of women’s poetry written in the First World War has been touring the country for the last four years, and as the actress considers moving on to new projects there may...
15th July 2018
Aesthetica Creative Writing Award Open For Entries
If the recent article on Write Out Loud from our Contributing Editor Patrick Wright about entering poetry competitions has kick-started your competitive nature, why not take a look at the Aesthetica M...
14th July 2018
A Gamble Worth Taking: Entering Poetry Competitions
‘If you don’t buy a ticket, you don’t win the lottery’, so the saying goes. And the same can be said of entering poetry competitions. To get anywhere in the poetry world, such as looking to win the Ma...
12th July 2018
May Days inspired by Shelley's Masque of Anarchy
May Days is a physical adaptation directed by Simone Vause of the poem of the same name by William Alderson which, according to Alderson, “the director read and immediately thought would be lovely as ...
10th July 2018
Get on board with the Write Out Loud gig guide!
Whether you're a newbie or a veteran; a page-poet or slam-champion; or even just a listener in the corner at the back: at Write Out Loud, we're always here to help you find your voice. And we begin wi...
10th July 2018
Jennifer Malden's Mediterranean August is Write Out Loud's Poem of the Week!
Jennifer Malden lives in Italy and, apparently, loves it there, in particular Sardinia. That wonderful Mediterranean air and lifestyle have clearly given her the freedom and head-space to write this ...
9th July 2018
Peace in our broken world at Stratford-upon-Avon
The 65th annual Stratford Poetry Festival draws to a close having delivered an invigorating and varied mix of events and readings to uplift the soul.
The opening event, inspired by the closing word...
5th July 2018
The Book of Upside Down Thinking: Brian Patten, Forget Me Not Books
And now for something completely different, as someone once said. A priest halfway between Heaven and Hell, a tax collector, a magician, a philosopher, a blind man, a monk and a hammer, and quite a fe...
5th July 2018
Short story vending machines offer literary treats
Grenoble is now a bookworm's paradise, dispensing free literary treats from special vending machines across the city. Whether you're bored at the bus stop or waiting in a queue, the revolutionary 'Sho...
4th July 2018
‘One of those Weird Unexpected Moments’ by Hazel Ettridge is Write Out Loud’s Poem of the Week
One of those weird unexpected moments certainly attracted some comments when Hazel Ettridge posted it on Write Out Loud. Her modest response to being chosen as Poem of the Week was to say ‘Thanks, bu...
2nd July 2018
