'The real story always begins at the third door'
I was very sorry to read that the literary journal Field, with a long history of publishing the finest of American poetry, was ceasing publication. All good things must come to an end. Here's a poem full of mystery from the final issue. It's by Mark Irwin, who divides his time between California and Colorado, and whose most recent book is A Passion According to Green (2017).
OPEN
by Mar...
30th April 2019
New date for Peter Riley's guest spot at Puzzle Poets
Peter Riley is the guest poet at the next Puzzle Poets at the Navigation Inn at Sowerby Bridge, which has been switched from Monday 6 May to Monday 13 May this month. He has written 15 books of poetry, been shortlisted for the Forward prize, and his two-volume Collected Poems is available from Shear...
30th April 2019
Carol Ann Duffy leads reading of poems about loss of insects in last act as poet laureate
The retiring poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, who steps down after her 10 year-tenure at the end of this month, led a special reading of poems about insects in her last act as laureate.
Following re...
29th April 2019
My kind of poetry: Yvonne Reddick
We can get used to all sorts of fashions and default settings in poetry, getting comfortable with psalms, and sestinas, and free verse, and minimalism, and stanzaic bits of ekphrasis and sonnets, and ...
29th April 2019
The Write Out Loud Poem of the Week is 'Book End' by Jonathan Humble
This weeks Poem of the Week is 'Book End' by Jonathan Humble, a quietly powerful, timeless piece of poetry that focuses on the slow disintegration of a life outside the public library. With its strong...
29th April 2019
Les Murray, poet of Australia's 'vernacular republic', dies aged 80
The Australian poet and literary critic, Les Murray, has died after a long illness at the age of 80. His agent of 30 years, Margaret Connolly, said he died at a nursing home at Taree on the New South ...
29th April 2019
Difficult Women: Nicola Jackson, Indigo Dreams
The absorbing poetry of Nicola Jackson in this collection, which jointly won the 2017 Geoff Stevens Memorial Prize, grips the reader’s attention with its strong commitment to the feminist cause and th...
28th April 2019
Robert Garnham and Annum Salman are Write Out Loud guest poets at Woking literary festival
Guest poets Robert Garnham and Annum Salman will be performing along with a great number of open-mic poets over five hours at Poetry Day on Saturday 27 April at Woking literary festival. This is the t...
26th April 2019
'The Queen takes a big interest ... we have a lovely day at Windsor castle'
A poet laureate is rarely out of the news. Write Out Loud looks back at some highlights from Carol Ann Duffy’s tenure:
2011: The poet laureate responded to the royal wedding of Prince William ...
25th April 2019
'Even then they looked alive, survivors with no sickness to survive'
There's a lot of very wordy poetry these days, but here is a poem of only around 120 words in which every choice is necessary. I recently accepted another poem by Caitlin Doyle, who lives in Ohio, and...
23rd April 2019
Northern Slamhouse kicks off Words in the City weekend in Leeds
Ilkley literature festival’s Words in the City weekend in Leeds kicks off on Thursday 25 April with the Northern Slamhouse competition, when eight poets battle it out for a £200 cash prize and the tit...
23rd April 2019
The Write Out Loud Poem of the Week is 'Poetry Understands' by Vautaw
This week's Poem of the Week is 'Poetry Understands' by Vautaw, a deceptively simple rhyming piece that praises poetry for its ability to understand our 'broken hearts', our 'rainy days' and 'lonely n...
22nd April 2019
Amoretti: Paul AW Sutherland, Dempsey & Windle
It was the title that drew me: Amoretti, the name of a sequence of sonnets written by Edmund Spenser to the woman who would become his second wife. It was published, like so many other sonnet sequence...
22nd April 2019
Blank notebook pages and first-line nerves
A sort of mea culpa to start with on this ridiculously lovely Easter Sunday. I’m pretty sure I promised you a guest poet today, and I have her poems and her back-stories all lined up. But the fact is ...
21st April 2019
Write Out Loud at Bolton Socialist Club tonight
There’s open mic poetry at Bolton Socialist Club on Sunday 21 April with Bolton Write Out Loud. Your hosts are Jeffarama! and Gordon Zola. Entry is £1 plus £1 raffle. Time: 7.30 for 8pm start. More de...
21st April 2019
Chris Armstrong's poems about love, loss and Wales
This week sees the publication of Mostly Welsh, a collection of poems by Write Out Loud regular Chris Armstrong. The collection blends the historic with mythological and personal themes and deals with...
19th April 2019
'A racquet whisked through the air like a wand'
There's nothing that can't be a good subject for a poem. The hard part is to capture something in such a way that it becomes engaging and meaningful. Here's a poem from the summer 2018 issue of Rattle...
17th April 2019
Luke Wright named in three categories in Saboteur awards shortlists
Leading spoken word performer Luke Wright has made the Saboteur awards shortlists in three categories, it has been announced after the first round of voting. Luke is shortlisted for best spoken word p...
16th April 2019
Solitary Reflections: poetry plus short stories by Keith Jeffries
Welcome to a new item on the Write Out Loud home page that is aimed at celebrating regular users of this site who have made it into print. It reflects the fact that we can’t undertake to review the w...
16th April 2019
Write Out Loud Sale at the Waterside tonight
Maz Hedgehog and Joe Williams are the guest poets at Write Out Loud Sale on Tuesday 16 April at the Waterside arts centre, Sale. Entry is £3 to this open mic event, which starts at 7pm. More details ...
16th April 2019
The Poem of the Week is 'Texas Tornadoes and the Power of Prayer' by Randy Horton
Our Poem of the Week this time round is 'Texas Tornadoes and the Power of Prayer' by Randy Horton, a tale of small town apocalypse that beguiles us with its use of language and narrative. Randy forego...
15th April 2019
Poetry workshops: asking for advice about your poems
Just to be clear; in this context, it’s not one where you write new work from prompts or whatever. I mean workshops where you take a poem that’s unfinished or unsatisfying in some way, in the hope tha...
14th April 2019
Musicians and poets combine in Kent
A day of poetry and music is lined up in the grounds of Frensham Manor in Kent on Saturday 4 May. Words and Music at the Skep will include poets Stephanie Burt, Jack Underwood, Nancy Gaffield, Pete Gr...
13th April 2019
Literary centre's festival builds on Tyneside poetry traditions
Newcastle University’s Centre for the Literary Arts will be staging Newcastle poetry festival from 1-4 May, with a line-up that includes TS Eliot prize winner Hannah Sullivan, Forward best first colle...
13th April 2019
Poems wanted for new Leonard Cohen anthology
Hull’s Wrecking Ball Press is inviting submissions of poetry and prose inspired by the life and work of poet, novelist and singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, who died in 2016. On their website the publi...
11th April 2019
I Meet Myself Returning: John Darwin, Flapjack Press
I first met and heard John Darwin at a Write Out Loud night in Hebden Bridge in 2010, and knew at once that he was an accomplished and interesting poet. Since then he has been the organiser at Write O...
11th April 2019
Poetry, place and identity: Elisabeth Sennitt Clough
Some politicians are inescapably linked to things they said, often without thinking, or because they were poorly advised. Or plain stupid. JFK could never shake off the ‘ich bin ein Berliner’ thing, h...
11th April 2019
Today's my turn to hold the joy, hers the sorrow
I like this poem for the way it portrays the manner in which we study the behaviour of others and project our own experiences onto their lives. It's the second poem we've published by Jeanie Greensfel...
11th April 2019
Write Out Loud Wigan at the Old Courts tonight
Write Out Loud Wigan returns to the Old Courts in Wigan on Thursday 11 April for another night of free, open-mic poetry, organised by Ian Whiteley. It starts at 7.30pm in the Bailiff Bar at the Old Co...
11th April 2019
The Write Out Loud Poem of the Week is 'Once Upon a Time' by Laura Taylor
This weeks Poem of the Week is 'Once Upon a Time' by Laura Taylor, a piece written for NaPoWriMo from the prompt 'write something that involves a story or action that unfolds over an appreciable lengt...
8th April 2019
Thank u very much for this Wirral poetry festival line-up
Performances by Liverpool poet Roger McGough and readings from a book conceived by his former colleague in The Scaffold pop group, John Gorman, are among the highlights of Wirral poetry festival from ...
6th April 2019
'We ran down the aisles between snapping sheets that wanted to put us in our place'
Ezra Pound commanded America's poets to "make it new". And here's a good example. Has there ever been another poem written, and written beautifully, about children playing among laundry drying on a li...
6th April 2019
Poems at an exhibition: Stockport Write Loud members in event at art gallery
Members of Stockport Write Out Loud will be taking part in a collaborative event of piano music and poetry readings at Stockport art gallery on Saturday 13 April, inspired by an exhibition that was co...
5th April 2019
The Write Out Loud Poem of the Week is 'Lie With Poetry' by Becky Who
This week's Poem of the Week is 'Lie With Poetry' by Becky Who, a beautiful ode to poetry and all it does for us. Beginning with the line 'If I could lie with poetry as if beside a lover' this wonder ...
1st April 2019
Best spoken word performer, best spoken word night? Voting deadline nears in first round of Saboteur awards
The deadline is 5 April in the first round of voting for the 2019 Saboteur awards, organised by Sabotage Reviews, which gives you a chance to vote in such categories as best spoken word performer, poe...
1st April 2019
