Deadline nears for £1,000 Kent & Sussex Poetry Society competition
Kit Fan will be judging the £1,000 Kent & Sussex Poetry Society open poetry competition. The deadline is 31 January 2025. More details
29th January 2025
A poem for Holocaust Memorial Day
Monday 27 January was Holocaust Memorial Day, and the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration and extermination camp at Auschwitz in Poland.
The main commemoration began at 4pm in a special tent that was built over the gate to the former death camp. One of the symbols of the ...
27th January 2025
'History repeats itself': US poet re-posts poem from 2017, in protest at Trump silencing scientists - again
The American poet Jane Hirshfield has re-posted a poem she first publicised at the start of the first administration of President Trump in 2017, in protest at the new US government’s silencing of stat...
25th January 2025
Acclaimed Northern Irish poet Michael Longley dies aged 85
The multi-award-winning poet Michael Longley has died at the age of 85. Longley was born in Belfast in 1939 and lived in the city until his death, which was announced on Thursday. In the late 1950s he...
24th January 2025
Billy Collins to appear at Seamus Heaney HomePlace
The hugely popular American poet Billy Collins will be reading and in conversation with poet Paula Meehan at the Seamus Heaney HomePlace in Bellaghy, Co Derry on Saturday 8 February at 7.30pm (doors o...
22nd January 2025
Simon Armitage returns to Marsden on latest leg of libraries tour
The poet laureate, Simon Armitage, is lining up the next leg of his 10-year tour of the UK’s libraries. Each spring this decade, Armitage is giving readings in libraries across the UK and his journey...
21st January 2025
Chris Hardy to judge South Downs Binsted prize
Chris Hardy will be judging the £250 South Downs Poetry Festival’s Binsted prize. Poems must be previously unpublished and not exceed 40 lines. The deadline is 31 March. More details
16th January 2025
Peter Gizzi wins £25,000 TS Eliot prize
American poet Peter Gizzi has won this year’s £25,000 TS Eliot Prize for his collection Fierce Elegy, described by the chair of judges, Mimi Khalvati as “infinitely sad, yet resolute, and so alive in ...
14th January 2025
‘You can’t take the Bradford out of us’: poet Kirsty Taylor as City of Culture is launched
Bradford-born poet, spoken word artist and playwright Kirsty Taylor is the dramaturg – the literary adviser - of Bradford 2025 City of Culture, which was launched on Friday night in front of a packed ...
11th January 2025
Imtiaz Dharker awarded OBE in New Year's Honours
The poet, artist and film-maker Imtiaz Dharker has been awarded an OBE for services to the arts in the 2025 New Year’s Honours List. Dharker was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2014 and b...
3rd January 2025
Twenty years ago, did I imagine that Write Out Loud would still be here in 2025? No …!
Welcome to 2025 – and to Write Out Loud’s 20th anniversary as a poetry website! We have a number of things planned to commemorate this year, including a big new competition. We’ll be launching that - ...
1st January 2025
Poems on exile sought to mark Byron bicentenary
The £1,000 Keats-Shelley prizes for essays and poems have opened for entries. The theme for this year’s prizes is ‘Exile’, to mark the bicentenary of Byron’s death.
Entrants to the Keats-Shelley p...
1st January 2025