Poetry ‘forged from survival’: Max Wallis’s Aftershock Review
A poet from the north-west has launched a poetry magazine which says it is composed of “literature forged from survival - poems shaped by psychosis, PTSD, cancer, addiction, injustice, and the griefs that leave lasting marks. But crisis is not our only mode. This issue also celebrates queer love, tenderness, defiance, and reinvention.”
Editor Max Wallis, whose early poems appeared on Write Out ...
30th August 2025
‘Where are all the Great Poets? And do we still need them?’
On the 12th anniversary of Seamus Heaney’s death - on 30 August - here’s a timely discussion topic from the former Scotland makar, Kathleen Jamie, who asks: “Where are all the Great Poets?” Her words are from a post on the North Sea Poets Substack social media platform:
“Recently, the other North...
30th August 2025
BSL poets shortlisted among contenders for Forward prizes
Raymond Antrobus and Zoë McWhinney have been shortlisted in the performance poem category for the 2025 Forward prizes, in the first year the prize has been open to poems performed in British Sign Lang...
16th August 2025
Poet Alice Oswald arrested at Palestine Action protest
The award-winning poet Alice Oswald, a former Oxford professor of poetry, was among more than 500 people arrested during the latest protest in London on Saturday over the proscribing of the group Pale...
10th August 2025
Why poem titles matter more than you might think
You’ve just read a brilliant poem. The language sparkled, the images lingered, the last line knocked the breath out of you. But 10 minutes later, you’re trying to tell someone about it and you’ve forg...
5th August 2025
Going live! How my pamphlet publication opened door to spoken word scene
I am standing in a ‘community hub’. This takes the form of a prefabricated, restyled chicken shed in the middle of a playing field in my home village of Great Barrow, near Chester. It is a lovely summ...
4th August 2025
'What can writers and poets possibly do in the age of Trump, Farage and Starmer?'
Having been invited by Andy Croft to take part in the launch of Release the Sausages!: poems for Keir Starmer (Culture Matters), an anthology of poetry that contains no poems, I was curious as to what...
2nd August 2025
