Write Out Loud played its part during National Poetry Day, with BBC Radio Leeds broadcasting a 'montage' of selected poems from our Beyond the Storm anthology of poems about the Covid era during the day. The poems were introduced just after 7.20am when Radio Leeds Breakfast host Richard Stead interviewed Matt Abbott, who is Write Out Loud’s new development manager, about the anthology.

Wakefield-born Matt, spoken word poet and educator, said that the poems in the anthology were “accessible, diverse and engaging”, and added: “In the years to come people will look at the poetry that was written to try and get a sense of what it [the Covid-19 era] was about.” We then heard segments from a number of poems in the anthology, with poets and voices merging, one into another. More poetry from the anthology was due to be broadcast on Radio Leeds later in the day.  

Background: Our anthology for an uncertain, unsettling, painful, frightening, uplifting time