Poetry is at the heart of Write Out Loud, and its sole reason for being.  Poetry writing is a kind of reflecting on, an attempt to make sense of, life, perhaps. Christmas and New Year often put us in reflective mood, whether pondering the peculiarities of kith and kin’s seasonally-related madness, or atavistic musings as December closes. At hundreds of live poetry events across the UK, we gather to share these reflections on life, testing what we make of it on others; one of the network’s great strengths.

Testing, pushing the boundaries, is what Allen Ginsberg was doing with his reflections on the US’s repressed and repressive capitalist culture; musings that became his epic poem – Howl –subject of an obscenity trial that broke down the barriers of US censorship, as the Lady Chatterley trial did in Britain.

Ginsberg’s contribution to the  “Beat generation”  was related on Radio 4 on Friday as part of the Great Lives series, with fascinating – but too short - contributions from Ginsberg’s friend and biographer, Barry Miles, and poet Michael Horovitz.

it was a reminder of Write Out Loud’s experiment with 'The Beat is Back’ session at Marsden jazz festival in October, for which I read from Howl, one of my personal highlights of the year.

So, from the Write Out Loud team that brings you the UK’s only poetry gig guide and directory, its unique poetry journalism, live and page poetry reviews, biggest online poetry community, and monthly poetry nights in six northern towns:

Have a peaceful, reflective, and poetic Christmas and New Year.  See you in 2014, at a poetry event near you.

David Andrew, Greg Freeman, Frances Spurrier, Isobel Malinowski, Laura Taylor, David Lindsay, Ann Foxglove, John Togher, Jeff Dawson, John Darwin, John Keane, Norman Warwick, Diane Brooks, Paul Emberson, Michael Jordon, Julian Jordon.