The nation is gripped by election fever ahead of the looming 2015 poll (some mistake surely?). Ukip if you want to, but Steve Mellor never sleeps in his quest to tell it like it is to the party leaders and persuade them of his straightforward solutions to the nation’s challenges. Guest poet Steve will be revealing their reactions per verse at Wigan Write Out Loud, at the Tudor House hotel in New Market Street on Thursday 13 February.

We are also promised a reading of Dave Carr’s poem that appears in a new book about the WW2 Freckleton disaster that rivals Aberfan, but was hushed up. A world premiere for Dave, I believe.

As always, there will be lots more poetry of the people, by the people at Write Out Loud’s most bohemian, avant-garde, idiosyncratic, experimental poetry venue. Get yourself on the list if you want to read. Compere Julian Jordon, start 8.30pm.

Henry David Thoreau reckoned that most people lead lives of “quiet desperation”. But he’d never been to Write Out Loud Wigan; nowt quiet about it. More details and Map 

PHOTOGRAPH: DAVID ANDREW / WRITE OUT LOUD