Around 30 poets among the winners of a pub poetry competition will be reading at the launch of the anthology, Half Moon: Poetry about Pubs, at the Horse and Farrier pub, on Bridge Street Otley, on 6 October, National Poetry Day.

The competition for poems about pubs was launched by Otley Word Feast Press earlier this year – and some of the shorter winning poems have ended up on beermats, too. Poems such as Brian Bilston’s ‘Beer Mats Last Theorem’, which reads: “To ensure beer mats last, / he devised a theorem: / children and ex-smokers / should never go near them.”  

Oz Hardwick’s ‘The Plan’ begins: “We settle in the sung; sharp, convivial / thoughts and words sparking the night, / setting the world to rights, one sup at a time”. Sarah L Dixon’s ‘A Bit Like Falling in Love’ opens thus: “We navigate the safe edges / until we join in conversation / about ale …”

The list of poets in the anthology reads:  Charlotte Ansell, Keith Armstrong, Ben Banyard, Bruce Barnes, Les Baynton, Brian Bilston, Boltini, Carole Bromley, Frank Broughton, Sandra Burnett, Paul Burns, Philip Burton,  PM Chapman, Ian Clarke, Oliver Comins, Mark Connors, Eithne Cullen, Simon Currie, Sarah L Dixon, Tim Ellis, Mike Farren, Wiliam Dean Ford, Lee Garrett, Catherine Graham, Andrew Graves, Oz Hardwick, Ian Harker, Geoff Hattersley, Angi Holden, Helen Kay, Will Kemp, Pauline Kirk, Gill Lambert, Janet Lancaster, Charles G Lauder Jr, David Lindsay, Ben Macnair, Linda Marshall, Gail Mosley, Greg Mulholland, Terry O’Connor, Tony O’Neill, Jo Peters, Milner Place, Winston Plowes, Steve Pottinger, DA Prince, Jeremy Pritlove, Lesley Quayle, Michael Shann, Colin Speakman, Jayne Stanton, Matthew Hedley Stoppard, Judi Sutherland, Mark Totterdell, Sarah Watkinson, Anthony Watts, Peter R White, Fiona Williams, Joe Williams, and Marc Woodward.

The readings, compered by Otley’s own “town poet”, Matthew Hedley Stoppard, begin at 7.30pm.

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