The top three places in this year’s Battered Moons Poetry Competition have been taken by Poetry Society Members with Julia Webb winning for her poem ‘We is in the bank’, with all bar one of the Commended poets being Society Members too. The competition was judged by Jacob Sam La-Rose and Cristina Navazo-Eguía Newton with […]
On Saturday 27 October four Foyle Young Poets caught the train to Cambridge for the Race & Poetry & Poetics conference Legacies of Colonialism, accompanied by Education Co-ordinator and Foyle Young Poet Helen Bowell, and poet Cheryl Moskowitz. As part of this year’s 20th anniversary celebrations of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, […]
On Saturday 10 November the brilliant poet and educator Colin Watts visited South Shore Academy in Blackpool. The school entered students’ poems into the Young Poets Network challenge with End Hunger UK and won a prize draw to receive a free poet visit. Colin delivered workshops as part of the school’s weekly ‘Shine at South […]
Poetry Society Member John Freeman is this year’s £5,000 winner of the Bridport Poetry Prize for his poem ‘Exhibition’, judged by Daljit Nagra. John was winner of Wales Book of the Year (poetry) 2017 for What Possessed Me (Worple), and National Poetry Competition 3rd prize winner in 2013. Fellow Society Members Vanessa Lampert and Sam […]
Left to Right: Anita Pati, Nina Mingya Powles, Claire Collison Congratulations to Poetry Society Members Claire Collison and Anita Pati who, along with Nina Mingya Powles, are the winners of the first-ever Women Poets’ Prize – launched this year by the Rebecca Swift Foundation in memory of Rebecca, founder of the Literary Consultancy, an editorial […]
The Poetry Society in partnership with the Keats Foundation and Keats House celebrated the birth of poet John Keats today with a service in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey. In an annual event, fans of John Keats gathered at the Abbey to read a selection of his poems and lay a wreath by the […]
The Poetry Society’s partnership with the Canal & River Trust has been busying up the waterways this month. We have a newly commissioned poem from canal boat dweller and National Poetry Competition-commended poet Joseph Butler; and our Canal Laureate Nancy Campbell was resident at Oxford Canal Festival to create a crowd sourced poem with festival […]
We are delighted to announce the line-up for the SLAMbassadors Showcase 2018. On Sunday 18 November at King’s Place, London, we will be celebrating the next generation of spoken word artists, hand-picked by Joelle Taylor, as well as 17 years of SLAMbassadors. Eight new artists will work with Joelle Taylor over a weekend of Masterclasses, […]
Ten brilliant young poets are adding their voices, and their poems, to the Poetry Archive as part of a 20th anniversary celebration of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award. This will ensure preservation of their work and place in poetry history. The recording took place on Tuesday October 23rd at The Soundhouse, a […]
Congratulations to all the poets shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize 2018. The shortlist includes debuts by Zaffar Kunial, Fiona Moore, Phoebe Power, Richard Scott and Hannah Sullivan, alongside collections by Ailbhe Darcy, Nick Laird and Sean O’Brien, and American poets Terrance Hayes and Tracy K Smith. The Poetry Society is proud of its associations […]
We are pleased to announce the young poets and young critic who have won the fifth annual Timothy Corsellis Prize, on the anniversary Corsellis’s death. The Timothy Corsellis Prize was set up in memory of the young poet Timothy Corsellis, both as a memorial and an encouragement to others to explore the often overlooked field of […]
The Poetry Society nominated the reclining mulberry tree at Keats House in the Woodland Trust’s annual Tree of the Year contest, marking 200 years since Keats first met the tree in 1818. The poet John Keats wrote many of his most famous poems in the garden at 10 Keats Grove, where he lived from 1818-1820 […]
“We arrived in a world where so many of the magical papers (bearing poems) survived. And even now we can leach their magic through our eyes.” – from ‘A map is a picture that shows where things are’ by Emily Bludworth de Barrios, The Poetry Review, Autumn 2018 “Magical papers (bearing poems)” neatly describes […]
We’re proud to announce that Richard Westcott of the North Devon Stanza is the winner of this year’s Stanza Competition for his poem ‘A Traditional Cure’. Penelope Shuttle said of Richard’s poem ‘There’s not a wasted word. The poem is direct, unambiguous, shocking.’ We received 384 poems on the theme of TRADITION from 232 poets […]
Happy National Poetry Day 2018! National Poetry Day is a big annual celebration of poetry across the UK, this year on the theme of ‘Change’. To mark the occasion, The Poetry Society is today delivering a pair of showpiece live events at the Southbank Centre. First up is Schools National Poetry Day Live at the […]
Equinox passes. Penury confronts Mammon. Free-range turkeys fret. – Geoff Lander ‘Change’ is the theme of National Poetry Day and Greenwich Stanza is just one of many Poetry Society Stanzas reading, writing, performing and sharing poetry to make a difference on 4 October 2018. Greenwich Stanza members, including Geoff Lander (above), wrote and exchanged haikus […]
CONGRATULATIONS to all the Poetry Society Members who were successful in the inaugural Waltham Forest Poetry Competition, judged by Meryl Pugh, on the theme of ‘A Bright Future’. In the Adult competition 437 poems were received from 223 poets, and in the Young Poet section, 84 poems from 54 poets. Poetry Society Member Jane Wilkinson […]
We are delighted to announce the winners of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2018. From nearly 6,000 poets and 11,000 poems, the top 15 and 85 commended poets have now been selected and we can’t wait to celebrate them in the weeks, months and years to come. Judges Daljit Nagra and Caroline […]
Robin Robertson’s The Long Take (Picador), already a winner of the Roehampton Poetry Prize this year, is also on the shortlist of the Man Booker Prize and the Goldsmiths Prize. Described by John Banville as ‘A beautiful, vigorous and achingly melancholy hymn to the common man that is as unexpected as it is daring’, The […]
Terry Gifford has announced the longlist for the Wells Festival of Literature Poetry Competition, which includes Poetry Society Members galore! Included on the list are Robin Kidson (for two poems), Rosie Jackson (for two poems), Christopher North, Kerry Darbishire, Linda Saunders, Deborah Harvey, and Sharon Black – good luck to them all! Miriam Nash will […]
The Frogmore Poetry Prize for 2018 has been awarded to Emily Wills of Dursley, Gloucestershire for the poem ON THE SUBJECT OF FRACKING. She receives the sum of two hundred and fifty guineas and a two-year subscription to The Frogmore Papers. The first runner-up is Poetry Society Member Rosie Jackson of Frome, Somerset for the […]
National Poetry Day will see Poetry Society Member Jean Atkin become the first ever Troubadour of the Hills, thanks to the Ledbury Poetry Festival. The Festival, in conjunction with the Malvern Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), have appointed Jean to the new position, and she will recite poems in that capacity for the […]
Congratulations to all the Poetry Society Members who did well in A Poem and a Pint Poetry Competition, judged by Clare Shaw. Carole Bromley was third for her poem ‘The Unpacking’. Carole was also Highly Commended for two poems ‘Medical Students’ and ‘Nobody Tells Me’. Joining Carole on the Highly Commended list were Society Members […]
CONGRATULATIONS! to Poetry Society Member Victoria Gatehouse, winner of the Otley Written Poetry Prize, and to all the other Poetry Society Members who did well in the competition, including Andy Humphrey (Highly Commended), Alicia Fernández and Jo Peters (both Commended), with Keith Bolton, Sam Burns (for two poems), Yvonne Green, Jenny Hamlet, Alison McNulty, and […]
The Poetry School and Nine Arches Press have announced the shortlist and longlist for Primers Volume Four, their mentoring and publication scheme. Judges Kim Moore and Jane Commane have selected ten manuscripts for the shortlist and 17 for the longlist – including many, many Poetry Society Members, highlighted below. Charlotte Baldwin for With my lips […]
The Poetry Society are getting ready to announce the winners of the 2018 Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award and release their poems into the world very soon – but you can also catch some of the winners in a very special edition of BBC Radio 3’s The Verb, to be broadcast on National […]
Jon Stone has won the £1000 2018 Live Canon International Poetry Competition for his poem ‘The Lookout’ – congratulations to Jon! This year’s judge was Liz Berry and all 50 poems on the short- and long- lists will appear in the 2018 anthology. Poetry Society Members on the shortlist include Emma Simon (for two poems), […]
Sydenham Arts’ second annual competition, ‘We Could Be Heroes’ in partnership with Alarms & Excursions and Kirkdale Bookshop has been won by Poetry Society member Doreen Hinchliffe for her poem ‘Mr. Williams’. Fellow Members Philip Burton and Mantz Yorke were second and third for ‘The Longest Wait’ and ‘Tommy at Seventy’. Doreen also bagged a […]
Poetry Society Members David Keyworth, Maria Isakova-Bennett and Scott Elder have been Highly Commended by judge Graham Burchell in this year’s Buzzwords Poetry Competition, won by Katie Hale. Graham’s report: What a strange and dizzy world one is thrown into when reading very many poems one after the other until there are three piles of […]
Poetry Society Member Jane Lovell has won the 2018 Wigtown Poetry Competition for her poem ‘Starlings’, judged by Christine De Luca. Fellow Member Owen Lewis is Runner-up for ‘As if it didn’t matter which way was home’. Congratulations to both! This year’s Wigtown Poetry Competition received 735 entries. In addition to poets from Scotland and […]
Good news from the Waltraud Field Open Poetry Competition. Poetry Society Stanza rep Angela Topping is the winner and fellow Member Anthony Watts is third. John Baylis Post was second. The competition is run by Crewe and District Writers’ Circle, formed when a group of students, who had completed a writing course, decided to keep […]
Poetry Society Member Lisa Matthews has won this year’s Welshpool Poetry Festival competition judged by Andrew McMillan, with fellow Members Catherine Whittaker and Pippa Little in second and third places. The theme was ‘jewel’. Andrew McMillan: “The standard of work was very high, and in many ways the process of sifting through them was like […]
The 2018 Winchester Poetry Prize longlist, chosen by Liz Berry, includes Poetry Society Members Isabel Bermudez, Alan Buckley, Sue Chamberlain, Harriet David, Hugh Dunkerley, Alan Dunnett, Inua Ellams (for TWO poems), Niall Firth, Clifford Forde, Rosie Jackson, Stephen Keeler, Joanne Key, Ruth McIlroy, Paul McMahon, Margot Myers, Katrina Porteous, Mara Adamitz Scrupe and Ellora Sutton. […]
The Poetry Society has teamed up with Paperblanks, who have four poet-themed notebooks to give away from their manuscript collection series, perfect tomes to inspire your creativity. The featured poets are William Wordsworth, Edgar Allen Poe, William Butler Yeats, and Rabindranath Tagore. To win one of these excellent notebooks, please email [email protected] with the heading […]
Enter the Chelsey Minnis imagery quiz and win a free ticket to see Chelsey Minnis at the Free Verse Fair on the 22nd September 2018 at Senate House, London plus receive a limited edition Chelsey Minnis print and a copy of her brand new book Baby I Don’t Care (Wave Books, 2018). What do you have […]
In advance of this Saturday’s Free Verse Fair at the Senate House, University of London, we had a quick chat with Rishi Dastidar – Nine Arches published poet, chair of Spread the Word, consulting editor for The Rialto – who is running a workshop at the fair for poets on how to get noticed in […]
In 2017 The Poetry Society’s Young Poets Network partnered with the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich to challenge young poets to respond to the changing face of our polar regions. The winning poem and eight runners-up are presented in a new anthology, now available to read online below. Readers in London will also be able […]
Click on your calendar and pencil your diaries: we’re filling the Free Verse day with readings. The Free Verse Poetry Book and Magazine Fair features a full day of dip-in-and-out poetry readings, where publishers introduce their poets and philosophies to you. All readings are free. 11.20am Foyle Young Poets 11.40am ignitionpress (Lily Blacksell, Mary Jean […]
We are sad to report that Poetry Society Member Julian Flanagan passed away in August. Julian was such a lovely man and a regular at the [email protected] open mic sessions at The Poetry Society’s Poetry Cafe. He was also a member of the Barnes & Chiswick Stanza. “The last email I received from Julian was […]
The winners of the BBC Proms Poetry Competition 2018, for poems written in response to a piece of music in the 2018 Proms season, have been announced. This year’s competition was judged by poet and presenter of The Verb on BBC Radio 3 Ian McMillan, poet and Foyle Young Poet Helen Mort and the Director […]
#tedhughesaward recommendations are open.Members of The Poetry Society, or Poetry Book Society can use this link to nominate new work in poetry for the Ted Hughes Award poetrysociety.org.uk/competitions/t… Judges this year:Linton Qwesi Johnson, Clare Shaw, Mark Oakley Retweeted by The Poetry Society
The top 3 places in the @BATTERED_MOONS Poetry Competition have been taken by @PoetrySociety Members 1⃣@Julwe1 (Julia Webb) 2⃣Julie-ann Rowell 3⃣Janice Booth Among the Commended are @PoetrySociety Members @janeburn1971, Peter Iveson & Nicola Daly poetrysociety.org.uk/news/battered/
The lovely building next to @PoetrySociety Poetry Cafe has FINALLY had the hoardings taken off after what must be at least two years of renovation.
The poets have spoken
Truth and lies. What are the poems that speak truth to you? Send in nominations for our new #NationalPoetryDay anthology buff.ly/2A3Z4nB #TellMeTheTruthAboutLife Retweeted by The Poetry Society
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore —Naomi Shihab Nye #WorldKindnessDay poets.org/poetsorg/poem/… Retweeted by The Poetry Society
Nominate the poems that speak to you of love and truth for the new #NationalPoetryDay anthology buff.ly/2A3Z4nB #TellMeTheTruthAboutLife Retweeted by The Poetry Society
Robin Robertson and Andrew McMillan on sex, war and truth in poetry – books podcast theguardian.com/books/audio/20… Retweeted by The Poetry Society
We’re looking forward to hearing this and all the other beautiful poems tomorrow night - do come! Thanks @nancycampbelle 😊 twitter.com/nancycampbelle… Retweeted by The Poetry Society
Also on #RLSDay here's an excellent and evocative wee poem by the man himself. Retweeted by The Poetry Society
"n+7 works by replacing each noun in a text with the seventh one following it in the dictionary. You can use any dictionary, or experiment with mixing up different ones..." Find out more and create a n+7 poem for our free competition: bit.ly/bletchleychall… Retweeted by The Poetry Society
The poetry 'voice' when performing. Retweeted by The Poetry Society
In case you missed this (really?) The @VervePoetryFest 2019 lineup is announced and ticket sales are open! It's a humdinger of a programme! All the deets at vervepoetryfestival.com :-) Retweeted by The Poetry Society
Sweetest 'and, oh, by the way' on the latest email we received... "I look forward to the next Poetry Review, it's my favourite postal event!!" @no1_emily
This just in - The Shuffle is hosting Elaine Feinstein on November 24th. A terrific evening is in store. And tonight, our usual vibrant Tuesday night Poetry Unplugged returns! poetrysociety.org.uk/event/the-shuf…
Looking forward to London-launching @SoilNeverSleeps at the @PoetrySociety Poetry Cafe on Betterton Street on Monday Nov 26th in cahoots with @KatyEvansBush - plus open mic. Retweeted by The Poetry Society
We are really looking forward to the #Trowbridge @PoetrySociety Stanza on Saturday 1 December 2-4pm. Many thanks @JosephineCorc for organising such a fabulous event with @ginpitnancy! #poetry #DiscoverTrowbridge twitter.com/josephinecorc/… Retweeted by The Poetry Society