The Poetry Society has released a short film of Joseph Coelho’s new poem ‘Look Into My Lights’, commissioned as part of the Look North More Often programme. The short film, created by Hamlett Films, follows three pupils from St Clement Danes Primary School on the day of the Trafalgar Square Christmas tree lighting up ceremony, […]
Turn off the TV, unpeel yourself a satsuma and settle down with the latest copies of The Poetry Review and Poetry News, which will either have safely landed on your doormat, or are speeding the last few miles to you through the post. The latest issue of The Poetry Review includes new poems by Fleur […]
Magma have been running a pamphlet competition to celebrate their 25th birthday and the winner is Alice Willitts for Dear, which will be published next spring. Lisa Kelly: (Dear) received unanimous support from the Magma judges. Every one of us liked it for its imagination, the way it takes interesting risks and the effective use […]
The winners of the 2019 Verve Poetry Festival competition, on the theme of ‘community’, have been chosen by judge Joelle Taylor. The three winning poets will appear at the festival and will read alongside the 21 other commended poets and 6 others who have been commissioned for the anthology by Verve. First place goes to […]
On 18 November 2018 we celebrated another year of SLAMbassadors at King’s Place, London. Eight young poets took part in a writing and performance masterclass led by Joelle Taylor across the weekend of 17-18 November. They then performed brilliant new work created in the masterclasses at Sunday’s Showcase. Big up this year’s SLAMbassadors Aaisha Alfathi, […]
On 10 December Tally Koren and Lord Eames hosted a reception in the River Room of the House of Lords to celebrate the winners of a poetry competition for UK schools on the theme of peace. The event, called ‘Visions of Hope’, included short talks by The Poetry Society’s Director, Judith Palmer; poet Pete Brown; […]
Poetry Society Member Sarah Barr is the winner of this year’s National Memory Day poetry competition for her poem ‘Fog’, and there was further success for fellow member Kathy Miles who was third for ‘Brock’. Poetry Society Member Tony Ward won first prize ‘What Will Survive of Us’ in the Best Poem by a Primary […]
This year marks ten years of Look North More Often, a collaborative Christmas poetry programme. Since 2009, The Poetry Society has commissioned a new poem by a children’s writer to celebrate the friendship between Oslo and London, as symbolised by the Trafalgar Square Christmas tree. Joseph Coelho wrote this year’s poem, taking inspiration from London […]
Poetry Society Members Zillah Bowes and Molly Underwood are on a five-strong shortlist in the £10,000 Manchester Poetry Prize that also includes Katie Hale, Libby Hart and Maggie Millner. Zillah is a writer and filmmaker. She has won the Wordsworth Trust Prize and Poems on the Buses Competition, and was shortlisted for the Wasafiri New […]
Poetry Society Member Jay Whittaker, from Edinburgh, is this year’s winner of the Saltire Society Scottish Poetry Book of the Year for her first full-length poetry collection Wristwatch (Cinnamon Press). Jay: “It was a huge honour – and very exciting – when Wristwatch was shortlisted for the Saltire Society Scottish Poetry Book of the Year […]
Congratulations to the four poets on the shortlist for the 2018 Costa Poetry Award. Us by Zaffar Kunial (Faber & Faber) Assurances by J. O. Morgan (Jonathan Cape) Soho by Richard Scott (Faber & Faber) Three Poems by Hannah Sullivan (Faber & Faber) In 2011, Zaffar Kunial won third prize in the National Poetry Competition […]
The shortlist for the 2018 The Michael Marks Awards for Poetry Pamphlets has been announced and includes Poetry Society Member Gina Wilson for ‘It Was and It Wasn’t’ (Mariscat Press). Congratulations to Gina and her fellow poets on the shortlist: Liz Berry, Ian Parks, Rakshan Rizwan and Carol Rumens. Gina’s first poetry pamphlet, Scissors, Paper, […]
Congratulations to Poetry Society Member Pippa Little who has won this year’s Carers UK poetry competition, judged by Cheryl Moskowitz. Cheryl says of Pippa’s winning poem ‘Inside with English Breakfast’: (it) invites us to view the world through the window of a café and conjures a scene so real you can almost taste it with […]
Mab Jones has picked Poetry Society Member Luke Palmer as winner of this year’s Prole Pamphlet Competition for Spring in the Hospital, which is available to purchase now from Prole. Fellow Member Scott Elder was Commended for My Hotel. A second Commendation went to Paul Jeffcutt for True. Mab on Spring in the Hospital After […]
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 […]
TONIGHT at the @PoetrySociety Cafe the Farrago Easter SLAM! with a brilliant feature line up including Artin Selimi, @Anna_McCrory , @Clive_Oseman & Leanne Shorley & an open to ANY poet SLAM! with chocolate eggs & Chirpy Chicks for prizes! A few slots left-message to reserve one. Retweeted by The Poetry Society
Delighted to be reading at the @PoetrySociety‘s Poetry Cafe in support of the launch of Richard Aronowitz’s debut poetry collection, Life Lessons, published by @PalewellPress, on April 29th. Retweeted by The Poetry Society
Ceri Amphlett, whose wild artwork is currently on display in the Poetry Cafe, is running a hands-on poetry book-making workshop: experiment with ink, hand lettering and mark-making to create books as unique containers for your poems. 25 Apr, more info at poetrysociety.org.uk/event/hot-dog-… Retweeted by The Poetry Society
Patting ourselves on the back... our mighty podcasts get a plug by @BookRiot bookriot.com/2019/04/18/poe…
Today 7pm! Award-winning poet Kate Wakeling reads adult poetry plus children's poetry in Studio Morison’s enchanted children’s library at the @NOWGallery Greenwich, London. For all ages, drop-ins welcome, plus there's an open bar. Details here bit.ly/WakelingNow
Listen: Seamus Heaney celebrated - The Poetry Programme rte.ie/culture/2019/0…
🚨New poetry challenge about Mary Wollstonecraft!🚨 Who is Mary? A treasure-hunter, philosopher & Frankenstein's gran. With Mary on the Green we're challenging poets aged 5-25 to respond to her life and works for publication and prizes! Find out more: bit.ly/marychallenge Retweeted by The Poetry Society
In honour of the baby robins who hatched this very morning in the Keats-Shelley Twitter Shed, Emily Dickinson's The Robin is One. Read it here: bit.ly/KSRobins (NB We didn't take the photo. We're leaving the nest alone, save for scattering some mealworms nearby). Retweeted by The Poetry Society
Today is #pocketpoem Day Clip out or print this poem and carry it with you to share throughout your day. 'I know you only invited me in for a coffee, but' by Natalie @redbaronski (Natalie Shaw) poetrysociety.org.uk/poems/i-know-y…
Poetry in Your Pocket Day: 'Song of Myself' (Verse 52) by Walt Whitman eu.courierpostonline.com/story/life/201…
I often feel moved to tears/anger listening to Raymond Antrobus talk about Deafness so appreciated EB's comment "maybe to be moved is to be educated" - yes soundcloud.com/poetrysociety/… Retweeted by The Poetry Society
Instagram Poetry: You Might As Well Accept It – Daily Utah Chronicle dailyutahchronicle.com/2019/04/17/ins…
🙏 MASSIVE CONGRATS to @PoetrySociety Member @theresa_lola - announced as the new Young Poet Laureate for London poetrysociety.org.uk/news/young-poe…
And the new @STWevents #youngpeopleslaureate for #London is.... @theresa_lola. She will champion young people's #mentalhealth and #selfcare in the role. Huge congrats to this bold #poet @LDN_gov @SynergiCC Retweeted by The Poetry Society
We’re thrilled to announce from City Hall that @theresa_lola is the new Young People’s Laureate for London spreadtheword.org.uk/theresa-lola-y… #YPLJourney #youngpeopleslaureate Retweeted by The Poetry Society
Massive congratulations to @theresa_lola who’s been appointed the new Young People’s Laureate. A brilliant decision. Look forward to seeing all the wonderful things she’ll be bringing to the table over the next year. Retweeted by The Poetry Society
The fabulous @theresa_lola is the new young peoples laureate for London! Well done! @ApplesAndSnakes Retweeted by The Poetry Society
What a fantastic era for #poetry. The elegant, bold and talented @theresa_lola is @STWevents new #youngpeopleslaureate. Her mission is to engage #youngpeople on #mentalhealth #wellbeing and celebrate their #selfcare. @WordsofColour @SECONDHOME_IO Retweeted by The Poetry Society
And the new Young Poet Laureate for London is... the fabulous @theresa_lola Her aim is to "celebrate and document this city which is full of stories" Thank you @STWevents Retweeted by The Poetry Society
