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 […]
The Poetry Society, partnering with national pet charity Blue Cross, are pleased to announce Russell Jones as the first ever Pet Poet Laureate, a role that will see him pen a series of poems throughout the year of his tenure, all about pets and the wonderful influence and impact they have on people’s lives. The position of Pet […]
Following June’s first young writers’ reading, on 21 August 2018 The Poetry Café hosted its second Young Poets Takeover. Seven poets aged 14 to 20 performed: Lucy Tiller, Nadia Lines, Meredith LeMaître, Foyre Jalloh, Cia Mangat, Damayanti Chatterjee and Judith Howe. All seven were Foyle Young Poets, SLAMbassadors or Young Poets Network challenge winners and their writing and performing […]
“I have so many anecdotes and stories [about] how d/Deaf people are excluded from cultural events and how much harder they/we/I have had to work to access culture. I am trying to write into those disconnections and create new bridges,” says Raymond Antrobus, the latest interviewee in of The Poetry Review podcast series with editor […]
The 2018 National Poetry Competition is currently open, and judges Kei Miller, Kim Moore and Mark Waldron will read all submitted entries – so as you put the finishing touches on your entry, it’s your chance to hear their thoughts on all things poetic. Previous #AskTheJudge interviews have seen the judges answer questions on the […]
Earlier this year The Poetry Society’s Young Poets Network partnered with Oxfam and End Hunger UK to challenge poets aged 11-25 across the UK to respond to the issue of food poverty. We are delighted to publish an anthology of the nine winning poems. Read them below, and see our Issuu page for more anthologies […]
Give a sculptor a block of marble and a chisel, and they’ll carve you a masterpiece. Put The Poetry Society and The British Museum together, and you end up with three brilliant new poems, jointly commissioned to celebrate the recent exhibition Rodin and the Art of Ancient Greece. Inspired by both Rodin’s sculptures and those […]
August is Women in Translation Month and The Poetry Society is joining in the celebration by highlighting poems from The Poetry Review archive – poems in translation by women poets and poems translated by women. Examples include Clara Janés translated by Louis Bourne, Lee Young-Ju and Jang Su-Jin, translated by Jae Kim (online already), and […]
Tributes have been paid to Jazzman John Clarke, a lovely man and regular performer at the Poetry Cafe and on the London poetry scene. “JC will leave a large hole in my life, a man who I admire, enjoy, love and will miss massively. London has also lost a pivot and a key connector, a […]
Tributes have been paid to Matthew Sweeney, who has died from motor neurone disease. Matthew Sweeney was born in Donegal and lived in Cork. He was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Forward Prize, and received a Cholmondeley Award and an Arts Council Writers’ Award. He was joint second in the National Poetry Competition […]
In association with The Poetry Society, this year’s BBC Proms Poetry Competition is judged by poet and The Verb presenter Ian McMillan, poet Helen Mort and Poetry Society Director Judith Palmer. The competition challenges children and adults to write a poem inspired by any piece of music in this year’s Prom season. There are two categories: […]
Recent AI efforts to write poetry and emulate Shakespeare’s sonnets, as part of research conducted by IBM and the Universities of Melbourne and Toronto, have had some success, reportedly leaving some members of the public unable to distinguish the two. Addressing the question of whether computers had managed to create convincing (and good) poetry, Judith Palmer, […]
Poetry Society Member Kerry Darbishire (who, incidentally, is the great great niece of the composer Frederick Delius down her mother’s side!) has come third in this year’s Grey Hen Press Poetry Competition for ‘My Mother’s House’. The competition was won by Kate Blackadder, with Merryn Williams second. The 2018 judges were Pauline Kirk and Carole […]
It’s a clean sweep for Poetry Society Members in the 2018 Paper Swans Press Poetry Pamphlet prize. From the longlist of 15 pamphlets, the judge, Abegail Morley, chose the following top three: 1st place — Self-portrait as a diviner, failing by Michelle Penn (Abegail: “real finesse. The poet lures in the reader, there is a […]
A great night for Poetry Society Members, with Ali Lewis and former Foyle Young Poet Annie Katchinksa included among the Eric Gregory Awards, presented annually by the Society of Authors for a collection of poems by a poet under 30, and Daljit Nagra and Kate Clanchy MBE among those receiving a Cholmondeley Award, recognising their […]
Poetry Society Member Romalyn Ante has won the Poetry London Clore Prize, judged by Kwame Dawes. Fellow Members Victor Tapner and Pascale Petit were among the Commended poets. In 2017, Romalyn was joint winner of the Manchester Writing Competition with Laura Webb, and was selected for the Primers mentoring and publications scheme, run by the […]
A big splash over on the Waterlines website, where our Canal Laureate Nancy Campbell is about to set off on a week-long kayak trip along the Desmond Family Canoe Trail. Beginning in Liverpool and ending in Leeds, she’ll be paddling through Aintree, Parbold, Wigan, Blackburn and the locks and swing bridges in between. En route, […]
Find yourself the perfect tree-dappled spot to savour the latest summer issue of The Poetry Review… We’ve new poems on the sea, squid, filial relationships, rain and the dodo by contributors including Heather Christle, Andre Bagoo, A.K. Blakemore, Hugo Williams, Helen Mort, Liz Berry, Wayne Holloway-Smith, Vidyan Ravinthiran, Martina Evans and Peter Gizzi. We’ve a […]
Over the Easter holidays The Poetry Society’s SLAMbassadors team took our spoken word project to South London and held a masterclass for local young poets at Brixton Recording Studio in Angell Town. Our young poets worked with SLAM maestro Joelle Taylor to produce new work which we captured in a series of videos made by […]
Poetry Society Members have won all three categories in this year’s Poetry on the Lake Competition. Jane Burn has won the Silver Wyvern Open Competition, with fellow Members Sarah Barr and Christopher North second and third, and Scott Elder among the Highly Commended poets. The judge, Fred Johnston, said: It was difficult to arrive at […]
Imtiaz Dharker has chosen five poets for the prestigious Northern Writers’ Award for Poetry, including Poetry Society Member Lindsey Holland alongside Elizabeth Barrett, Helen Mort, Eleanor Rees and Clare Shaw. Established in 2000 by New Writing North, the Northern Writers’ Awards supports work-in-progress by new, emerging and established writers across the North of England. The […]
Robert Minhinnick’s highly acclaimed poetry collection, Diary of the Last Man (Carcanet) has been named Wales Book of the Year 2018. Robert also won the Roland Mathias Poetry Prize, receiving the overall prize of £4,000. Diary of the Last Man is described by the author as a walk across Britain; Brexit Britain, a Britain facing […]
Poetry Society Member Maria Castro Dominguez is among the winning poets of this year’s Brittle Star Poetry Competition, judged by Pascale Petit and Jacqueline Gabbitas, with fellow Members S M H (Sue) Davies and N J Hynes picking up Commendations. Congratulations to them all and the other poets on the list. First Prize: Cathy Grindrod – […]
The Royal Society of Literature has introduced 40 new Fellows under the age of 40, including The Poetry Review Editor Emily Berry, Poetry Society Members Inua Ellams, Sarah Howe (who has also been a guest editor of The Poetry Review), and Sabrina Mahfouz, and fellow poets Jay Bernard, Sophie Collins, Helen Mort, Kei Miller and […]
An amazing opportunity from Blue Cross popped into The Poetry Society inbox today. The animal charity is on the look-out for a Pet Poet Laureate – an emerging poet who has a little bit of experience of publishing and performing, and is keen to develop their skills amongst the UK’s cats, dogs and assorted furries […]
The Poetry Society’s Young Poets Network is pleased to launch the fifth annual Timothy Corsellis Prize. Timothy Corsellis was a young poet and pilot killed in 1941. The Prize was set up in his name, with the support of his family, to encourage more people to read the powerful but lesser-known poets of the Second […]
The Poetry Society’s national youth slam is back! This year, SLAMbassadors offers opportunities for all spoken word artists, MCs, rappers and performers who work with words aged 13 – 25. 13 – 18 year olds can now apply to take part in a free SLAMbassadors masterclass with Joelle Taylor on 17th and 18th November 2018 at The Poetry Society in London. […]
Raymond Antrobus’s poem ‘Sound Machine’ is the winner of The Poetry Society’s Geoffrey Dearmer Prize for the best poem in The Poetry Review during 2017. The Prize, which is awarded annually to a poem by a poet who hadn’t, at the time their work appeared, published a full collection, was judged this year by poet […]
Donald Hall was a prolific author who began writing when he was just 12 years old. Over the course of a career that spanned more than seven decades, he wrote over 40 books, about half of which were works of poetry. In 2006, he was appointed as U.S. Poet Laureate and awarded the 2010 National […]
Today, 22 June 2018, marks 70 years since migrants from the Caribbean disembarked Windrush at Tilbury Docks, Essex. To commemorate this landmark anniversary, the summer set of Poems on the Underground has a Windrush theme, featuring poets from and around the Caribbean: James Berry, Andrew Salkey, Jean Binta Breeze, Lorna Goodison, Kwame Dawes and Grace Nichols. […]
Poets Julia Copus, David Morley, and Pascale Petit are included in the Royal Society of Literature’s new intake of 31 Fellows, with Neil Astley, Ruth Borthwick, Kwame Dawes and Nathalie Teitler receiving Honorary Fellowships for ‘significant contribution to the advancement of literature’. Election as a Fellow of the RSL is a uniquely prestigious literary honour, […]
Our Canal Laureate Nancy Campbell finds herself paddling through the crisp packets and cigarette ends littering the River Lea. Read her latest blog on the power poetry has to tackle plastic pollution. The Canal Laureate project is part of a wider partnership between the Canal & River Trust and Arts Council England, which aims to attract […]
Congratulations to the winners of the Poetry Business International Book & Pamphlet Competition, judged by Liz Berry & David Constantine, including Poetry Society Members Ann Gray, Christopher North and Madeleine Wurzburger. The four winners are: Rebecca Cullen (Nottingham) for her collection Majid Sits in a Tree and Sings Ann Gray (Cornwall) for her collection I […]
'Poetry should work as a vaccine to the epidemic of certainty' twitter.com/PoetrySociety/… Retweeted by The Poetry Society
Poetry Society member Chris Edgoose blogs about his experiences at one of our regular discussion groups for The Poetry Review, reflecting on the magazine's autumn issue: https://t.co/tADQBEj7Am pic.twitter.com/bDDHFUmwGb
— The Poetry Society (@PoetrySociety) December 10, 2018
Poetry Society member Chris Edgoose blogs about his experiences at one of our regular discussion groups for The Poetry Review, reflecting on the magazine's autumn issue: woodbeepoet.com/2018/11/30/poe…
The Guardian selects its best poetry of 2018, inc Danez Smith,Tracy K Smith, Jericho Brown, Robin Robertson, Ann Wroe, Mark Ford, Hannah Sullivan, Nick Laird, Martina Evans, Clive James & England: Poems From a School ed. Kate Clanchy theguardian.com/books/ng-inter…
Robin Robertson: ‘Writing poetry has very little to do with the intellect’ theguardian.com/books/2018/dec…
It's Day 10 of our #Advent Calendar and we have the fantastic #FoyleYoungPoet Maiya Dambawinna winning #poem Mr Sigiriya's Weird and Wonderful Talents. Illustrated by @chrisriddell50 @PoetrySociety "Sweat dripping from our spring brows." Retweeted by The Poetry Society
The Unthanks premiere Emily Brontë poetry settings at Leeds Town Hall yorkpress.co.uk/news/17283337.…
William Sieghart, The Poetry Pharmacy: poetry as self-help allows people to connect to it in a way which they never would have before standard.co.uk/lifestyle/book…
After 16 years and 1000's of events, here's Rachel at her final ILF event, with the fabulous Dan Snow! Retweeted by The Poetry Society
Home in Amman, looking back at a wonderful evening of poetry in which I read alongside the @ForwardPrizes-winning poet @PhoebePower, and got to see @ThorayaER, translator of my book "The Perception of Meaning" (@SUPress, 2015), at the one-and-only @PoetrySociety last Wednesday. Retweeted by The Poetry Society
It's Day 9 of our #Advent Calendar and we have the amazing #FoyleYoungPoet Olivia Hu's #winning #poem House with Missing Teeth . Illustrated by @chrisriddell50 @PoetrySociety "most beautiful when leaving." Retweeted by The Poetry Society
‘Theresa May has no choice but to charge into the valley of parliamentary death’ Is ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ the right poem to be quoting for May’s predicament? Other poetry suggestions please, Twitter! #poetry @PoetrySociety theguardian.com/commentisfree/… Retweeted by The Poetry Society
'The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.' — John Milton, #BOTD in 1608 Retweeted by The Poetry Society
This week on The Verb we examine the form that wrongfoots the reader... @jntod celebrates the prose poem bit.ly/VerbPodcasts Retweeted by The Poetry Society
It's Day 8 of our #Advent Calendar and we have the brilliant #FoyleYoungPoet Caitlin Catheld Pyper's #winning #poem Mrs Richards' Year. Illustrated by @chrisriddell50 @PoetrySociety "swap them like secrets." Retweeted by The Poetry Society
We really need everyone's help to spread the word. Can you RT please, or possibly even pledge? Any amount will make a difference. Thank you. Less than 4 days to raise £586- #InASMARoom @Martin1Williams @PoetrySociety @gmckeeverwriter @Kevin_MacNeil kickstarter.com/projects/11160… Retweeted by The Poetry Society
This week The Verb podcast has an extra poem [email protected] Download from @BBCSounds Retweeted by The Poetry Society
Thank you so much! I'm over the moon - and stars! #poetry #art #LSLowry @PoetrySociety twitter.com/gregfreempoet/… Retweeted by The Poetry Society
'This collection has earned its place as one of my favourites of the past decade': Judy Gordon shares her love of Catherine Graham's 'Like A Fish Out Of Batter' @CGrahamPoetUK @IndigoDreamsPub @WriteOut_Loud https://t.co/ZwXvFFpZTP pic.twitter.com/Llc9gQ3kTH
— Greg Freeman (@gregfreempoet) December 8, 2018
@brian_bilston - can you help my school cohort please? We are looking for the author of a poem called December Colours. It begins Red blood red with an orange rim flushing the toadstool tops. We can’t find the author anywhere on Google. Any ideas?? 🤔 🙏 #askapoet Retweeted by The Poetry Society
On December 1st, our beautiful Alfie arrived in the world: best advent calendar surprise ever. ❤️ I’m on 12 months maternity leave now but counting on him to help me promote my @ChattoBooks novel Black Car Burning at select literary events in 2019. Or vomit / cry on books. 👍 Retweeted by The Poetry Society