‘Anthology’ without poems delivers silent swipe at Keir Starmer
I’ve come across some slim volumes of poetry in my time, but this one is ridiculous. Release the Sausages! Poems for Keir Starmer boasts 20-odd pages, but apart from a preface from Andy Croft, all of the pages are blank. There are no poems at all in Poems for Keir Starmer.
‘Ridiculous’ is the point, of course. Release the Sausages! – a reference to a speech in which the Labour prime minister ...
31st July 2025
Blake Morrison sends protest poem to newspaper’s letters page
It’s not often that a letter is sent to a national newspaper in the form of a poem – even when it’s from a poet. But Blake Morrison chose to do so in a letter headed ‘A compilation of terrorists’ – it’s also the title of the poem - that was published in the Guardian.
In it Morrison lists people ...
30th July 2025
Deadline nears for Morecambe festival competition
The deadline is nearing for Morecambe poetry festival’s competition, which is open to poets worldwide, for poems of no more than 50 lines on any subject. The winning poets will be invited to read thei...
25th July 2025
BSL poets shortlisted among 20 contenders for this year's Forward prizes
Raymond Antrobus and Zoë McWhinney have been shortlisted in the performance poem category for the 2025 Forward prizes, in the first year the prize has been open to poems performed in British Sign Lang...
20th July 2025
Poetry pupils launch pamphlet as school showcases its range of creativity
Five members of a school poetry club stood up and performed their poems on Thursday night at the launch of a pamphlet of their work at Alnwick’s Bailiffgate museum in Northumberland.
Dorit Greene, ...
20th July 2025
Poet's 'mixed feelings' about collection that won Wales Book of the Year award for poetry
A poetry collection that has been said to confront experiences of abuse in a lesbian relationship as well as the relationship between a mother and daughter has won the Wales Book of the Year award for...
18th July 2025
Spare some stanzas? An anthology of 100 poems by 100 poets
Poetry doesn’t alter anything, right? As WH Auden more or less pronounced. In his foreword to Words on a NE Street, a remarkable anthology of 100 poems by 100 poets about the homeless, its instigator ...
18th July 2025
Fiona Benson to judge Winchester poetry prize
Fiona Benson will be judging this year’s £1,000 Winchester poetry prize. The deadline is 31 July. More details
18th July 2025
Environment festival sees poets going wild about the planet
This was an eco-festival - with plenty of poetry - that put forward a positive view for the future of our world. Alnwick’s What a Wonderful World festival in Northumberland began on Thursday at Rothbu...
18th July 2025
Tribute event in memory of poetry legend Hovis Presley
It’s 20 years since the passing of northern poetry legend Richard Henry McFarlane aka Hovis Presley, who died of a heart attack aged 44. A unique talent straddling the worlds of stand-up, alternative...
8th July 2025
Being Gemini: Marilyn Longstaff, Smokestack
Marilyn Longstaff lives in Darlington and is a member of Vane Women writing collective. In 2003, she received a Northern Promise Award from New Writing North, and her third poetry book Raiment (Smokes...
8th July 2025
Unflinching poet Suzanna Fitzpatrick maps loss and grief
The launch of Suzanna Fitzpatrick’s debut full collection Crippled in London on Tuesday evening came with a trigger warning. The book explores a childhood shadowed by a mother’s chronic illness, culmi...
3rd July 2025
‘Reading poetry at an open-mic night changed my life!’
Heartening news about the healing power of open-mic poetry – something we at Write Out Loud have always evangelised about – has come in an article in the Guardian.
1st July 2025
