Calling budding poets of all ages, there is still time to enter the Ealing Autumn Festival poetry competition. The contest, based on the theme of Magna Carta and freedom, human rights and democracy, has cash prizes on offer. This year's festival is inspired by the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta and the poetry competition is open … Continue reading Entries for the Ealing Autumn Festival poetry competition still open (via Get West London)
As a poet, it is almost impossible for me to read literature not centered on the language itself – which is why I have severe difficulties reading most crime fiction. A good plot or great story is not enough for me. I need the language to be precise, sensual, intense, and distinctive. I love novelists … Continue reading 10 Best Novels by Poets (via Publishers Weekly)
New Zealand. Te Kahu Rolleston admits he has "always loved words". Now the Slam Poetry winner is visiting schools, such as Te Aroha College, to promote poetry as a way of learning. Influenced by Kapa Haka and "battle rap", Rolleston said his winning poems were a mixture of these. Battle rap is a type of … Continue reading Poetry an outlet for learning (via Waikato Times)
Santa Clara County is looking for the right person to share poetry with its more than 1 million residents. The county announced earlier this week its plan to again partner with Silicon Valley Creates to search for the 2016-17 Santa Clara County Poet Laureate. The laureate's role is to elevate poetry awareness among county residents … Continue reading Santa Clara County searching for new poet laureate (via Mercury News)
When it comes to performance poetry, nothing quite compares to the National Poetry Slam (NPS). Every August, more than seventy teams from across the United States and abroad gather for the five-day tournament, each with hopes of attaining the coveted championship. According to previous competitors, the NPS is like the World Series of poetry — … Continue reading The National Poetry Slam Returns to Oakland (via East Bay Express)
For the last seven years, several Longmont residents have met as part of a private group, solely to write poems. Some of the 20 active members are engineers, one works in finance, another is a therapist. Only two are full-time writers. But once a month the group meets, most recently at Que's Espresso, to write … Continue reading Longmont poetry group releases anthology (via Times-Call)
[Last Week], season five of TV One’s Lexus -sponsored program Verses and Flow kicked off, and the artists involved this time are some of the best around. Estelle, Jazmine Sullivan, and Jussie Smollett of Empire fame have all signed on, as have over two dozen of the best poets and spoken word artists in the … Continue reading Lexus’ Music And Poetry Television Show ‘Verses & Flow’ Returns (via Forbes)
Connecticut's newest poet laureate, Rennie McQuilkin, says he wants to make poetry an integral part of the state's culture. McQuilkin, a resident of Simsbury since 1973 and current poet laureate of the town, has taken to promoting poetry as his life's mission since he began teaching summer creative writing classes in the early 1960s at … Continue reading New Poet Laureate Wants Poetry To Be Part Of Mainstream Culture (via Hartford Courant)
Go Alysia! Click the link, below, to read the full article. Poetry isn’t just the words on the page, the voice on stage. It’s also the process, the meditative moments that evolve into the poem. “I think, at least for me, poetry has been a practice that has been a lot like meditation or prayer … Continue reading New Taft artist-in-residence: Poetry can heal (via Cincinnati)
Blue Fasa, the latest book by Duke University Creative Writing Professor Nathaniel Mackey, is a lyrical voyage through an epic love story. Yet this epic is but a fragment of an even vaster one, "Song of the Andoumboulou," a multi-volume poem that began with the National Book Award-winning Splay Anthem. In the cosmology of the … Continue reading In Blue Fasa, Duke poet Nathaniel Mackey defends ancient bonds between poetry and music (via Indy Week)
