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Bob's Poetry Online ​ Bizarre Objects - I Love Russians! | Thee Objects (bandcamp.com) Recently I collaborated with Thee Objects to create this unique mix of poetry and avant-garde music. A Bizarre Object. (Note: This link will take you from this site to Bandcamp.) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Poetry Archive 2023 My Name is Tyre ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Poetry Archive entry 2022 I Love Russians Poetry Archive 2021 Sweep up the Wood ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Poetry Archive 2020 with lockdown hair! ​ ​ ​ ​ ​

Poetry on Facebook Click: Poets reading poetry. ​ Updated regularly Click: Longer clips such as readings and films. ​ Updated regularly Click the underlined titles to go to the homepages. The Black Light Engine Room Press - Facebook ​ Running as a regular live night since 2010, The Black Light Engine Room Press publishes a Lit Mag of the same name. Blueprint Poetry Press - Facebook ​ Jo Colley and Julie Hogg are Blueprint Poetry; a press to showcase work from great poets between full collections. A satisfying slice of poetry. The Bobolyne Poets - Facebook ​ 'The Bobolyne Poets are a mismatching motley crew of poets, artists, musicians, and performers.' From Brighton. 'Our big nights have always raised funds for people suffering in the ongoing Refugee Crisis, another thing important to us Boboheads.' Cambridge Literary Review - Facebook ​ The Cambridge Literary Review magazine of poetry, short fiction, and criticism, published three times a year. ​ The Craft of Poetry - Facebook ​ This is a group for sharing your own poetry, paying close attention to techniques and forms, guided by poet and retired Oxford Professor Lucy Newlyn. The Emma Press - Facebook 'The Emma Press is a small publisher of beautiful books. We publish poetry, short stories, essays, children's books and translations.' See the video page for recordings of book launches. Festival Internacional de Poesía de Granada, Nicaragua - Facebook ​ Annual International Poetry Festival in Granada, Nicaragua with plenty of interesting videos, naturally all in Spanish. Grey Suit: Poem Stream - Facebook ​ The page is just for poems, which may attract occasional comments. So it is a stream which may easily be recycled by poems previously shown being copied and pasted back in. The stream is a wheel, like the Milky Way – an expanding wheel of verse. The Hive: Poetry Collective on KSQD Radio - Facebook Tune in to KSQD 90.7 FM Sunday 8:00 PM for interviews, discussion, and readings about what's new in the world of poetry. Also find The Hive Poetry Collective podcasts on iTunes, Spotify or anywhere you get your podcasts. Home Stage - Facebook Home Stage is a platform for discovering talented creatives. Our mission is to bring folk music and poetry to a new generation, making it accessible to all, through streamed programmes, live events, podcasts, festivals, tours and Zoom discussion groups. ​ OOIPP fest - Facebook ​ One-Off Indie Press Festival. 'Hey everyone we are a new festival coming to a zoom near you from 19th-25th July 2021. Featuring showcases from 15 of the best UK indie presses!' Judging by the name it won't be happening again! ​ Poetry Book Club - Facebook A friendly place to discuss poetry books we love. What gems have you discovered lately? Have a book that the world needs to know about? Poets - help us find your work! ​ Poetry Events in UK & Ireland - Facebook ​ This is a place to share and find information about forthcoming poetry events in the UK & Ireland. Poetry Film Live - Facebook ​ PoetryFilmLive.com is an online journal of poetry film and interviews edited by Chaucer Cameron and Helen Dewbery. This group is for people to share posts, comments and videos. Poetry Lit Online Reading Series - Facebook ​ Poetry Lit! is a monthly online reading series for poets from all over the world. Each month we invite 2 featured poets to read their work. After that there's an open mic. Poetry Screen Group ​ Facebook group, which aims to inspire and showcase innovative video poetry from young artists. Poetry Translation Centre - Facebook 'We translate contemporary poetry from Africa, Asia and Latin America to a high literary standard by pairing poets with translators and through our unique poetry translation workshops.' ​ ​ Poetry UK ​ A place for your poetry grace. Please upload your favourite poems. Original poetry welcome too. The Poets Live - Facebook ​ 'The Poets - Live - A space for Discussions - Podcasts and Facebook Lives on all things creative - poetry and personal.' ​ Puzzle Hall Poets Live - Facebook ​ 'In normal times Puzzle Hall Poets Live meets once a month, on the first Monday of the month unless that coincides with a Bank Holiday. Guest poet and open mic. During the pandemic online poetry events are being organised.' Rattle | Facebook ​ 'Rattle is a quarterly print journal featuring a diverse selection of poetry and interviews with poets. We accept submissions year-round. 'The Facebook page is a good way to link to the weekly Rattlecasts. ​ The Shuffle - Facebook ​ 'London's changeling poetry series, every last Saturday at The Poetry Cafe. We host The Shuffle on the last Saturday of each month at The Poetry Cafe in Covent Garden. We aim to bring you a dolly-mixture of readers, selected by Shuffle HQ's Jacqueline Saphra, Gale Burns and Amy Key.' Spoke - Facebook ​ Spoke is a non-profit organisation looking to raise the profile of spoken word and provide opportunities for people of all ages and walks of life to experience the world of spoken word poetry. Survivor's Poetry Gigs - Facebook ​ 'Survivor's Poetry was created in 1991 to promote the writing of Survivors of mental distress. The regular performance evenings have been going ever since.' Time to Arrive Open Mic - Facebook ​ Time to Arrive Open Mic is a weekly Virtual event from 6pm - 8pm central (note USA time). Share your poetry, prose, music, or dance! ​ The Verb on BBC Radio 3 Facebook ​ This group is an unofficial fan page for The Verb, presented by Ian McMillan, on BBC Radio 3. Woorilla Poetry Prize - Facebook ​ The Woorilla Poetry Prize was initiated in the1980s by Maria Millers and Louise Rockne, editors at Woorilla Magazine, where it grew to become a celebrated national competition. Write Out Loud - Facebook ​ 'Write Out Loud is a national hub for poetry - encouraging everybody from still-too-nervous-to-do-open-mic to Nobel Prize winner. News, reviews, discussion and the UK's No.1 poetry gig guide. Write Out Loud exists to encourage people to write poetry, enable them to share their work, whether in local groups or online, and to provide an information hub for all UK poetry organisations and individuals.' Yiddish Open Mic Café - Facebook ​ The Yiddish Open Mic is a monthly event in which anyone with an interest in Yiddish can be sociable and entertained in a receptive and warm environment. ​ Yorkshire Poetry/Spoken Word Events - Facebook ​ Putting on a poetry/spoken word gig in Yorkshire? This is a group to share poetry/spoken word open mics, slams, showcases and opportunities and events across Yorkshire, from Hull to Harrogate and Scarborough to Sheffield. ​ ​ ​

Today's reading: The Rialto no.95, pp46-064. (The Rialto 95 Completed.) The title comes from Michael Mackmin's introduction and using it feels a little like being in a room with facing mirrors, as he says the expression was said by an elderly Tai Chi master, explaining a pile of defeated opponents. Mackmin uses the expression to describe his approach to Lockdown, and here am I using it to explain my approach to reading more poetry. The image reflects towards infinity in ever reducing amounts. Or should I be using a Russian doll analogy? Is someone going to take my use of the phrase to surround a nub of an idea they have, just as my idea was within Michael Mackmin's use and his within the elderly Tai Chi master's? Well given my readership reach, this is possibly the small one in the middle anyway, so let's leave that there. The Rialto is my favourite poetry magazine (I stress that I say this about all the magazines I subscribe to) because it its format is solely to hand over to the poetry. It has no reviews or interviews, no articles or distractions, just 64 pages (excluding the cover, which football programmes do not exclude) of poem after poem. What I love even more is the amount of space given to each poem. Large A4 pages of beautiful, high quality white paper with a single poem on it. Well there is a little doubling up if the poems are very short, but always there is plenty of SPACE for the poem to express itself. Jim McElroy's poem, 'Coal Hole' for instance has all 36 lines in one place, no turning of pages, so that the ending, 'The night's clock ticks time on the mantle', is able to not only allude to the passing of time, both before and after the poem, but can do this with the emphasis that there is no more to come from the poet, it must all happen in your own mind. I chose to read this magazine next because I am struggling to find time for poetry reading right now as I aim to give the website a more meaningful appearance. It is only 6 weeks old from conception till this moment now after all. I fear I have created my own in-built non-poetry reading distraction, without realising that was what my mind was subconsciously after all along! Double that for poetry writing. Nothing has been written since the day the site and the blog began. Hopefully 'it will all come out in the wash', as my patients used to say to me. (I wonder if I ever said anything helpful to them?) So, The Rialto is the perfect magazine for getting you right back in there. No toes dangling over the edge, one tiny run up and in you plunge. It's my preferred approach to swimming pools; it is my preferred approach to poetry reading. There is only the barest description of the poets' biographies, all of whom have much more in print than me, and are immensely better qualified to be in print with poetry on several levels, yet I read this magazine feeling this is a level I could aspire to, so in that sense it is very encouraging. Me on a very good day, only that day may still be in the future yet! My favourite poem today was 'a ruru named Murray, who I've been trying to write about since January', by Paula Harris, which after all I have said is on two pages, but as the pages are facing, nothing is lost. The tale concerns a ruru, which we are told in the poem is a morepork, though I still had to Google this word to find out a morepork is a Tasmanian spotted owl, and in the pictures looks essentially like what you would call 'an owl'. The poem is written over 12 verses, is playful, has a comedic use of idea repetition, and follows the ruru from its discovery abandoned as a baby in a bush to its letting loose by Kirsty's brother and, like the poem 'Cole Hole' I mention above, ends with an ending that alludes to future time, of wondering where the ruru is now. Along the way the poem plays with ideas, that orbit around finding the baby bird, naming it, feeding it, looking after it, discovering more about it, and finally deciding that Murray (the ruru) is an Egyptian god, that needs setting free. "4. it fascinates me that ruru were named after the sound of their call but in English we called them morepork and claimed this was the sound of their call the sounds ruru and morepork don't sound anything alike is the bird talking to us in two different languages?" Just like poetry, I thought. We humans bring ourselves to a poem and interpret it in our own sound. I read this poem at pretty much face value, of a significant moment in time. It's a story, with a beginning middle and end, and the memory of Murray, who made its own impact in the life of the poem's protagonist (and obviously we always think this is the poet themselves). Now that the bird is gone, the poem tries to hold on to the special place Murray had. Murray lives on for ever within the poem, or at least the memory of Murray does, even if we do not in fact know what ever happened to the bird itself. Listen I have run out of time. I spent so much time scouring the biographies looking for leads to links I could use on the webpage, that this abrupt end can be a tribute to that time lost to poetry writing itself. Let it be a reminder to me that the poetry must always come first and the blog and website second. This is early days, future strategies must be put in place to protect the original hope, to get better at writing poetry. If you have any thoughts on this do please write them to me, I am always open to listening to others ideas, and it's no fun writing in isolation. Soundtrack : 'No Dope Fiend' cassette. See Thee Objects on Bandcamp.

The commission is an unusual beast, someone asks for a poem on a subject, the poet goes away and thinks about it and comes up with the goods. Today I heard Ian McMillan's poem for 'The Front Page' BBC Radio 4 programme. Asked to write about a poem for the Euro 2020 final the week before England played Italy, and lost on penalties, then delivering it week after. The poem is never going to T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland, but it did its job. I also understood it, and got it in one, unlike T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland, which I have heard many times, but in truth need academics to point out to me why it is good. In the poem, McMillan refers to Eliot, and as a reader it would enhance the experience if I knew the reference. (I didn't.). McMillan is a decent chap, he is not going to condemn me for not picking it up, but I should I condemn myself? There is so much poetry about, how can I know it all? As it so goes I have read a good deal of it, but when I am sat in a reading, am I supposed to bring my poetry history with me or simply enjoy the moment, are there two opposites, or have I constructed this myself? If I don't know my poetry history then I am freed from the challenge of acknowledging it? I know my music better, so in my world I would say - should a young rapper know the songs of Elvis and the Beatles, should they even know the history of the song the rapper may have sampled, or is it enough to know your own genre well, or even, then just live in the moment and enjoy the song? I find, a little like Classical music, there is an inbuilt elitism in poetry that is hard to shake off, even if the poet themselves tells you to shake it off. (And by Classical music I mean Mozart, Beethoven and that crowd, not Led Zep and Black Sabbath, which is how I hear the word being used now! Though, actually that has its elitism, too!) In spite of all this I can tell that McMillan's poem is no The Wasteland, so there is a difference, and getting back to the beginning commissions make for a very different, more accessible poetry. I guess this is because in this circumstance the poet is writing for the audience and not themselves. When I read Simon Armitage's Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic, a book filled with commissioned poetry I enjoyed it greatly, but ultimately it did leave me a little bit hollow by the end. What Armitage is so good at is writing in a poetic voice that is both authentic, and poetic, it feels like if you had sat down long enough thinking about it with a pen in your hand, you could have written it, too. This is a wonderful deception. As Poet Laurette, suddenly everything he writes feels like it is a commission, almost by the nature of the job. I have read his Lockdown Poem and watched the Lockdown film on television, both wonderful pieces of works, that describe explain Lockdown better than any documentary ever could. Poetry gets behind the mere facts and emphases the emotional, and though we believe we are a religion-less society, it speak in the language of our spiritual being, too. I notice, though that when presented to the World on the internet, the Lockdown poem is presented with a backbeat, and acted out images, and I wonder at the reason for this. Am I being elitist for noticing it, am I rejecting it? Or am I pleased that Armitage is doing his bit to bring poetry to the World in a populist way, surely another of the possible unwritten role of the Laureate's job. The film which intermingles poetry with talking heads, is perfect time capsule for the future. The individual stories of people affected by Covid-19, are emotional in themselves, woven into the overall arc of a poem provided by Armitage, they become a part of the poetic piece, and the emotion is turned up to 11 (a cultural reference I expect you to get, but if you don't it feels like I though of the joke!). To help the watcher along two ethereal dancers interpret the parts where Armitage is talking as if to emphasise we are talkking in poetry language now. I good trick, but once I spotted it I started to laugh at the thought that every time Armitage gives a reading in the real world two dancers would suddenly appear in the wings. Today I watched I don't even know how, it came to me via Facebook I believe, and I notice that the poet has put a backdrop of old film footage to enhance the film. I always wonder at this, it is almost as if the poet is concerned that the poem will not be entertaining enough in its own right, that there is an alternative show going on in case you don't want to listen to what's being said enough. It's a tremendous piece, as authentic as you get written by person from Glasgow, about what that experience is like. Such a great feat. Sadly no BBC4 commissions await for the poet, so we create our own film to be in. The commission as income, that what it is there fore and quite right. There is so much poetry about yet so few jprofessional poets, it seems all wrong to the likes of me that loves poetry, but look at me I prefer the free readings to the paid for ones, and I am a generous person.

18 December 2021 Here is 14 poetry things to do today! See these events and more featured on the Poetry News page. ​ 1) (From Eventbrite email) ​ Online Open Mic! by Sidewalk Beirut ​ Every Sunday we gather on Zoom to share all forms of self-expression. You sign up when you log in by mentioning it to the host. Each performer has 5-7 minutes. We welcome all forms of art and all languages. The Zoom room opens at 8:15 PM (currently GMT+2 = Lebanon time) for sign-ups, and we kickoff the night around 8:30 PM. Sunday 19 December 6:30 PM GMT ​ Sidewalk Beirut went online early 2020 due to the pandemic and since then has had attendees from all over the world. The Sidewalk online community has members from from the Netherlands, Denmark, Morocco, Switzerland, the UK, the US, Canada, Cyprus, Scotland, Pakistan and of course members from all over Lebanon. With every new event, we are meeting new poets and expanding. You are also more than welcomed to just attend and listen, there is never a pressure on anyone to perform and we value our listeners just as much as our performers. ​ Online Open Mic! Registration, Multiple Dates | Eventbrite ​ ​ 2) (From Nine Pens website) ​ Virtual launch of Yasmin Djoudi's pamphlet 'Vocation' ​ Sun, December 19, 2021 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM GMT Online Cost: Free Join us for the launch of Yasmin Djoudi pamphlet 'Vocation' with special guest readings.from Stuart McPherson, Hannah Copley and Jem Henderson. ​ Are you travelling alone? Vocation explores a world pushing itself to the limit in the single-minded pursuit of a calling. Aeroplanes and taxis shuttle us between unexpected destinations: by the side of an airborne conspiracy theorist; a city centre with a knack for psychosexual confrontation; or bearing witness to a tropical plant’s delusions of grandeur. The external drifting of the pamphlet’s speakers is set at odds with their unrelenting internal drive for something more. Against the backdrop of a planet shrinking through over-connection, Vocation follows our attempts to outrun the emptying sands of the hourglass in a race towards some ever-shifting personal goal. About The Poets: Yasmin Djoudi works across poetry and performance. She lives in London. She is new to all of this. Hannah Copley is a writer, editor and academic. She is the author of Speculum (Broken Sleep Books, October 21) and an editor at Stand magazine. Recent work has appeared in POETRY, The London Magazine, Bath Magg, Poetry Birmingham, Into the Void, Under the Radar and others. She won the 2019 Newcastle Poetry Prize and the 2018 York Literature Prize. Hannah is a lecturer in creative writing at the University of Westminster. ​ Stuart McPherson is a poet from Leicester in the United Kingdom. His debut pamphlet ‘Pale Mnemonic’ was published in April 2021 by Legitimate Snack. The pamphlet ‘Water Bearer’ will be published in December 2021 by Broken Sleep Books. His work explores the relationship between the family, trauma, and fragile masculinity. ​ Jem Henderson is a queer poet from Leeds, UK with an MA in Creative Writing from York St. John University. They have been published in Civic Leicester's Black Lives Matter, Streetcake and recently won a Creative Future award for underrepresented writers. A book, Genderfux, including their work is due out in 2022 from Nine Pens. Their ramblings can be found on twitter @jem_face. ​ To book go to: Launch of 'Vocation' by Yasmin Djoudi - Nine Pens Press Tickets, Sun 19 Dec 2021 at 19:00 | Eventbrite ​ ​ ​ ​ 3) (From The Poetry Society newsletter) COP26 and Poetry Ten young poets spoke out against climate injustice and called for natural and humane solutions to the climate crisis in a live event on 6 November at the recent climate change conference COP26, which you can watch here. ​ “Where were you / when the seas / were warming?” A Young Poets Network showcase | #COP26 - YouTube ​ ​ ​ ​ 4) (From Seren Books newsletter) ​ Alternative Stories and Fake Realities Seren Books 40th Anniversary ​ In this edition we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Seren Books, the publisher from south Wales responsible for launching the careers of many poets and for putting out a series of memorable poetry collections including a few featured previously on Alt Stories. ​ In this podcast you can hear an interview with Seren’s outgoing poetry editor Amy Wack who leaves the press at the end of October 2021. She looks back at her time with Seren and the changes to the style and readership of poetry since she joined. ​ The presenter of this podcast is Nadia Wyn Abouayen and the readers from Alt Stories are Tiffany Clare and Chris Gregory. ​ See Seren Books 40th Anniversary (buzzsprout.com) ​ ​ 5) (From Modern Poetry in Translation email) Roman Women Poets We are delighted to present this new digital pamphlet, Romanian Women Poets, curated by Cătălina Stanislav with Sam Riviere, our two Writers in Residence for 2021. ​ This residency is generously supported by the European Cultural Foundation. ​ See ROMANIAN WOMEN POETS - Modern Poetry in Translation ​ ​​ ​ 6) (From The Guardian website) ​​ A Pandemic Poem: Where Did the World Go? ​ ​“There was a world once, but where did it go?” With the richer countries perhaps approaching at least the beginning of the end of the pandemic, it’s time to take stock. This affecting film combines the words of the poet laureate, Simon Armitage, with personal stories ranging from the uplifting to the tragic, to explore the deeply disturbing and utterly strange experience we have all recently undergone. An emotional roadmap of Covid-19 rather than a linear narrative, and all the better for it. Phil Harrison. ​ ​Now available at: BBC Two - A Pandemic Poem: Where Did the World Go? ​​ ​​ 7) (From Poem Analysis email) Latest Poem Analysis website: After Making Love We Hear Footsteps - Poem Analysis ​ The site is advert heavy, but it is free and offers interesting analysis of poems worth reading. ​ ​ ​ 8) (From Faber Website) ​ Faber Members Four Worlds poetry film featuring readings from Natalie Diaz, Barbara Kingsolver, Rowan Ricardo Phillips and Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe. Lavinia Singer (Faber Editor, Poetry) introduces four vibrant and vital voices 2020 and 2021. Listen as the poets read from and contextualise their collections in this forty-minute film, created exclusively for Faber Members. ​ See Faber Members: Four Worlds Poetry Film | Faber ​ 9) (From PEN Transmissions website) ​ Noʻu Revilla, Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian), on the power of ecopoetry ​ "Dunya Mikhail argues: ‘Poetry is not medicine; it’s an X-ray’. During the spring semester, I tested Mikhail’s argument with 25 undergraduate students, who, faced with Covid-19 and the shift to online learning with its despairing isolation, decided to enroll in a creative writing course. During our unit on ecopoetry, we explored how poems can help us as individuals and writing communities to speak back to global crises like climate change.' " ​ See the resulting work at: EROSION, A6: Notes on the Waikīkī Blackout Poetry Project – PEN Transmissions ​ ​ ​ 10) (From The Guardian website) ​ Carol Rumens' Poem of the Week ​ A faultlessly consistent article in a national newspaper, and always available online, too. See Poem of the week: Pool by Rowan Williams | Poetry | The Guardian ​ ​ ​ ​ 11) (From Literary Hub email) ​ Abdulrazak Gurnah delivered his Nobel Prize lec ture in literature on 7 December 2021. See Abdulrazak Gurnah - Nobel Prize lecture 12) (From Poetry Birmingham tweet) ​ PBLJ 7 Has Set Sail 'The issue is now live on our website with more free content than ever for you to read. Do check out our website to find out more & order a copy for Christmas.' ​ Go to Poetry Birmingham ​ ​ 13) (From Ian McMillan Tweet) ​ The Christmas Dinner Verb ​ Ian McMillan's guests, John Hegley, Carol Ann Duffy, Kathryn Williams, and Jay Rayner join our virtual audience in a literary Christmas dinner - revelling in the poetry, prose and linguistic satisfaction of Christmas food, in lyrics, recipes and in poetry. ​ John Hegley gives us the taste of a French Christmas and of thick skinned roast potatoes, Kathryn Williams and Carol Ann Duffy present brand new Christmas songs from their new album 'Midnight Chorus', Jay Rayner gives us Yule commandments (including the advice that gravy solves everything, and more controversially 'don't serve Christmas pudding'). Ian McMillan channels the New York poet Frank O'Hara t o write a special Christmas poem (featuring tangerines and the mystic Julian of Norwich). As usual, Radio 3’s cabaret of the word is stuffed full of language play. Come and warm your hands at The Verb’s fire – the words are sparkling! ​ See : BBC Radio 3 - The Verb, The Christmas Dinner Verb ​ ​ 14) (From onehandclapping Tweet) ​ ONE HAND CLAPPING CHRISTMAS ISSUE Available Online ​ Features with David Harsent, Fran Lock, Toni Visconti, Billy Bragg and lots more poetry, make this worth a minute or two of anybody's time. ​ See CHRISTMAS ISSUE | onehandclapping (1handclapping.online)