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Greetings
from The Poetry Society
Hi Poetry Fan,
Welcome to your monthly Poetry Society e-bulletin.
The Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award closes today. If you are a poet aged 11-17, or know one who should be sending their work for consideration, act quickly!
We've got some great events coming up, including an intimate reading with poet Amy Blakemore in August, and what promises to be an exuberant celebration of the poetry and songs of waterways with Canal Laureate Jo Bell on 2 September. You can also now book your tickets for the Psychoanalytic Poetry Festival events in London (19 Sep) and Edinburgh (20 Sep).
We have a new Poetry Surgery now available in York, with poet Carole Bromley, and you can listen online to the wonderful 2014 Annual Lecture with Carolyn Forché, The Poet As Witness, online for free. It's a fascinating talk, and well worth the time.
Our 2015 Annual Lecture in October will be with Pulitzer Prize-winning former US Poet Laureate Rita Dove, and will tour to London, Liverpool, Newcastle upon Tyne and Edinburgh, so we hope you'll have a chance to catch that in person.
If one e-bulletin a month isn't enough, you can follow us on Twitter or Facebook for all the latest poetry news and updates.
Until next time, Paul and Sophie.
Paul McGrane (Membership)
Sophie Baker (Marketing)
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Poem of the Month
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you’d see a man
dying in a field with a flagstaff still in his hands.
I’d take you close until you saw the grass
blowing around his head, and his eyes
looking up at the white sky. I’d show you
a pale-faced Tsar on a horse under a tree,
breath from its nostrils, creases in gloved fingers
pulling at the reins, perhaps hoof marks in the mud
as he jumps the ditch at the end of the field.
I’d show you men walking down a road,
one of them shouting to the others to get off it.
You’d hear the ice crack as they slipped down the bank
to join him, bringing their horses with them. You’d feel
the blood coming out of the back of someone’s head
warm for a moment, before it touched the snow.
I’d show you a dead man come back to life.
Then I’d make you wait – for pages and pages –
before you saw him go to his window
and look at how the moon turns half a row
of trees silver, leaves the other half black.
First published in The Poetry Review, summer issue, 2015. Find more poems and poets on our website
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Poetry Society News
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Young poets aged 11-17 have until midnight GMT tonight (31 July) to send us their entries for the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award.
Judges Liz Berry and Michael Symmons Roberts will choose 15 top winners who are published in our anthology and attend a residential Arvon writing course or receive a poet residency in their school (age dependent). The top 100 poets will also receive a year’s youth membership of The Poetry Society, a range of book prizes and continuing support via publication, performance and internship opportunities.
Entry is free with full details of how to enter on our website.
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National Poetry Competition - Enter now!
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The National Poetry Competition is open for entries. Judged by Sarah Howe, Esther Morgan and David Wheatley, with a closing date of 31 October 2015. First prize is £5000 plus publication in The Poetry Review and the chance to read at top festivals around the UK. Find out more about how to enter online...
Visit our website for discussion tips about the winning poems from 2014 – and a host of other articles and advice about entering the competition. More resources will be added as we approach the deadline, so keep an eye out for updates through August and September!
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Upcoming Events
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12 August. Library Club, Covent Garden, London.
Amy Blackemore will give an intimate poetry gig, part of a series of monthly events celebrating the most exciting new poets from The Poetry Society’s Young Associates scheme. Amy is a twice former winner of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award and has just released her first debut full-length poetry collection, Humber Summer with Eyewear.
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2 September 2015, 7.30pm. Canal Café Theatre, Little Venice, London
A thrilling celebration of canal culture in words and music. Jo Bell (“Witty, sexy and deft” – Stuart Maconie) performs lyrical and joyous new poems written during her time as the UK’s Canal Laureate. Learn to walk slowly and quite often sideways. Hark to the ratchet sound of summer winding in. Smell the diesel and try not to get distracted by the duck sex.
Dead Rat Orchestra are adventurers adrift on a wave of sound and possibility, steering their boat through the idioms of Folk and Improv, with music that’s acutely haunting, occasionally brutal and raucously joyful.
Tickets: £8/£6 concessions plus £1.50 annual theatre membership & booking fees may apply
Box office: 020 7289 6054. canalcafetheatre.com
Presented by The Poetry Society in association with the Canal & River Trust.
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19 September 2015, 10am-5.30pm. Freud Museum, London
The Poetry Society and the Freud Museum present an all-day event examining the creative unconscious, with leading speakers from the worlds of poetry and psychoanalysis, including Nuar Alsadir, Alan Buckley, Vahni Capildeo, Annie Freud, Kathryn Maris and Maurice Riordan.
The programme includes performances, talks and conversation on subjects including the unruly WB Yeats, New York School poet Joe Brainard and the taming of interrupted dreams.
Tickets are £60 or £45 for students/concessions/members of The Poetry Society or Freud Museum, and now available on the Freud Museum website.
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20 September 2015, 11.30am-6pm. The Sutton Gallery, Edinburgh
‘He wasn’t clever at all: he merely told / the unhappy Present to recite the Past / like a poetry lesson’
(‘In Memory of Sigmund Freud’, W.H. Auden).
Psychoanalysis and poetry have long been mutually fascinated. In this day-long event, poet Nuar Alsadir is interviewed by psychoanalyst Ken Robinson and reads her delicate, mysterious poems, while there is an opportunity to take part in a workshop led by the Scottish Poetry Library’s JL Williams on writing from the unconscious.
Tickets will be available soon from the Scottish Poetry Library.
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The Poetry Society Annual Lecture 2015
Rita Dove – ‘How does a shadow shine? Poetry, Music & the Underside of History'
King's College London (13 Oct) • University of Liverpool (20 Oct) • Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts (22 Oct) • University of Edinburgh (23 Oct)
Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prize winner and former US Poet Laureate, will give the 2015 Poetry Society Annual Lecture, which will this year tour to London, Liverpool, Newcastle upon Tyne and Edinburgh.
Rita Dove made history when she became the first African-American Poet Laureate. In this lecture, she will look at the poet’s role in re-shaping, reframing and reimagining history, interweaving her talk with poems. Find out more about the Annual Lecture tour on our website.
The lecture is presented in association with Birmingham Literature Festival and Writing West Midlands.
Image courtesy of Spark Media.
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Poetry Surgeries with the Poetry Society
Take your poems to a new level with the help of our team of established poets and tutors. Book below or call Paul McGrane 0207 420 9881.
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The Poetry Review
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The summer issues of The Poetry Review (featuring Nick Laird, Graham Mort, Daljit Nagra, Alice Oswald and Sara Peters) and Poetry News, our members' newsletter, are out now. If you're not a member, then come and join us. You can also buy individual copies of The Poetry Review on our website.
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Poetry Society Education
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Summer Writing Opportunities
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The Poetry Society’s national youth slam is open for entries over the summer. Open to young people aged 12-18, SLAMbassadors UK uncovers the next generation of spoken word artists.
This year’s judge is our first ever winner, Anthony Anaxagorou, and winners receive the chance to perform with Anthony and with SLAMbassadors UK artistic director Joelle Taylor at the Southbank Centre in October. Winners also benefit from a weekend poetry masterclass year’s mentoring from Joelle. Past winners include Kayo Chingonyi, Megan Beech, Vanessa Kisuule, Aisling Fahey and many more.
The closing date is Wednesday 30 September 2015. For details on how to enter please visit the website: slam.poetrysociety.org.uk
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Our celebrated Second World War poetry prize is open again for entries from young people aged 14-25. This year, as well as a poetry prize we have a new essay competition addressing the legacy of Second World War poetry and its place in the poetic canon.
For more information and how to enter, please visit the website
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As well as the Timothy Corsellis Prize, we have plenty to keep young poets busy over the summer. We have a writing challenge in collaboration with the Museum of London, looking at the history of women’s suffrage, captured in pictures by one of the first female press photographers Christina Broom.
There’s plenty more to come over the summer, with our annual Foyle Young Poets take-over of the site throughout August, so keep your eyes on the site for more information, or sign up to receive updates.
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Stanza News
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Stanzas are poetry groups run voluntarily by Poetry Society members, where members can present poems-in-progress for feedback, run events, or whatever they want to do. Visit our website for more information. New Stanzas have recently been started in Bristol, Stratford-upon-Avon, and High Weald.
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Stanza Poetry Competition: Darkness
This annual competition is open exclusively to Poetry Society members who are also members of a Poetry Society Stanza. The theme for 2015 is ‘darkness’ and our judge is Jo Bell.
Email or post up to two poems, max 40 lines. Free entry. Closing date is Monday, 14 September 2015 and the winners are announced on National Poetry Day, 8 October 2015. Poems to be sent in anonymously, with contact details on a separate sheet, plus the name of your Stanza and your Stanza rep. Please read the rules before sending your poems. Good luck!
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Stanza Bonanza
Norwich v Walthamstow
Wed 26 August 2015, 7pm
Another great night of poetry with The Poetry Society Stanzas. Tonight we have poets from Norwich, including Julia Webb - 2011 winner of The Poetry Society's Stanza Competition, and Forest Poets, Walthamstow.
Free, no need to book, and everyone very welcome – the more the merrier – upstairs at The Poetry Society, 22 Betterton Street, London WC2.
More details
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Members' Offers
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Poetry Society Members Matt Reilly (Gateshead), Allis Hamilton (Australia), Cindy Lee (Isle of Wight), Sarah Grigor (Inverness), Richard Myers (Cannich), and Loeke Stok (Gorran Haven), have each won a copy of Ten Bedtime Poems – Volume Two in our latest prize draw.
Candlestick Press kindly donated six copies, including poems from Auden, Byron, Donne, Shakespeare, Tennyson, Wordsworth, Yeats, and more. Available from www.candlestickpress.co.uk or good bookshops.
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The Voice and The Echo at Shakespeare’s Globe – Members' Discounts!
29 Aug; 4, 5 and 9 Sep.
Shakespeare’s Globe are pleased to present a new classical and contemporary poetry series. Each evening will feature famous works by one of England’s most beloved wordsmiths (Donne, Herbert, Blake and Hopkins), as well as responses to these works from critically acclaimed contemporary poets (including Carol Ann Duffy, Craig Raine, Jackie Kay and Peter Oswald).
Poetry society members receive £10 off selected seats or £5 standing seats when they use the code PCDPOETRY.
Call 0207 401 9919.
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August 2015, BFI Southbank
The BFI’s season on poets and poetry includes a fascinating collection of moments where poets are seen discussing the work of another – unusual bedfellows in this collection include Maya Angelou on Robert Burns and Craig Raine on Philip Larkin.
Don’t miss the special selection of extracts from Six Centuries of Verse which features the diverse and radical voices of The Liverpool Poets, Benjamin Zephaniah and Spike Milligan amongst many others.
To enjoy two tickets for the price of one simply quote 'POET' online, in person or over the phone. Box Office: 020 7928 3232.
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Poetry Café
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The Poetry Café is a diverse arts-events space and vegetarian café in Covent Garden, London, run by The Poetry Society. You can find out more about what's on at the café, or sign up to the café-specific mailing list, on our website.
Summer closing
Please note that The Poetry Café is closed for its summer break, 17-31 August.
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until 29 August 2015
Artist-poets Jude Cowan Montague and Daniel Lehan are collaborators for Animallages, the latest exhibition in The Poetry Café. Taking poetry and animals as their theme, they have created a new visual construction, the ‘animallage': Lehan’s collaged tales of true romance track bears, birds and other beasts he encountered on his travels through Canada and London. Montague has cut up her award-winning monoprints and rearranged them to create odd, emotional fragments of cinema on paper. Influenced by Surrealism, Kenneth Patchen and Bruno Schulz, both artists use found texts to unexpected, playful and suggestive effect.
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