never knowingly without a pen
Although not back to how it was before the pandemic, I am increasingly venturing out in the world to attend poetry events and readings, as well as still going to online things. Trowbridge Stanza, the monthly poetry group I organise, is meeting in person again, not monthly, as we previously did, but every other month… Continue reading Out and About Again
Following the success of the inaugural Sarah Maguire Prize for Poetry in Translation, the Poetry Translation Centre is delighted to welcome an esteemed line up of judges for the 2022 prize. The panel will be chaired by Rosalind Harvey, a critically acclaimed translator who co-founded the Emerging Translators Network. She is joined by the poet,… Continue reading Judges announced for Sarah Maguire Prize 2022
Last year, I entered poems into more competitions than usual. I wonder why I did this? Perhaps I was trying to win some money in a patchy year or trying to store up funds for whatever lay ahead? I'm not sure, but, in any case, it's a good job I wasn't relying on competition prizes… Continue reading End of month, rainy Sunday blog
A new poem 'Self-Portrait as a Green Silk Dress' has been accepted by 14 magazine (Vanguard Editions) and will be published in their next issue, now available to order. My thanks to editor Richard Skinner. Here is an image of the dress that inspired the poem:
I've used this blog before as a place to record workshop ideas, so I'm adding a post about some visual poems I've made as they would also work very well in a workshop. Here I've substituted flowers for syllables, words and rhymes in a few poetic forms (haiku, couplet, quatrain, end rhyme) but any found… Continue reading Making visual poems with flowers
My poem 'A Baby Speaks on his Birthday in an Autumn Garden, 2020' has been longlisted in this year's Live Canon International Poetry Competition and will be published in their annual anthology. Anthology cover photo by Anna Watson My thanks to the competition organisers, everyone at Live Canon and judge Jennifer Wong. More details and… Continue reading New Poem in the 2021 Live Canon Anthology
For the August meeting of our poetry group, on August 3rd (2-4pm), Trowbridge Stanza is hosting an informal, fun, informative and enjoyable workshop about the pantoum. We'll read pantoums, write our own, either individually or in collaboration, or both, and hold a low-key, encouraging and friendly performance at the end of the afternoon. Everyone is… Continue reading Pantoum Workshop! August 3 in Trowbridge
Perhaps you already know about the following but in case you don't: Places of Poetry is open to everyone. It's an online place, a map of England and Wales, for you to pin your poem about place, on the place it's about. Read more about what the project is about here. I know that a… Continue reading Some things you might like
This week the shortlist for the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry was announced and - for the first time ever - one of the books I nominated for this prize has been selected. I think it's a strong list and I can't think of any other recent poetry award (can you?) that… Continue reading My poetry week
Last week I mentioned that the Poetry Society had a callout for poems that take note, in some way, of 99 of the mostly commonly used words used in 40 years of the National Poetry Competition. I wasn't going to write anything for this because I thought it was too much of a distraction from… Continue reading A few poetry notes
Josephine Corcoran 