Autumn 2021
POETRY NEWS The Newspaper of The Poetry Society www.poetrysociety.org.uk
BREATH & SPACE m nourbeSe philip interviewed
DEAN BROWNE Our Dearmer Prize winner on poetry, cookery and craft
SURREAL CITIES John McCullough takes a tour with members’ poems
FOYLE 2021 Our latest winners are out of this world!
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National Poetry Competition 2021: a word from the judges
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or many, 31 October means fright wigs, tricks, treats and apple bobbing. For the poetry community it’s also the annual deadline for The Poetry Society’s National Poetry Competition, which demands just as much careful planning, creative spark and attention to detail. You have just a few weeks to ready your entries for our judges, Fiona Benson, David Constantine and Rachel Long, who await your poems with keen anticipation. We recently interviewed all three for our
National Poetry Competition judges Fiona Benson, David Constantine and Rachel Long (photo: Amaal Said)
National Poetry Competition podcast (listen at bit.ly/npc21judgesadvice). Their comments on their creative approaches to the making of poems
will, we’re sure, be just the thing to galvanise your submission. Fiona Benson recommends reading “everything and anything” for
National Poetry Day: choose poetry
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ational Poetr y Day on Thursday 7 October is on the theme of Choice – a resonant subject following a period when it has felt as if many of our most ordinary choices were being taken away from us. The Poetry Society will be celebrating with the announcement of our hundred latest Foyle Young Poets, who start a thrilling new writing journey as their poems and names are shared and celebrated all over the world. These hundred poems have been chosen from 14,000 entries by judges Clare Pollard and Yomi S·ode – an accolade indeed. Visit our website to read the top 15 winning poems; the 85 commended pieces will be published later in an online anthology. Our Twitter and Instagram media feeds will be even more poetic than usual; use the #NationalPoetryDay
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Post Keats
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Poetry Society treat in your mail this autumn is a glowing postcard print of Will Harris’s poem ‘This Warm Scribe’. Inspired by John Keats’s ‘Hyperion’, Will’s poem was commissioned by The Poetry Society as part of Keats200, the bicentenary celebrations > Ctd, p. 2
National Poetry Day 2021 artwork, nationalpoetryday.co.uk
hashtag to get involved yourself. And up and down the country, we will have a network of our poetry educators working in schools, performing, reading and writing with young people aged 4-18 years old. We’ve a new choice-themed teaching resource too, for key stages 2 and 3, based on Theodora Shillito’s poem ‘The Story of Squiddly Diddly’. This poem, which explores marine conservation and recycling, was commended in the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2020 – an exciting way to
inspiration: “just follow your interests and your instincts”. She notes that even in old favourites, “there’s always something fresh, because you’re always a different person”; she herself returns again and again to the work of Anne Carson, Lucille Clifton and Sharon Olds. For Rachel Long, the space for creativity is fundamental. “I know that I need to give myself lots of space, and to float above and come at it sort of sideways before I write a poem... but each person’s process is different.” > Ctd, p. 2
show students how influential young writers can be. Take a look at the Events Map at nationalpoetryday.co.uk to find a poetry happening near you, or to advertise one yourself. The website also features poems on the theme of Choice and ideas of how to celebrate in your school, home or workplace. There are also poetry posters for your class walls, office doors and personal pinboards. Is there any other option? On 7 October 2021, choose poetry! s