In August 2019 Spread the Word’s Young People’s Laureate for London Theresa Lola is launching a social media campaign #MyMentalHealthJourney. We’re speaking to Theresa about her work on mental health, the links between poetry and wellbeing, and find out how you can get involved. Can you tell us about your work on mental health and […]
How do you know when you’ve got enough poems for your first book? What order do you put them in? How do you submit a manuscript? Former Foyle Young Poet Phoebe Stuckes answers all these questions and more! When you’ve been writing poetry for a while, you might start to think about putting together your […]
The Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2019, for poems by writers aged 11-17, is now closed. Good luck and well done to everyone who entered! Next year’s competition will launch in spring 2020. All entrants will be contacted in mid-September with the results, and the winners will be publicly announced on 2 October […]
Young Poets Network launches an exciting new feedback programme… Have you written a poem that you’d like to show someone else? Are you wondering which bits of your poetry are working, and which bits aren’t? Do you want a professional poet’s opinion on your work? We’ve got just the thing for you! Young Poets Network […]
If you’re into poetry, you might have heard of Rupi Kaur. With over 3.6 million Instagram followers, she’s one of the best known ‘Instapoets’ – her debut collection milk and honey, which she originally self-published, sold more than 3.5 million copies, was on The New York Times Best Seller List for over 77 weeks, and […]
We’ve teamed up with Modern Poetry in Translation to challenge young poets to translate the poem ‘Today’ by the Armenian poet Lola Koundakjian into English! How? Foyle Young Poet Adham Smart has provided us with a bridge translation, and below he has transliterated the poem to help you get a feel for the sound of it. Find […]
Foyle Young Poets are running Birmingham! From 2018-2020, 16-year-old Aliyah Begum is Birmingham’s Young Poet Laureate, and Richard O’Brien is the adult laureate. How do you become a poet laureate? What does a young poet laureate do, and how does it compare to the adult laureate role? We’ve been finding out… Thanks so much for […]
On 29 March 2019, the date on which the UK was expected to leave the EU, fourteen centres from across Europe organised simultaneous gigs showcasing the responses of young poets to the theme of borders. Spoken word legend Joelle Taylor and Bristol-based arts organisation boomsatsuma are behind the Borderlines project, bringing young people across Europe […]
“If you want to be a poet, go for it.” On 20th March 2019, ten former prize-winners of the National Poetry Competition will be reading at King’s Place, London, celebrating 40 years of the competition. We’ve been speaking to some of the readers – so scroll on for words of advice, encouragement and nostalgia from […]
How can poetry affect life outside poems? What’s it like to be shortlisted for an award? What one book or podcast should you be reading/listening to right now? We speak to the shortlisted poets in the 2018 Ted Hughes Award… The Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry is a poetry prize in the […]