For our third Foyle Friday, we’re speaking to award-winning writers Jade Cuttle, Richard Osmond and Laura Potts – three exciting voices in contemporary poetry who kick-started their careers with the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award. Just over two weeks until the 2018 Award closes… Jade Cuttle FYP: Commended twice, in 2010 and 2012. […]
Welcome to our second Foyle Friday. With just over three weeks until the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2018 closes for its 20th year, today we’re speaking to three winners who have gone on to have incredible careers in writing, academia and retelling Jurassic World. Read on for more… Helen Mort FYP: Won […]
Welcome to our first Foyle Friday, a new series celebrating Foyle Young Poets as part of the competition’s 20th anniversary celebrations. We’re delighted to kick off this series with 2017 winner Andrew Pettigrew interviewing 2008 judge, poet, playwright and 22nd most powerful person in radio Ian McMillan. What exactly inspired you to be a poet? Were […]
“Soulful, inspiring and uplifting.” Since its release Rising Stars, a stellar anthology written by young poets for 10-14 year olds, has been widely acclaimed and is now on the shortlist for a CLiPPA. One of the contributors and a SLAMbassadors 2015 champion, Jay Hulme, talks about writing for young people. You’ve never written specifically for […]
The Poet X is a terrific testimony to Elizabeth Acevedo’s skilful story-telling as well as her clear talent for poetry. The novel is written in verse, a series of short poems, creating a fifteen-year-old slam poet’s diary. This first-hand account of Xiomara’s experience of growing up in Harlem deals with a variety of topics, ranging […]
The BBC Proms Poetry Competition, run by the BBC Proms in association with The Poetry Society, explores the connection between words and music by asking entrants to submit a poem about a piece of music in this year’s Proms season. The Proms is an eight-week series of music concerts and other events, held mainly at the Royal Albert Hall in […]
Emmeline Armitage and Honey Birch, two SLAMbassadors 2017 champions, release new single ‘The Drought’. Poetry has always been close friends with music so this stunning new collaboration between SLAMbassador Emmeline Armitage and Cold Fire Award-winner Honey Birch makes perfect sense. The piece combines Armitage’s emotion-packed spoken word with Birch’s acoustic guitar and restrained sung refrains. […]
Young Poets Network has teamed up with End Hunger UK to challenge writers aged 11-25 in the UK to respond to the crisis of food poverty. It’s easy to be overwhelmed by statistics, so we’ve asked poet and Teacher Trailblazer Fran Pridham about UK hunger and how poetry can make a difference. Winter. The alarm […]
Giants in battle, a woman conjured from flowers, and a baby snatched by a hideous claw… Matthew Francis’ poetic retelling of the Mabinogi, the Welsh national epic, has wowed readers and recently been shortlisted for the 2017 Ted Hughes Award. Casia Wiliam, Welsh Children’s Laureate and judge of Young Poets Network’s End Hunger UK challenge, […]
The Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award is open for entries! We are so excited to launch the competition for its 20th year. You can enter the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award online or by post now – more details on the website. The Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award is the […]