The National Poetry Competition 2010

The Poetry Society is accepting entries for this year's National Poetry Competition. Click here for details. The closing date for the competition is 31 October 2010. You can enter online or by post. Check the rules for entry on the link above.

The judges this year are George Szirtes, Deryn Rees-Jones and Sinead Morrissey.

The winner of the prize in 2009 was Helen Dunmore with her peom 'The Malarky', which can be read here. Helen Dunmore's novel, The Betrayal, is on the long list year's Man Booker Prize; there is a review of the novel in an earlier post.

Poetry surgeries at the Poetry Cafe - 4 October 2010

Writers who would like to have their poems read and discussed by a prominent professional poet might be interested in the poetry surgeries run four times a year at the Poetry Cafe in Covent Garden. The next series of half-hour surgeries is to take place on 4 October. The session with poet and sociologist Carole Satyamurti will take the form of a discussion. You are encouraged to send in a few poems in advance to allow her time to read them.

The poetry of Carole Satyamurti has been published by the Oxford University Press and Bloodaxe, and she has won many awards including the National Poetry Prize. She has taught with many institutions including The Arvon Foundation and the Poetry School. You can read some of her poems here.

The Poetry Cafe, run by The Poetry Society, charges £20 per session for non-members, £15 for members. Check the website for details.

Poetry evening at Oxfam Marylebone

Oxfam's Marylebone High Street shop last Thursday evening hosted a poetry reading event, one of many events in this year's Oxfam Bookfest, which I mentioned in a post on 26 June.

With scarcely an empty chair in the shop and softened up by a glass or two of wine and the summery evening heat, we heard readings by eight very different English-language poets from around the world. The name given to the event was 'Christopher Reid and Guests' and I suppose the best-known of the poets was Christopher Reid himself, the winner of last year Costa's best poetry book award as well as their overall Best Book of the Year for A Scattering, a collection of poems dealing with his loss of his wife to cancer. But each of the poets brought something different to an evening of considerable variety and energy, with poems that explored miso soup, the French Revolution, Thesalonius Monk and a great deal more besides.

Rather than try to do justice to each writer, I've decided to give you the opportunity to read more about these poets and enjoy a little of their work by clicking on their names in this list:

Christopher Horton
Rachel Lehrman
Declan Ryan
Kelina Gotman
Sam Riviere
John Menaghan
Paul Perry
Christopher Reid 

It was a fine evening, and I hope Oxfam managed to raise some cash from it. Another poetry evening, Days of Roses, is taking place at Oxfam Marylebone tomorrow evening. For news of other events in the Oxfam Bookfest 2010, which runs until 17 July, click here.