For more information see:-

www.thehousesonthegreen.com

Submissions are invited for original poems to be displayed alongside other art works in town centre shops during Bolton’s week-long arts festival from 14^th June.

It’s a superb opportunity for poets, amateur or established, to have their work read by hundreds of people in Bolton’s town centre and by thousands of regular visitors to the Write Out Loud website, the UK’s biggest online poetry community. The final selection will also appear in a Bolton Arts Festival anthology and website.

The Write Out Loud website shows a list of participating shops with basic information and links where available. Poets are invited to write a poem on a theme of, or inspired by, the individual shop, and submit it online. Now!

The poems will be appear on the Write Out Loud website, where the public can comment and rate them out of 10, the final selection being curated by Write Out Loud founder, Julian Jordon.

Julian urges anyone who dabbles in writing to have a go. Serious or humorous, all poems suitable for public readership are welcome. “I am hoping that, for example, the pasty VAT issue might give us some pastry-based political poetry,” he says.

Having established Write Out Loud as a poetry-loving creative community in Bolton in 2003, then in five other towns, Julian is convinced the region’s creative spirit will bring some fascinating verse that will contribute to a very successful festival.

The deadline for receipt of poems is midnight on Wednesday 6^th June 2012. So, get out your pen and paper, look at the list of shops and start writing, commenting and voting. Come on you poets!

To upload your poem, find the shop you want to write about and click the enter a poem button

http://www.writeoutloud.net/comp/listbat.php

Word of caution: Read the terms and conditions carefully, and proofread and edit your work before submitting.

Terms and conditions

http://www.writeoutloud.net/public/structureddoc.php?docid=14&preview=1

View existing entries and rate the poems, click on number of entries so far:

http://www.writeoutloud.net/comp/listbat.php

Bolton Arts Festival, 14 – 21 June, 2012 across the town centre, and on university and college campuses.

To book a place please contact Stockport Library on 0161 217 2009 or send an e mail to learners@stockport.gov.uk

Atlantean publishing is a small press that welcomes new and established writers.  They do not pay for submissions but, if you are accepted, you will receive a free copy of the magazine, book or anthology in which your work appears.

Ed’s collection of poetry has recently been reviewed by Patrick Lodge from Carillion who writes of sharp images gracing some of the poetry.  He writes, “Allotment  the opening poem, evokes well the pacing and ordering of garden work and how the created space forms a refuge, if not a metaphor for the lived life. ‘Thick wrists of leeks’ and bees ‘working the pollen in a drowsy haze’ are strong; the closing image of the gardener leaning on his hoe ‘as he reflects on his allotted span’ is clever.”

This review talks about the poems having a variety of tones that vary between comic, pithy, sad, and reflective but the reviewer feels that the best poems in the collections have an almost weary sadness about them as Ed contemplates getting old. He particularly likes two poems – “Autumn in Spain” and “The Last Resort” as they create mood through location.

Ed describes off-season Spain “as noisy as the silence of stopped clocks” and in a British resort that has seen better days, when the holiday makers leave, “the sea fret hangs like a grey, cold shroud… A single cur on the beach worries something that died.”

Other poems that are reviewed are:

Cartwheels – a musing on time passed and passing has a final reminder that ‘the cartwheels of the child turn/and are stuck in the rut of old age’

In Old Men – the theme of ageing is continued and Ed asks whether he will end up on promenade benches ‘looking for … lost youth through misted memories’

Travel Tramps – celebrates ‘the itinerant OAP’s,’ ‘the new grey wanderers’, ‘the new age nomads’ wandering around the planet spending their pensions on cruise and booze.

Patrick Lodge concludes, “This collection is worth the few pounds asked for. The slim chap book contains a great many poems and, while many are slight and single idea efforts, there are enough which ask a greater engagement of the reader. In the end, though, they are above all else, enjoyable. In La Giaconda Blundell write,s, ‘We analyse, all the while / Mona Lisa, you just smile,’ and I think that is precisely what you will do if you read these poems.”

Details of how to purchase “Sweet Nothings” can be found on the Atlantean Web site – http://atlanteanpublishing.wikia.com/wiki/Atlantean_Publishing

on

Saturday 19th May 2012  at Stockport Central Libary

11:00 am until 1:00 pm

“Characters”

This workshop is suitable for Adults who have an interest in creative writing at beginner and intermediate level.

During the session we will be using our powers of detection to identify and write about various characters from the clues provided.

Please bring a note book and pen.

BOOKING ESSENTIAL

Telephone 0161 217 6009

or e-mail learners@stockport.gov.uk

on

Sunday 13th May 2012  at Stockport Art Gallery

11:00 am until 1:00 pm

“Beginnings”

This workshop is suitable for Adults who have an interest in creative writing at beginner and intermediate level.

During the session we will be looking at first lines from well known books and then writing some of our own.

Please bring a note book and pen.

BOOKING ESSENTIAL

Telephone Stockport Art Gallery on 0161 474 4453 during opening hours which are:-

Tuesday – Friday 1:00pm until 5:00pm

Saturday 10:00 am until 5:00 pm

Sunday 11:00 am until 5:00 pm

Bring some work to read.