Poets

Now more than ever, as the Black Lives Matter movement appears resolute on toppling racist and imperial structures, we need the words and radical ideas of black poets - to reimagine the kind of world we want to arise once the ash has settled.

Kadish Morris

An open letter to the Poetry Foundation from a group of its fellows and programmatic partners and signed by more than 1,800 individuals issued in response to the organization's June 3 statement on the killing of George Floyd and other current events calls for significant change at the organization.

Roger Robinson's vision of Trinidad as a "portable paradise" of "white sands, green hills and fresh fish", has won the British-Trinidadian poet the Royal Society of LiteratureThis British site may seem rather formal (stated aim ‘to sustain and encourage all that is perceived as best whether traditional or experimental in English letters, and to strive for a Catholic appreciation of literature’), but has a lively series of lectures and discussions involving distinguished authors. Also administers literary prizes. http://www.rslit.org/index1.html's £10,000 Ondaatje prize, which goes to a work that best evokes "the spirit of a place".

Carol Ann Duffy and the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University have brought together poets from around the world to write new poems about the recent days past and the weeks ahead. The poets were invited to write directly about the Coronavirus pandemic or about the personal situation they find themselves in right now.

The art world has the National Gallery; drama has the National Theatre. Now poet laureate Simon Armitage is putting plans in motion for a National Poetry Centre "headquarters" in Leeds.  Read more