Poetry NI is once again honoured to support the Funeral Services Northern Ireland National Poetry Competition, which launches on World Poetry Day, Monday 21st March. 

The launch of the competition, now in its fifth year, event will take place at James Brown & Sons, 300 Newtownards Road, Belfast, with a series of readings from Northern Irish poets. This year's theme will be revealed at the launch, and entries will be accepted from published and non-published poets until the entry deadline of 11 September 2016 at midnight.

Recitals will take place across Funeral Services Northern Ireland homes in the upcoming months, and the finale will take place in Parliament Buildings Stormont on National Poetry Day, Thursday 6 October at 7.30pm.

Poetry NI will be announcing its own regional recital for the competition at a later stage. Details of all the recitals will be available on our Events page.

To register your attendance for the launch, book your free tickets via Eventbrite.
Alternatively, email: joanne.barrie@fsni.info or telephone 02890 739661
Visit the Facebook event page for updates.

Poetry NI is delighted to announce that those lovely people at Sinnamon Coffee and Town Square, both on Botanic Avenue, Belfast, have agreed to spread the poetry love and part take in Pay With A Poem this Saturday (19th March) to help celebrate World Poetry Day (two days earlier we know, but hey, it's a Saturday).

All you need to do is go to either (or both) this Saturday and say I'd like to 'Pay With a Poem': Sinnamon will give you a house coffee, while Town Square will give you house tea/coffee, in return for one pre-written poem or a poem written on the premises, of any length. Be nice and think about ordering a wee bun or treat to go with your drink!

Do tweet us at @poetryni or FB about your experience,  and send a photo.

Many thanks to Sinnamon Coffee and Town Square for agreeing to take part in this brave new currency experience!

Poetry NI and Poetry Ireland present a special showcase event for Poetry Day Ireland, with six of the best from within Northern Ireland.

OLIVE BRODERICK is originally from Youghal, Co. Cork, having travelled to Northern Ireland to undertake the Creative Writing MA at Queen’s University Belfast, and settling in Co. Down in 2003. In 2009, she was one of the Poetry Introduction series readers and won a Henessy X.O. Literary Award, Emerging Poetry Category for the same year. Her first publication - pamphlet ‘Darkhaired’ (Templar Poetry, 2010) - was shortlisted for a Michael Marks Award. 

TORY CAMPBELL lives in Belfast where she coordinates a training centre for adults with learning disability. Tory writes poems about relationships and has been published in a range of local anthologies, The Stinging Fly and The Irish Independent. She was shortlisted for the 2012 Hennessy Literary Award for Emerging Poetry and was highly commended in the 2014 Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award.

STEPHANIE CONN is a former teacher and graduate of the MA programme at the Seamus Heaney Centre, and recent winner of the Yeovil Poetry Prize, Funeral Service NI prize and the inaugural Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing. She is a recipient of an Arts Council Career Enhancement Award. Her first collection, ‘The Woman on the Other Side’ is out now with Doire Press. She is currently working on her second collection.

RAY GIVANS was brought up in the village of Castlecaulfield, County Tyrone. His poetry has been published in four pamphlet length collections, including two from Lapwing Publications, Belfast. His first full poetry collection, "Tolstoy in Love" was published by Dedalus Press, Dublin. This collection was shortlisted for the Rupert and Eithne Strong award for best first collection, 2009, by an Irish poet. A second collection, "The Innermost Room”, will soon be submitted for publication consideration.

MATTHEW RICE was born in Belfast in 1980. He has published poems widely in reputable journals on both sides of the Atlantic, including The Echo Room, Iodine Poetry Journal, Número Cinq, FourXFour Poetry Journal and The Irish Literary Times, among various others. He was included in the CAP anthology, 'Connections' (2016), and was long-listed for The Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing 2016. He is currently finalising his first collection of poems entitled 'Door Left Open'.

ROSS THOMPSON is a writer from Bangor, County Down. His work is informed by recurrent themes: family, the power of memory, the fragility of human life and broken relationships. He teaches English and reads regularly at literary events across Northern Ireland. Ross has been published in various anthologies and was the winner of the FSNI National Poetry Competition 2013 for his poem 'Icarus', and he now acts as a judge with this contest. His pamphlet, 'Slumberland', was published in 2014, and he is currently working on several further poetry projects.

This event is FREE (donations welcome on the night)

Poetry NI thanks the kind support of Poetry Ireland for this event.

[Please note that this event is in an upstairs venue, so unfortunately it has to be noted there is no disabled access available.]

Happy Mother's Day everyone! We're still recovering from the sold-out wonder of Friday's Purely Poetry, the high has lasted throughout the weekend.  sadly, we had to turn people away - there's only so many we can fit in for safety reasons, sorry folks! For those that made it in,we had 33 of you fine folk making us feel every emotion under the sun and then some! When you weren't reading, you were multitasking as part of a very supportive, attentive crowd,  So we want to thank all our readers - (deep breath) praise to:

Clodagh Brennan Harvey, Thomas Elliott, Elizabeth McGeown, Laura Cameron, Ray Givans, Helen Hastings, Geraldine O'Kane, Stephen Douglas, Mike Ruffino, David Smylie, Mark Brownlee, Willetta Fleming, Holly Murphy, Patrick McNicholl, Patrick Taggart, Zakk Appleyard, Steve Smith, Mark Cooper, Drea Hodgins, John Mc Guckin, Nathan Elout-Armstrong, David Braziel, Peter Adair, Siobhan McCafferty, Matthew Rice and Dave Wilson.

Also, from our overflow cup, getting in a poem each at the end were:
Ona Harris, Mary Colbertson, Jason Ashford, Robert Wilson, Chaminda Weerawardhana, Martin Rolston and Peter Ormsby.

Many thanks for being a part of our night and sharing your work with us, especially to those who took the mic for the first time! We hope to see you all again next month on the 1st April.

Issue Five of Panning For Poems is now up online and available to download, print out, fold up and fit in your pocket. You should always carry poems with you in case of a literary emergency. As usual, we'll also be printing out copies and leaving them around places; we encourage you to do the same (remember to ask permission to do so in cafes, libraries, etc and respect littering laws also).

The new issue features: Siobhan Atkins, Ev McLoughin, Barbara Sabol, Colin Dardis, Caroline Kieran, Phyllis McKenna, Wes Lee, Laura McKenna, James Meredith, Dave Eager, Niamh McGarry, Patrick Deeley, John W. Sexton and Laura Cameron.