The new edition of Instant Feedback Podcast is now online, and it's a Belfast Book Festival special from our recent poetry slam!

Host Marcus Keeley speaks to artists and performers before and after a live event, capturing their nerves and anticipation before taking the stage, and then their assessment and thoughts afterwards.

Marcus spoke to organisers Colin Dardis and Geraldine O'Kane. Also featuring interviews with prospective slammers Michael Wilson and Anthony Haughey.

Performances of all of the above poets are contained within, as well a poem each by Nathan Armstrong and Stephen Knox.

There's also a bonus podcast focusing on the semi-finalists and finalists of the slam, and their poems read on the night!

​It was a late night but we have a winner! Well done to Michael Wilson, our 2019 Belfast Book Festival Champion!

Hearty congratulations also to finalists Elizabeth McGeown (2nd), Nathan Armstrong (3rd) and Rae O'Dowd (4th).

Thank you to all who attended, took part and applauded, a big thank you to the staff and volunteers at Crescent Arts Centre too, and our hard working guest judges Linda McKenna and Vincent Creelan! The standard just keeps on getting better and better every year, and we were honoured to help give a platform to all the poets who entered, thank you to you all.

The programme for the Belfast Book Festival 2019 has just been announced, and once again, Poetry NI are delighted to be a part of it. (Link below for booking.)

Poetry NI Presents: Incoming
Tuesday 11 June 2019, 8-9PM

Join Colin Dardis, Linda McKenna, Geraldine O’Kane and Ross Thompson for a showcase of forthcoming work from four of the most promising poets Northern Ireland currently has to offer. With a multitude of awards and competition listings between them, this reading will offer a snapshot of the full-length collections to come in the year ahead and manuscripts in progress. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to catch a sneak preview of four singular and remarkable, emerging voices.

Poetry NI Presents:
The Belfast Book Festival Poetry Slam
Tuesday 11 June 2019, 9:30-11:30PM

​Open to all poets, we invite you to take the mic and enter our annual poetry slam competition. Share your work in front of a lively and appreciative audience, with new readers always welcome. To enter, just register at the start of the night; names will be drawn out at random, with each poet invited onstage to read. The winner will receive the Brain Bailey Memorial Cup, in tribute to the much missed poet and pioneer of the Belfast live poetry scene. Available slots will be limited to 22 due to time constraints, so it’s first come, first served! For full rules of entry, please see our Slam Rules page.

Write To Mental Health Workshop
Saturday 15 June 2019, 12-2PM

​​Poetry NI’s Geraldine O’Kane and Colin Dardis present a poetry workshop designed to encourage and celebrate creativity, providing the opportunity to experiment with writing in a supportive and constructive atmosphere. Together, you will explore aspects of mental health and creativity through a series of writing exercises to stimulate mindfulness and wellbeing. Suitable for those already writing or those who have a desire to write.

Poetry NI's Pen Points Press presents a new online collection from Adrian Fox.

Written in the aftermath of a severe stroke, causing him to lose almost his entire memory, Fox's writing give a unique insight into his fight back to life, and back to poetry. Balanced finely between depression and resilience, Fox portrays a world where at once, everything can be closed off, or entirely possible. The Disabled Dimension is a charter of over ten years, of a poet regaining his memory, and rediscovering a power through poems.

​The e-pamphlet will be made available for free download from the Poetry NI website on Poetry Day Ireland, Thursday 2nd March.

The new issue of FourXFour Poetry Journal will be out on Thursday 21st March, for World Poetry Day. This will be the first of our new expanded editions: as well as featured the regular four featured poets per issue, we will also be including a general selection of poetry. Issue 28 will carry 24 extra poems from 21 poets.

Our featured poets from Issue 28 will be:
Billy Mills
Anne Casey
Ian Heffernan
Azeem Lateef

We are also nominating two poems from the issue for The Forward Prize for Best Single Poem:

Ian Heffernan - Geriatric Ablaze
Betty Baxter - Doing the Rounds

Joining these nominations will be Claire McCotter's Triptych from Issue 26. A prize of £1,000 will be given to the author of the best single poem that has been published in a newspaper, periodical, magazine, e-zine or online journal in the UK or Republic of Ireland between 24 March 2018 and 23 March 2019.

We wish our nominated poets all the best for the prize!
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