Become a “Friend of Poetry Space” for just £25 per year.
You will receive:
- a complimentary copy of each showcase -printed edition (4 per year )
- a surprise pamphlet/book collection with each edition of the showcase
- occasional free offers
- discounts on events
- opportunities to buy selected signed books from the Poetry Space catalogue
- invitations to enter member only competitions
and 2 for the price of 1 entry to Poetry Space Competition (closing date June 30th each year) and in total enter as many poems as you wish.
Your news items will also have priority over all of the other requests I get to add items to the Poetry Space website.
Friends of Poetry Space annual membership helps us to continue to produce high quality publications and widen participation in poetry related activities and you reap rewards for your support!
Free to enter Members’ Only Competitions
January 2018
For inspiration for a theme for this latest member’s only competition I just had a quick look around my room and spotted a book title The Timekeeper.
Please write a poem with this title please. The deadline is 28th February.
The winner will receive the Poetry Space pamphlet, Flowers in the Blood by Beverley Ferguson.
Happy writing,
Sue
October 2017
The theme for this next members’ only competition is Light. Interpret any way you wish
Up to two winners will receive a copy of Margaret Eddershaw’s beautiful book, Catching Light and see their poems published here.
Please submit poems by October 31st 2017.
Light Bulbs
Weeks ago, Christmas lights
Were boxed & back in attics,
Shuttered for eleven months at home.
Yet, naked in the earth’s basement rooms,
Incandescent daffodils mark time:
They wait.
There comes an equinoctial moment when
Flayed of skins, dried,
Stripped of frills,
Even these will swell:
Draw water
From chilled wells below.
If then they are plugged
Into the sizzling grid of the sun,
No one sees them smoke & glow—
No one knows except oak roots, rose roots…
Until March light pokes inquisitive fingers into the loam:
Draws up their answers.
Then those dimmed bulbs come on:
Yellow, palest white,
Shades fringed with orange edges,
Rimmed, ruffled in soft layers,
Taffeta trimmed.
Come April, all the lights are on again.
Lizzie Ballagher
March 2017
Walls make an interesting subject for a poem. Walls can contain, divide or protect. Walls can be painted on, used to build houses. Walls can be modern brick or made of stone. walls can be solid entities, or simply barriers in your imagination.
Please send in poems on the theme of ‘walls’ to win a copy of Chester City Walls by Julia D.McGuinness. Julia’s book was a best seller for Poetry Space in 2016.
Poems submitted must be 30 lines or less.
Deadline: 30th April
October 2014
To celebrate the launch of Roger Elkin’s collection Chance Meetings we invited Poetry Space Friends to write a travel poem. There was a wide remit; journeys both personal or exotic. I am delighted to say that the winner is Johanna Boal.
A 540km Cycling Route
At Heathrow Airport
Mike Oldfield is playing
Tubular Bells,
telling me about a Mandolin.
But all the time I’m thinking
about SE Asia
In case you’re ever wandering
just outside Bangkok
stay east, an unbeaten
cycle path takes you to
Ho Chi Minh City.
Tracks that pass shacks,
rice fields and natives smile at you.
70km left to Siam Reap,
I pickup stones at Angkor Wat
for my sitting room.
A group of girls sell pineapple for $1
with chilli and salt, I buy them
because I stared at their ears.
Local smiling boys see the sale
take me to the coconut trees
to buy fresh Tarantulas, I don’t buy
they laugh at me!
The lovely Water Buffalos don’t move
nearby are mines in the fields.
Cycling on to Phnom Penh sweaty
ready for a swim, but it’s from walking
on bones and clothes at the killing fields.
Still cycling-
to the border of Vietnam.
Lots of bridges at the Mekong Delta
busy, a raft steering logs
dripping wet in all shapes, sizes
selling at the markets.
Pedalling hard into Old Saigon,
a two day rest before I go home.
© Johanna Boal
Here is Johanna getting comfy with a signed copy of Chance Meetings – her prize for having her poem selected by Roger:
Johanna has recently had her own pamphlet collection, Cardboard City published by Poetry Space. Both books are available to buy in the online shop.
