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Out-Spoken Press

@outspokenpress.bsky.social

Register for one, or save on bundle registrations for multiple. Gift option available.

Registration is now OPEN - find out more outspokenldn.com/hyperfocus

Thematically-focused online poetry courses
HYPER FOCUS
Four months, four themes:
grief - parents - eros - resistance

November 26, 2025 at 3:41 PM

Out-Spoken Press

@outspokenpress.bsky.social

January - Grief with @no1emily.bsky.social & @pascalepetit.bsky.social

February - Parents with @carolinebirduk.bsky.social & Jack Underwood

March: Eros with @kimaddonizio.bsky.social & Oluwaseun Olayiwola

April: Resistance with Joelle Taylor & @aanaxagorou.bsky.social

GRIEF
Consider the different ways poems can help get between the feelings of grief and loss and look at how to ensure a poem remains artful while also true to its emotional life and sensibility. Both Emily Berry and Pascale
Petit have
written
extensively on the theme of grief using metaphor, allegory and anecdote and will be guiding poets through a range of tips and prompts aimed at enhancing their skillset and thinking around the kind of poetry they want to write.
6-27 JANUARY 2026
TUTORS: PASCALE PETIT,
EMILY BERRY
WORKSHOPS: TUES 7-9PM UK
HYPERFOCUS
grief:
outspokenldn.com/hyperfocus

HYPERFOCUS
- parents
How do you write about a problematic parents)? How best could you navigate a complex upbringing? How do you handle the sheer awe and panic of being a new parent? How do you write about the loss of a parent? In this second segment of Hyperfocus, join poets Caroline Bird and Jack Underwood as they look at ways we can write poems that draw from the multilayered experiences of having parents and being a parent.
3-24 FEBRUARY 2026
TUTORS: CAROLINE BIRD
JACK UNDERWOOD
WORKSHOPS: TUES 7-9PM UK
PARENTS
outspokenldn.com/hyperfocus

EROS
Love, desire, lust, eros and longing are all part of March's Hyperfocus. Participants will be looking at what makes an erotic poem... erotic. How does one write erotica without sounding crass or twee, how can we express notions of longing or desire for another person and not make the poem feel like it's over-reaching or performative and if we are to write sex how much does that involve the body. How do sexuality, ability and gender impact the way we write into these themes?
3-24 MARCH 2026
TUTORS:
KIM ADDONIZIO
OLUWASEUN OLAYIWOLA
WORKSHOPS: TUES 7-9PM UK
HYPERFOCUS
eros
outspokenldn.com/hyperfocus

HYPERFCCUS
resistance
7-28 APRIL 2026
TUTORS: JOELLE TAYLOR
ANTHONY ANAXAGOROU
WORKSHOPS: TUES 7-9PM UK
Writing poems that talk truth to power or address the state of the nation can often be tricky to navigate. Either a poem is so direct it ends up feeling didactic or it's so subtle it doesn't have the push and bite it needs to make its case.
Over the course of the four weeks participants will explore what it means to write a poem that is concerned with the world, injustice, oppression, trauma and witness.
RESISTANCE
outspokenldn.com/hyperfocus

November 26, 2025 at 3:41 PM

Out-Spoken Press

@outspokenpress.bsky.social

We’re excited to let you know about the new HYPERFOCUS thematically focused four-week online poetry courses launching January 2026.

Over four months, eight talented tutors will draw on four concentrated themes - Grief, Parents, Eros & Resistance.

outspokenldn.com/hyperfocus

Thematically-focused online poetry courses
HYPER FOCUS
Four months, four themes:
grief - parents - eros - resistance
NEW FOR 2026
Spanning four months, Jan-April 2026, with eight of the UK's best tutors, the courses will draw on four concentrated themes:
GRIEF, PARENTS, EROS and RESISTANCE.
outspokenldn.com/hyperfocus
Each month, two leading poets will focus on a specific theme across four generative Tuesday evening workshops. Classes are designed for all levels, offering key insights and prompts into how we can write in and around each theme.
You can either select a course that relates to you and your existing work, or register for the whole set.

November 26, 2025 at 3:41 PM

Out-Spoken Press

@outspokenpress.bsky.social

You can still DONATE to help those in Jamaica affected by Hurricane Melissa’s devastation & WATCH the recording of last night

With a TON of amazing poetry, incredible hosting by Leone Ross & a beautiful atmosphere - but on a Karim Kamar one today, not sorry

melissafundraiser.eventbrite.co.uk

November 20, 2025 at 7:55 PM

Out-Spoken Press

@outspokenpress.bsky.social

The evening will be hosted by Leone Ross, with an introduction from Akala, a piano recital from Karim Kamar and readers too many characters to list but in the flyer >>

POETS READ FOR
HURRICANE MELISSA
RELIEF FUNDRAISER
WEDNESDAY 19 NOVEMBER 2025
INTRODUCTION BY AKALA
ROGER ROBINSON / MALIKA BOOKER / KEITH JARRETT
RICHARD GEORGES / SAFIYA SINCLAIR / ISABELLE BAAFI
RAYMOND ANTROBUS
ANTHONY VAHNI CAPILDEO
KAREN MCCARTHY WOOLF / COURTTIA NEWLAND
COURTNEY CONRAD / MUNI PILGRIM / DZIFA BENSON
SHANNON SMITH-MEEKINGS / ANTHONY JOSEPH
CASEY BAILEY / SALENA GODDEN
KARIM KAMAR ON PIANO / HOSTED BY LEONE ROSS
Raising funds to support the Jamaican Official Disaster Relief & Recovery Fund and Food for the Poor Jamaica's Hurricane Melissa Relief Fund. All donations will be split equally between these funds, and any additional organisations added.
OUT
SPOKEN PRESS
ONLINE / DONATION TICKETS
7-9PM UK / 2-4PM EST
melissafundraiser.eventbrite.co.uk

November 4, 2025 at 4:32 PM

Out-Spoken Press

@outspokenpress.bsky.social

With the devastation of Hurricane Melissa, we’re hosting an online event to raise funds to help those affected

Please join us Weds 19 Nov 7pm UK/2pm EST to hear from stellar poets who’ll share their work & offer some insight into the situation on the ground

melissafundraiser.eventbrite.co.uk

November 4, 2025 at 4:32 PM

Out-Spoken Press

@outspokenpress.bsky.social

We’re delighted to share with you the cover for LAMPING WILD RABBITS, the debut collection by @simonmaddrell.bsky.social forthcoming 12 February 2026.

PRE-ORDERS are up now / outspokenldn.com/rabbits

Cover of lamping wild rabbits by Simon Maddrell: title in off white block condensed sans serif caps, over a sketched black rabbit, on blue

In Simon Maddrell's wide and bracing world, childhood orbits the voice of a distant and sometimes dangerous parent. Memories of sex parties, dead friends and estranged lovers straddle the spaces between feeling and thought, loss and fatalism. lamping wild rabbits is a brave and expansive multiverse, exploring sexuality, queer desire, memory recall and testimony. With poems that pay homage to the late Derek Jarman, to verses which situate themselves in and around the Isle of Man, exploring Britain's colonial presence through the subverted interplay of English and the Manx language.
A poly-vocal and multifaceted debut which is unafraid to confront the shame and stigma of HIV, while never allowing the poems to lose shape or pace, altering the lens to bring the reader's attention to birdsong and the queer body in nature.
Maddrell has achieved a distinct and totally convincing sound through the literary geography of lamping wild rabbits, one that gives the impression it's been everywhere and returned because it survived.

November 3, 2025 at 12:50 PM

Out-Spoken Press

@outspokenpress.bsky.social

🌟 Huge congratulations to Fady Joudah, recipient of the 2025 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, awarded by the Academy of American Poets, for the most outstanding poetry published in the United States in the previous year for [...]

Black and white head shot of poet Fady Joudah, a man with stubble and a bald head. Banner at bottom reads: Fady Joudah, 2025 Winner, Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize

announcing
The 2025 Recipients
of the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize and the James Laughlin Award
academy of american
poets

October 17, 2025 at 5:11 AM

Out-Spoken Press

@outspokenpress.bsky.social

‘An alarmingly accomplished debut. A long way now from traditional elegy […] off-kilter and riveting: one dare not look away.’ —Fiona Benson

✨ It's publication week for Madeleine Kruhly's To my father, now dead in room 318 ✨

Out on Thurs > outspokenldn.com/shop/room318

‘An alarmingly accomplished debut. A long way now from traditional elegy, Kruhly’s poems speak of nourishment and squalor, palliative care and dirty linen, tenderness and harm. Their unnerving domestic noire is both off-kilter and riveting: one dare not look away.’ —Fiona Benson

Cover of To my father, now dead in room 318 by Madeleine Kruhly. An anatomical heart in black on a textured beige background

October 13, 2025 at 8:40 AM

Out-Spoken Press

@outspokenpress.bsky.social

👀 3 DAYS LEFT! Deadline for entries: end of this Wednesday 15 October 👀

$2000
US publication with @noemipress.bsky.social
UK publication with Out-Spoken Press

Full info & entries >> noemipress.submittable.com

October 13, 2025 at 6:09 AM

Out-Spoken Press

@outspokenpress.bsky.social

Big news. Big. Huge. 🌝

Delighted that Stay Dead by Natalie Shapero is shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize 2025

🙏 to the judging panel & congratulations to all shortlisted poets. We hope this recognition can bring her work to more UK readers 🙏

TS Eliot Prize 2025 shortlisted collections:

Gillian Allnutt Lode Bloodaxe Books
Isabelle Baafi Chaotic Good Faber & Faber
Catherine-Esther Cowie Heirloom Carcanet Press
Paul Farley When it Rained for a Million Years Picador Poetry
Vona Groarke Infinity Pool The Gallery Press
Sarah Howe Foretokens Chatto Poetry
Nick Makoha The New Carthaginians Penguin Books
Tom Paulin Namanlagh Faber & Faber
Natalie Shapero Stay Dead Out-Spoken Press
Karen Solie Wellwater Picador Poetry

Shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize 2025 - Natalie Shapero, Stay Dead

October 6, 2025 at 9:20 AM

Out-Spoken Press

@outspokenpress.bsky.social

Review of our September title, STAY DEAD by Natalie Shapero, in LARB

“Shapero’s mordant humor and intellectual agility throw a challenge to the reader: In contemporary life, are we dead or alive? Could we be both, or in between?”

>> lareviewofbooks.org/article/coug...

Los Angeles
LA ReviewofBoks RB
Cough Up the Pill
David Schurman Wallace reviews Natalie Shapero's new collection "Stay Dead."
By David Schurman Wallace • September 9, 2025
POETRY

08:30
Los Angeles
In all of her books, Shapero's strength comes through her thinking on the page. Without being rote, she is careful to develop the thread of an idea from each sentence to the next. Reading her work, it becomes clear how comfortable some contemporary poets have become with "leaps" that are more like abysses, relying on the reader to assume that there is a hidden connection that may not really exist. In Stay Dead, the connections tend to stay tight, working the starting idea of the poem for more material, and are less likely to digress into unusual pockets of fact or language that made some of her earlier work lighter, if still rich.
Humor remains, but the speech is starker-life or death, or death and then life again.
Varied and surprising as they are, there is something bracing about the negativity of the poems in Stay Dead.
They are uncompromising in their refusal of easy answers, the little lift that comes from appealing to love (or some other "basic human emotion") at the end of the poem. An intriguing suggestion comes in one of the epigraphs between sections, courtesy of Monet: "I FIND MYSELF DISGUSTED BY MY PROFESSION." Fatigued by experience, fatigued by the speaking voice, the desire to lose oneself can also register as a dissent against poetry's platitudes, which might make a career if you're lucky, but which don't seem to live up to the world's despair.
lareviewofbooks.org

October 3, 2025 at 6:31 AM

Out-Spoken Press

@outspokenpress.bsky.social

Are you a writer of Arab heritage with a poetry MS?

Check out this opportunity open to writers in English located anywhere - win $2000, US & UK publication

Deadline: 15 Oct
Send your MS, share widely >> noemipress.submittable.com

Are you a writer of Arab heritage with a poetry manuscript?
DEADLINE EXTENDED - ENTER BY 15 OCTOBER
$2000 PRIZE
plus
US PUBLICATION
with Noemi Press
and
UK PUBLICATION with Out-Spoken Press
NOEMI
{
GUEST JUDGE:
Farid Matuk
SERIES EDITORS:
Fady Joudah, Hayan Charara
OUT SPOKEN PRESS
Etel Adnan Poetry Prize
For a first or second book by a writer of Arab heritage
NOEMIPRESS.SUBMITTABLE.COM

October 3, 2025 at 6:22 AM

Out-Spoken Press

@outspokenpress.bsky.social

Last call for our next course running Mondays 7-9pm, 6 Oct - 1 Dec

Tutors: Ella Frears, Jack Underwood, Anthony Anaxagorou

Starting on Monday - don’t miss out!
outspokenldn.com/academy-plus

OUT SPOKEN
academy plus
Nine-week Online Poetry Course
Join Ella Frears, Jack Underwood and Anthony Anaxagorou for our nine-week online poetry course.
Workshops: Mondays 7-9pm UK
plus
academy
6 October - 1 December 2025
outspokenldn.com/academy

October 3, 2025 at 6:16 AM

Out-Spoken Press

@outspokenpress.bsky.social

DEADLINE EXTENDED
If you’re a poet of Arab heritage, writing in English anywhere in the world, with a poetry manuscript - you now have until 15 October to enter the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize!

> $2000
> US publication with Noemi Press
> UK publication with Out-Spoken Press

noemipress.submittable.com

October 1, 2025 at 8:31 AM

Out-Spoken Press

@outspokenpress.bsky.social

If anyone ever tries to tell you there's nothing you can do about the genocide in Gaza, don't believe them.

Long live Haia and all the students! Long live the people of Gaza! Free Palestine!!!

anthony_anaxagorou Haia Mohammed has just landed safely at Heathrow to take up her scholarship place at Goldsmiths University. After surviving over 700 days of Israeli genocide, she is now free to embrace her future, develop her writing and pursue her dreams without fear of bombing, or starvation or forced displacement.
A massive thank you to everyone who emailed their MP's regarding waiving the biometrics for the Gaza 40. The screenings were sat in Jordan last week where for the first time in nearly two years the students were given a full meal, a medical examination, access to running water and fresh clothes. They are all survivors of genocide. I hope the orientation process in the UK goes smoothly, and that their studies manifest long and fruitful careers.
When we first set out to try and get Haia out of Gaza in April there was (to our knowledge) not one successful case of a Gazan being evacuated to the UK since Oct 2023. A really special thank you to Patricia Ferguson and Jack Underwood who worked tirelessly for five months on Haia's case with me. To the Gaza Scholars Initiative, Goldsmiths University and all the MPs who signed petitions to have biometrics waived. Lastly, none of this would have been possible without the extraordinary heart, strength and resilience of Haia herself.
If anyone ever tries to tell you there's nothing you can do about the genocide in Gaza, don't believe them.
Long live Haia and all the students! Long live the people of Gaza! Free Palestine!!!

September 23, 2025 at 6:21 AM

Out-Spoken Press

@outspokenpress.bsky.social

Haia Mohammed has arrived safely to take up her scholarship place at Goldsmiths University.

A massive thank you to everyone who emailed their MP's regarding waiving the biometrics for the Gaza 40. They are all survivors of genocide.

Love to the extraordinary heart, strength and resilience of Haia.

September 23, 2025 at 6:19 AM

Out-Spoken Press

@outspokenpress.bsky.social

Looking forward to seeing some of you at this evening’s celebration. It does feel like a milestone and we’re excited for the next ten 🙃💙🙏

September 16, 2025 at 1:39 PM

Out-Spoken Press

@outspokenpress.bsky.social

💐 Today we are TEN 💐

With huge gratitude to every poet we have published and worked with, the whole Out-Spoken team, and every one of you who’ve read or recommended an Out-Spoken Press title or joined us for one of our workshops or events. THANK YOU 🙏

September 16, 2025 at 1:39 PM

Out-Spoken Press

@outspokenpress.bsky.social

Congratulations to the wonderful @juanapoetry.bsky.social on the longlisting of I Sugar the Bones for this years #SaltireBookAwards for Poetry! 💫💫💫

The Saltires
POETRY
OUT SPOKEN PRESS
I SUGAR
THE
BONES
Poems
Juana
Adcock
Scotland's
National Book
Awards
LONGLIST 2025
The judges said:
A visceral, formally confident, compelling
collection. The fusing of body image with exploration of migration and language has fascinating results.

September 11, 2025 at 11:16 AM

Out-Spoken Press

@outspokenpress.bsky.social

‘Shapero leaves a huge dent in oblivion to show us that it’s real.’
—Jack Underwood

STAY DEAD by Natalie Shapero OUT NOW

In her fourth collection, Shapero examines performance, power, comedy and despair through the lenses of method acting and abstract expressionism.

outspokenldn.com/shop/staydead

Cover of Stay Dead by Natalie Shapero: title appears in fat black eurostile caps with “stay” above and “dead” below a photo collage of b&w Joshua tree desert and old tv set, with a blue-green gradient sky. outspokenldn.com/shop/staydead

'In Stay Dead, Natalie Shapero leads us out from the wreckage into the brightly smouldering aftermath more precariously mortal, more humane and attentive and vivid than before. Her relentlessly dark, metaphysical poems of dying and not dying, surviving and not surviving, are as bleakly comical as they are halting.
Shapero always keeps her lyrics effortlessly turning, veering her syntax, squinting and tacking
- from abstract paintings, movie quotations and the private ownership of coastal redwoods, to the ocean hurling itself onto the rocks, the past, the afterlife, the dead that stay dead, and the dead that don't. Shapero leaves a huge dent in oblivion to show us that it's real.'
— Jack Underwood
OUT
SPOKEN PRESS
STAY DEAD
www.outspokenldn.com/shop/staydead

September 10, 2025 at 7:25 AM

Out-Spoken Press

@outspokenpress.bsky.social

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this last night! And huge 🙏 to Natalie Shapero, Prageeta Sharma & @aanaxagorou.bsky.social 💙💙

Zoom screenshot of Natalie Shapero smiling while holding up a copy of Stay Dead

Zoom screenshot of Prageeta Sharma holding up the MS of her new book

September 2, 2025 at 6:14 AM

Out-Spoken Press

@outspokenpress.bsky.social

Huge thanks to @PoetryBookSoc for including STATE OF PLAY as Book of the Week in their ESEA Heritage Month picks — this book, Eds. @jennywcreative.bsky.social & Eddie Tay, and its wide range of perspectives was a joy to work on 🙏

outspokenldn.com/shop/state