Poet in Residence at Poet's Letter Programme

for Young and Emerging Poets

Helen Long                 Alan McKean

Poets' Letter runs two Poet in Residence Programmes

1. Poet in Residence at Poets' Letter: this Residency is given to 12 poets in a year each having the residency for a month. In this the resident poet would be given a page at Poet's Letter website to display their works and use the month to write new poems and work with Poet's Letter Magazine and taking in feed back and responding to them and produce at least four poems during the residency and post them to their page. Once the residency is over, the poets retain their page at Poet's Letter so long we are here! Resident Poets are invited to come and perform at Poet's Letter readings and given opportunity to Perform at The London Poetry Festival. There are not financial rewards with this (if anyone wants to offer sponsorships that would be welcome). Further to this: resident poets are given opportunity to submit further works for publication in the Magazine. But poets must be willing to receive and respond to feedback from Poet's Letter. Otherwise there is no point in taking up this position as this is an opportunity for the poet to develop and progress. For this position any poet can apply and seek consideration.

2. Poets in Residence at London Poetry Festival: We offer five poets Poets in Residence at London Poetry Festival. This programme was launched at Second London Poetry Festival 2006 and the Residencies were given to: Alan Buckley, Girija Shettar, Luke Wright, Malgorzata Kitowski and Philip Ruthen. These five poets had been published by Poet's Letter Magazine both print and online versions, they read at Poet's Letter Readings and formed the Signature Presentation of Second London Poetry Festival. They were promoted by the Festival web page as well as their own Poet in Residence Pages. 
The Third London Poetry Festival 2007 (August 10, 11, 12 and 13) has awarded the Residencies to: Briony Dennis, Inua Ellams, Juli Jeana, Tricia Peak and Tom Chivers. However, these residencies do not offer any financial awards. And most important fact to be underlined here is: 

INDIVIDUAL POETS CANNOT APPLY FOR THESE RESIDENCIES. THESE ARE GIVEN BY POETS' LETTER MAGAZINE WITH ACTIVE CONTRIBUTIONS/SUGGESTIONS FROM THE EXISTING POETS IN RESIDENCE. If poets would like us to consider them they ought to keep writing, keep submitting (particularly to Poets' Letter!!), keep getting published, keep reading and performing and keep being poets and if they come to our radar and arrest us we will come to them!!!

So far Poets in Residence at Poets' Letter are:

Kathleen van Geete: August/September 2009

Aiko Harman: March/April 2009 and 5th London Poetry Festival 2009

Lucy Baker: April 2008

Claire Askew: January 2008 and the 4th London Poetry Festival 2008

David Mclean:November 2007

Kerry-Fleur Schleifer: May 2007

Alan McKean:April 2007

Helen Long: March 2007 and 3rd London Poetry Festival 2007

Maggie Sullivan: July 2006

Tricia Peak: June 2006 and 3rd London Poetry Festival 2007

Malgorzata Kitowski: May 2006 and 2nd London Poetry Festival 2006

Sarah Parry: April 2006

Alan Buckley: March 2006 and 2nd London Poetry Festival 2006