Belated congratulations to our member, Vicki Morley, for her success in this year’s Canterbury Festival Poet of the Year competition. Her poem “Fudo in the British Museum” was one of nine shortlisted.

The latest edition of the Society’s workshop magazine (OUP 198) should be dropping through letter boxes this week. The Editor’s choices are: “Wilko at the Railway – Roxette” by Adrian Green, “A Jug of Flowers” by Jenny Hamlett and “Cessation” by Jane Avery.

The committee is pleased to announce two new members of the committee for OUP, they are Julie Ann Gilligan who takes on the role of Activities Officer from January 2020, and you’ve probably all seen that Nigel Kent is our new webmaster and social media guru.

A big welcome to them from the OUP committee and members alike.

Preparations are well underway for the Society’s annual poetry weekend, 1st-3rd November. The tutor for the weekend will be Hilary Hares and the event will be held at the Heathlands Hotel, Grove Road, Bournemouth.

Hilary has a degree in Creative Writing from the University of Winchester and an M.A in poetry from Manchester Metropolitan University. Her work has appeared in many anthologies and magazines; she won the Christchurch Writers’ Competition in 2013, was shortlisted for the Grey Hen Poetry Competition in 2016 and longlisted for the Plough Prize in 2011; her collection ‘A Butterfly Lands on the Moon’ is sold in support of Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice Care; and her new collection, ‘Red Queen’, will be published by Marble Poetry in 2020.

Members should book now to avoid disappointment.

Today OUPS members can participate in their own reading group on the Society’s closed Facebook page. The poet chosen to launch the group is Ted Kooser, Poet Laureate of the United States, 2004-2005. Members will have the opportunity to discuss his work over the next month.

Another reason to join the Poetry Society of the Open University and participate in its Facebook Group!

Openings 36, the annual anthology of the Open University Poets Society has been published! For further details and to buy a copy see our Anthologies page.

Having recently taken over the management of this website and of our social media sites, I thought it an appropriate time to review their content and usage in order to identify developments that might increase participation. Consequently members will have received an email from me which details a number of proposals with these objectives in mind. I’m seeking feedback on these ideas and any other suggestions that will improve the content and operation of these sites.