Purely Poetry Open Mic Friday 3rd October, 7:15pm Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast Open to all styles and experiences - if you have poems, we want them! crescentarts.org/events/purel...

Find me elsewhere.

The Brian Bailey Memorial Cup is awaiting its next winner at this year's #BelfastBookFestival Poetry Slam, on Friday 6th June at Crescent Arts Centre. Enter on the night to win, or just come along to witness some top tier poetry! crescentarts.org/events/poetr...

Colin Dardis reviews Nathanael O'Reilly's TERMINALS (above/ground press, 2025) at Poem Alone / @purelypoetry.bsky.social @nathanael73.bsky.social ; abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2025/05/coli...

Belfast Book Festival Poetry Slam Friday 6th June, 7:30pm, Crescent Arts Centre Belfast Bring your best poems on the night and enter for a chance to become our Poetry Slam and win the Brian Bailey Memorial Cup! belfastbookfestival.com/whats-on/poe...

"Where are you, the stories we didn’t write, the gardens we didn’t grow: chamomile, rose, basil, thyme. Where are you, the hair that never went grey" Lauren Sarrantonio's poem Earthly Travels is today's solitary work up on the POEM ALONE blog. poemalone.blogspot.com/2025/05/laur...

My review of Nathanael O'Reilly's pamphlet 'Terminals' from above/ground press. The collection is comprised entirely of the terminal form, where the final word of each line in a source poem us used as the end-word for each line of a new poem. poemalone.blogspot.com/2025/05/sund...

Reading at this great event in West Belfast in June in support of Farset Hotel - Hotel for the Homeless, alongside some powerful local poetic talent. Big thanks to Marty Mckenna for organising. No need to book, just pay on the night.

My review of 'Boy, Mother' by Caroline Bracken, winner of the @poetrybusiness.bsky.social 2024 Poetry Business International Book & Pamphlet Prize. everybodysreviewing.blogspot.com/2025/04/revi...

On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. The Lord has spoken. Isaiah 25: 7-9

"...a must have for those who like ambient / drone to have sharp teeth and an underlying sense of melancholy and despair." Big thanks to This Is Darkness for this review of my new album, A Murmuration of Stalins, from Inner Demons Records. www.thisisdarkness.com/2025/03/26/f...

"The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance" - John Philpot Curran "Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing." - John Stuart Mill

Happy to be one of four community poets whose haiku have been selected by Community Arts Partnership, reflecting on the values of “good relations” for the Community Relations Council's Good Relations Awards 2025. You can view the videos for the poems here: youtu.be/swVlOJf6Moc

some above/ground press author activity: Nathanael O'Reilly @nathanael73.bsky.social , Anna Gurton-Wachter, Monty Reid, Colin Dardis @purelypoetry.bsky.social , Frances Boyle @francesboyle19.bsky.social + Gwen Aube, abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2025/03/some...

Remember folks, the clocks go forward an hour tonight in the UK. Or if you're a Trump supporter, set your clocks forward to 2025 and come join the rest of us in a free and loving society.

You notice on quiz shows when contestants are asked what they are going to send their prize money on, people always say they'll go on holiday, or they'll host a big party. No one ever says they'll pay off their crippling gambling debts, or that their family can finally afford to eat meat again.

"The empty papier-mâché nest hung as a gift from an optimistic child, the birds waiting until the camouflage of leaves." Thanks to @thepireview.bsky.social for posting these three new short poems.

Went to see a preview screening of The Penguin Lessons tonight and my goodness, I thought I was going to burst into tears in the cinema. Definitely recommended. It's impossible not to fall in love with that little guy (the penguin, that is, rather than Steve Coogan, no disrespect, Steve).

Still fascinated by this painting from the current Arts Care exhibition in East Belfast. Displayed with no label or number, so I couldn't find out the artist, but I just love the contours and wrinkles of the plastic bag.

Please help support our friends in @openarts.bsky.social to raise vital funds for their core programme of arts-based activities with adults with disabilities. Open Arts is losing their home in East Belfast due to Connswater closing, so every penny counts!

Big day for me today: after five years on the waiting list, I finally got an official diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder. Good to have it declared and recognised. Validated and vindicated.

For those of you starting #Lent today... a poem inspired by Auden's Funeral Blues. #Lent2025 #diet #dieting #ashwednesday #lentseason #40days

Purely Poetry Open Mic on this Friday night at Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast! We never have any themes, we keep it open as possible, but if you do have any pro-Ukraine / anti-Trump poems, we would love to near them alongside all your other great work! crescentarts.org/events/purel...

Most poetry competitions charge poets to enter. This one won’t. #TheBrokenSpinePoetryAward will be fee-free with real cash prizes—but only if we raise £5,000 this year. No funding, no award. Can you help? 🔗 shorturl.at/G2mMo

Worrying, and frankly shocking, scenes from the White House. Other world leaders need to release press statements and get on the phone to the US and express their support for Zelenskyy. A united front, refusing to let Russia and the Trump administration be the bullies of the world.

"I won’t believe in your love until it can be measured, quantitatively, for example in diamonds, rainfall, or cortisol levels" 'I won't believe' by Mary Paterson up today on the POEM ALONE blog. poemalone.blogspot.com/2025/02/mary...

New album alert! 'A Murmuration of Stalins' is out today on Inner Demons Records. 40min ambient / drone / noise delight. I have some free download codes, message me if you want one! innerdemonsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/a-murm...

"We knew her by her hands, death had done its damnest with every other feature, collapsed her face to caricature, plastered the hair to her skull. The hands assured us, carried the familiar toil," 'The Work of Her Hands' by Margaret Galvin on POEM ALONE today poemalone.blogspot.com/2025/02/marg...

People online: I'm going off social media. My real friends have my number if they need to contact me. Three days later: I'm back and here's a cute photo of my dog.

The Pi Review seeks submissions of unpublished poetry and prose. thepireview.blogspot.com

After a brief sabbatical, the POEM ALONE blog is back up and running. New work from: James Kangas: Magnetic Field poemalone.blogspot.com/2025/02/jame... Enda Doyle: Baristas Always Break Your Heart poemalone.blogspot.com/2025/02/enda...

DYSTOPIA (Palindrome by Word) Nowhere was truth less respected. Gradually, we humans, under persisting uncertainty, suffered. We struggled. We suffered uncertainty, persisting under humans we gradually respected less. Truth was nowhere.

Are we really that connected on social media? A poet I knew who died four years ago is still getting people wishing her happy birthday on Facebook.

Everyone raving about ol' Timmy Chalamet as Bob Dylan, but Edward Norton as Pete Seeger stole the show for me.

Roses are black. Violets are black. Everything is black. Aaaarggghhhh... #HappyValentines

@andrewhunterm.bsky.social Hi Andrew, on the subject on faces on knees, did you know Ozzy Osbourne has two smiley faces tattooed on his knees? He apparently got them so he could always look down and be cheered up by them.

Latest: Major external review of Arts Council ordered after millions spent on abandoned IT project www.independent.ie/irish-news/p...

Wowie zowie, what a great night at Purely Poetry Open Mic! Big thanks to our lovely, highly-talented and gorgeous readers, all 26 of you. We were essentially living a poetry version of the film Speed, where if we fell below a rate of ten poets an hour, the room will explode.

Purely Poetry open mic at Crescents Arts Centre, Belfast, this Friday night! crescentarts.org/events/purel...

First half: I know hate is a wasteful, negative energy... however, I really hate the England rugby team. Second half: Ooh, delicious bonus point won against England, om nom nom! Bring on the next losers! #SixNations

Poem for Holocaust Memorial Day. #HMD2025 Smash fascism.

Second rucking session today: rucksack just under 20lbs, 9km. I. Am. Sore. Now.

Purely Poetry open mic night returns on Friday 7th February at Crescent Arts Centre, we can't wait to see you there and hear all your poems! crescentarts.org/events/purel...

Walk it off. Keep walking, as if the blood can carry your neuroses down to the soles, and by some kind of osmosis triggered by repeating stamping, the stress will dissipate out onto the grass and tarmac. The legs are an engine for meditation.

New Year's resolutions: to complete 2024's resolutions.

One for the anagrammers...

Some festive yarnbombing has been going on in East Belfast.

POETS!! Share your own best original Christmas poem (just one) in the comments below and we’ll spotlight our favourite one on Christmas Eve. You know what to do!!!

Some cracking poets in this line-up: @markantonyowen.com, @eatthestorms.com, @elcurwen.bsky.social, @rfredekenter.bsky.social and more galore!

Hard to decipher the autograph by @jonronson.bsky.social here. If I had to guess, I would say it looks like "GaPf". Still, great book though!