hey all - the wonderful publishing house I co-founded and direct, @the87press.bsky.social, is now on here. Please help us make the transition from the other place! Add us to all book related starter packs!

I LOVE @overleaf.bsky.social's writing, both critical and creative. Now you can read it too! Her article is now out OA, exploring C19 poet Eliza Cook, the Slaugham Yew, and their C21 traces/resonances. doi.org/10.3197/WHPP... #19thcentury #poetry #ecopoetry #arborealhumanities #academia

Chuffed to be in vol.2 of @plantperspectives.bsky.social. Thanks to all at the journal & @rbgkew.bsky.social for including my weird little piece about working-class C19th poet Eliza Cook, trees, illness& intertemporal weirdness. Read it here: www.whp-journals.co.uk/PP/issue/vie...

There's a lot to be said about identity, solidarity. But a simple place to start: the people who are willing to fight for their neighbors when their neighbors have different problems have a very, very good chance of having neighbors to fight with when you all share problems

Statistically in Britain if you are a cis man and you rape someone you are overwhelmingly likely to get away with it, there is a vanishingly small likelihood that you will be convicted. That is a feminist issue. Trans women wanting to use women’s toilets or play women’s football: not so much.

this is a staggering amount of money to build camps—suggesting that building & running a gulag will be the primary function of the otherwise gutted Trump-state in last fiscal yr: "D.H.S. allocated about $3.4 billion for the entire custody operation overseen by ICE" www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/u...

Brexit cost me my job. Now Trump’s tariffs could take the next — and once again, it’s working people who pay the price

Ted Lasso was great when the show’s thesis was that relentless positivity is a thin veneer over a desperate, near-nihilistic sadness, but that it may nonetheless still be the “best” available option in an otherwise heartless world.

Look at this big handsome bastard. I nickname him ‘Creeper’. NB: this windowsill is much shadier than the picture makes it look. Also, am almost as excited about this plant as I would be about a new kitten.

'They fuck you up, your mum and dad'

Whenever I speak up about being working-class in the arts, or share my experiences, I always get some classplaining back. People who aren't working-class keen to tell me how I should feel or tell me they're middle-class but have 'struggled with money' in the past www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...

Percy Shelley: I propose a ghost story contest! What is the SCARIEST story concept??? Mary Shelley: a guy creates another guy Byron: I don’t get it Mary Shelley: (*looks directly into the camera)

This is happening, right now. The great "arribada" (arrival) of mother Olive Ridley sea turtles on the Odisha coast, where they dig sand-nests & lay their eggs, driven by ancient instinct. Heart-lifting, magnificent, moving: part of a geography of hope. 🎞️ by Bivash Pandav via my friend Yuvan Aves.

1825: Saw a large bunch of blue violets in flower & a root of the Bedlam cowslip

I was planning my Arvon Masterclass on pacing this afternoon. Got quite excited, as it isn't something I've taught exactly like this before. Still places available for Friday. Why don't you join us? www.arvon.org/writing-cour... @arvonfoundation.bsky.social

'On the nights she struggled to breathe, she was forced to stay awake and hold the mask to her face in the dark. The NHS’s solution?...one assessor suggested her 14-yr-old daughter fill in as a child carer...being on call for the ventilator throughout the night.' www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I’m fascinated by the ‘shrinking’ quality of the stanza used by Robert Burns in which longer lines give way to shorter ones in a kind of funnel for the celebration of smallness. A nice example here by Norfolk dialect poet John Kett, on looking at the stars someflowerssoon.substack.com/p/wee-sleeket

I was recently diagnosed with MS; a relapse has kept me from working. It’s made me ponder my profession’s overemphasis on ‘productivity’, & the lack of (self) compassion that attends it. Managed to read this morning for the first time in weeks- fitting that the book is about ‘generous relenting’.

collections often are criticised for “unevenness” but isn’t that also part of their charm? that the workings of a poet “becoming” are also on the page, next to poems that feel crystallised? don’t we love process and learning and error more than the language of product & perfection? or shouldn’t we?

I have a piece up for The Bookseller today, in which I consider how major publishers can create space for the small presses that keep the literary scene afloat. www.thebookseller.com/comment/what...

Massive away win for the little fella.

I heard there was a secret mash That turned into a graveyard smash But you don't really care for monsters, do you?

Saying ‘Happy National Poetry Day’ to strangers just to feel something

"tits or ass"? bro, the undeniable passion she has for her special interests in the face of a world which tries to kill that spark

Quote post with a picture in your phone that has your energy, not a selfie.

Advance copies of my next book Lore of the Deep just arrived! It's full of myths, legends and Lore of the oceans with gorgeous illustrations by Stacey Rozich. Out in October so please preorder ❤ #kidlit

on trespass John Clare, from Peterborough MS A61

This is quite hard because I’ve recently become a huge musical magpie, but this covers some decent ground. 10 bands/musicians to know me: Ian Dury and the blockheads Jeffrey Lewis Fugazi Mulatu Astatke Julia Holter Hamish Hawk Betty Harris Karen Dalton John Cale Haruomi Hosono

It's autumn! Fall colors are not a passive response to cold, but the result of an active time in the life of a tree, in which complex behaviors withdraw nutrients from the leaves and store them in the stem and roots. Over the few weeks, we'll show the details of autumn biology. What are you seeing?

Beleaf in yourself

speak your truth

Season of mists and melon usefulness

May I interest the gentleman in a…writing bunker? www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/1...

Carl Phillips, from "Among the Trees" (I'm going to wonder for a while on which tree-songs I know by heart)

SHOCKING NEWS THAT WILL SHOCK YOU!

Hard to properly convey in a photo how much this bee is absolutely caning the pollen in this artichoke

nobody will remember: - your salary - how “busy you were” - how many hours you worked people will remember: - how many squid facts you knew - if you offered others squid facts - how you made people feel when you told them a squid fact

Yes! We are 100% behind teachers, who are no doubt contributing to this uptick by spending time and energy sharing their enthusiasm for English A-Level with their students - in spite of the incredible pressures they're working under

And no doubt the hard work of teachers in schools!

Lots of speculation from academic circles about this heartening rise! Sadly, few asking if it’s anything to do with *teachers* of A Level English, who are, in my experience, near-exclusively talented weirdos working flat out to preserve thought &nuance in an otherwise repressive educational model.

Getting on for 3/4 of those arrested for the fascist riots already have criminal records, says Sir Mark Rowley, the head of the Met police. The politicians and media boosting these thugs as “ordinary people with legitimate concerns” need to answer some tough questions in the days ahead.

Matryoshka socialism. It’s horses all the way down.

Hello everyone! Having left social media for the Mental Healths, I’m now back for the academic& poetical kicks, and this place seems less evil. I’m a PhD researcher, poet and teacher. Into trees, ecopoetry, walking, C19th studies, beer and records. Giz a follow!