I didn’t want to accept that my friend the semiotics lecturer was stealing but when I went to her garden party the signs were all there.

"Is it dusk yet?" ask the Minervan owls impatiently, itching to spread their wings. Photo of Nouvelle-Aquitaine clock tower by Bianco Da Vinci

Not for us if they were metal as they didn't trust us to do metal work in case we all made shanks. So what did our parents get for Xmas from a Catholic school woodwork class? Crucifixes, some so bad they seemed like mockeries of Christ's suffering -- but at least we couldn't stab people with them.

Reading in York next Wednesday, where I once worked for the Council. The visit has reminded me of this sign in Museum Gardens which apparently banned cycling while allowing you to injure young and old alike by way of recompense. The good management of municipal facilities is all about give and take.

To some it will seem barbaric of me to agree with this but f*ck that, I'm 71 and not after a poxy Michelin star: paste is OK

My brother in law was put into an induced coma in hospital recently for a couple of days and woke to see his son standing by his bed. "How long have I been asleep, son?" he asked to receive the reply, "Three years Dad."

Kathleen Ryan: Bad Lemon, Aventurine, smokey quartz, rhodonite, calcite, quartz, labradorite, green line jasper, kambaba jasper, pink opal, citrine, amethyst, rose quartz, agate, serpentine, pink lepidolite, malachite, mother of pearl, freshwater pearl, bone, glass, acrylic, steel pins, polystyrene

At the other extreme, they call the 91 round here the tantric sex bus because it takes forever to come.

The poet Denise Riley introduced me to the phrase 'the organ recital' for a similar exchange of ills by oldies. Now that you ask, I had a steroid injection in my hip at Chapel Allerton Hospital and all the staff were terrific but today! Pain? Don't talk to me about pain . . . (continued on page 94).

Peasants disliked weeding so much that, as illustrated in the Psalter of Eleanor of Aquitaine, they might wear special pissed-off eagle hats to signal how unhappy they were.

Writing a poem about hubris. It's going to be FANTASTIC!!!

RIP Ricky Hatton. One of those great boxers whose mental ill-health was his toughest opponent. Even there, he became a champion for the mental health charity Campaign Against Living Miserably in 2023. I bow to such a fighter.

Really enjoyed Philippa Troutman art at the Shelfies exhibition in Skipton Museum and I was struck by her eye for found objects like this rusty antikytherian relic like the synapse of an iron giant. Highly recommended.

Charles Ginner 1878–1952. The Timber Yard Leeds c.1915. Oil on canvas 30 x 40 in (76.2 x 101.6 cm)

In the current exhibition at the Jane Austen House Museum, poems from Maura Dooley's anthology are used at various points (I think this is her writing room) and I quote her character several times. Very grateful to Maura for inviting me to be part of celebrating a great writer.

Left: the young poet Right: the mature poet

This was popular when we did it in Harrogate at Mercer's Gallery so we're doing it again in Scarborough. www.ticketsource.co.uk/whats-on/sca...

When I start talking to some friends of mine about poetry, their faces go through this kind of change over the course of about 19 seconds.

When I worked in Hammersmith I used to go into the Riverside Studios some lunchtimes and once in the queue ahead of me was . . . Beckett! I learned he was rehearsing a play there to tour later. I said nothing but had I my wits about me I would have shouted down to him: "Hi Sam! Waiting for Gateaux?"

When I worked in Hammersmith I used to go into the Riverside Studios some lunchtimes and once in the queue ahead of me was . . . Beckett! I learned he was rehearsing a play there to tour and I said nothing but had I my wits about me I would have shouted down to him: "Hi Sam! Waiting for Gateaux?"

When I say I like Beckett and the person I'm talking with says they find his work too depressing

Just heard about a workplace with one member of staff called Iain and the other Ian. To distinguish them in speech, they called the latter Cyclops. Thinking about the attached for my new author photo.

We made our own entertainment in the old days

His wife, the great Norma Waterson, was also shortlisted for the Mercury Prize as he just has been. She is part of this, and him, even now. I listen to them singing all the time and if I'm lucky enough to die singing, as Blake did, it will probably be one of the songs I learned from them.

T-shirt James Joyce wore in the Martello tower in 1904

‘An Aroko for David Oluwale’ is in the new Forward anthology, 'Forced' (below) in my newest book & between them tell his story & my 50-year involvement with it. I'll read them at the @bbccslfest event, St George’s Hall Bradford Sunday week in a great lineup from 2pm. pic @farrar.max

Fay Godwin (1931-2005) England Sunset at Baildon Bridge, Shipley, by the Leeds-Liverpool Canal, 1987 Fay Godwin may be famous for her collaboration with Ted Hughes, 'Elmet', but here she shows she has an eye for more recent legacies as well

Still can't get over that Wallace Stevens married King Edward VIII

Anselm Kiefer - Sweet Golden Clime (For William Blake), 2023 Emulsion, oil, acrylic, shellac, gold leaf and ash on canvas, 280 x 190 cm Private Collection via Eddie Gee

"Sorry I've overrun my slot but you REALLY want to hear my sonnet corona now -- am I right?"

Took this photo at Eccup Reservoir over the weekend where the water level is low and nothing will shake my conviction that it is the spine of a dinosaur. I'm not interested in plausible explanations: I'm a damn poet.

Troy McClure has just shared his poem 'To His Koi Mistress' but she didn't like it as much as he did.

Robert Mitchum dancing with the sea on Cannes beach, 1954, by Leo Mirkine

"I'm not bothered about living deliciously: I joined the coven because I like a bit of a dance!"

I feel the name of this takeaway in Lincoln evokes both Spartacus and John Clare

After a while, erasure poems began to lose their freshness

I'd sign that

'They make a dessert and call it peace.' -- Tacitus

This photo still freaks me out. It's like when the Daleks were suddenly able to levitate.

Just came, a book I have been really looking forward to reading by @abrackenbury.bsky.social a wonderful poet (she quotes Clare to great effect) with a deep knowledge of the world she chronicles including generous portraits of newcomers like the Irish and the local witch. Highly recommended!

Francis Bacon, by John Deakin for Vogue, 1952 via Tui Sankamol

St Thaddaeus the Tractor was my favourite Apostle

I read once with Yevgeny Rein, I alluded in my introduction to 'The Lammas Hireling' that Pushkin's life was saved by a hare crossing his path and stopping him joining the Decembrists. Rein explained that locals raised a statue to the hare . . . Pic: hare rescue during a spring flood in Russia.

Mrs. Dalloway said she would unblock the U-bend herself

Amazed this groundbreaking volume by two great modernist authors isn't better known among the literati.

I need only read mine to have the most savage attacker screaming "Make him stop! For pity's sake, make him stop!"

To help you get to know your judges for the 2025 National Poetry Competition, we've asked each one to participate in a visual Q&A. First up is @ianduhig.bsky.social! Find out more about the 2025 National Poetry Competition here: poetrysociety.org.uk/npc

Cruel, but funny

Glad to have a couple of poems in the forthcoming issue 2 of this new mag with a roster of terrific poets I have snuck in among.