With thanks to @blackirispoetry.bsky.social for your faith in this poem.

After looking in vain for a lost card I'd like to apologise in advance, should death suddenly take me, for the astonishing number of disgusting wadded tissues in every single pocket of my far too many coats and jackets.

A poem on grief that skirts easy or false wisdom for the real thing. Thank you.

When Silence Falls by Alex Carrigan open.substack.com/pub/onlypoem...

They don’t know we are becoming powerful. Every time we kiss we confirm the new world coming. * sharing this gorgeous, glorious poem by Essex Hemphill as part of my Pride Month celebration—

Watched Sirat. When will I recover?

Wordle 1,803 2/6 ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

“When someone recognizes you in a grocery store / nod briefly and become a cabbage.” —Naomi Shihab Nye, “The Art of Disappearing”

And again, a poem about Stac an Armin, with a picture. Love these old tales of wintry fortitude... www.elizabethloudon.com/stac-an-armin/

I wrote a poem about Stac an Armin, where some poor lads were stuck for nine months once when smallpox hit their families back on St Kilda's. It placed third in the Cheltenham Poetry Festival. Here it is: cheltenhampoetryfestival.co.uk/poetry-compe...

I'm going to put this out there once again because 1) it's my daughter's 40th today and so the planets feel aligned, 2) Sarah Howe, the host, is a stunning poet, so join us if only to meet her, and 3) I'm one of the winners. You can read too. cheltenhampoetryfestival.co.uk#events

I'm going to put this out there once again because 1) it's my daughter's 40th today and so the planets feel aligned, 2) Sarah Howe, the host, is a stunning poet, so join us if only to meet her, and 3) I'm one of the winners. You can read too. cheltenhampoetryfestival.co.uk#events

Wordle 1,777 2/6 ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 May the force stay with me.

"She is over a year older than her husband, which is a relatively small, but consistent, age gap." Thank you, AI.

Hello all. I wrote a poem about Stac an Armin, and it came third in the Cheltenham Poetry Festival competition: cheltenhampoetryfestival.co.uk/poetry-compe.... There'll be a reading for the winners and an open mic on May 5th: cheltenhampoetryfestival.co.uk#events. Join us if you can. xxx

This is our life and the lives of so many -- whether or not you live with Parkinson's. Thank you @rorycj.bsky.social but I'm so sorry you are suffering through the frustration and chaos. AI at the surgery - great until it's not open.substack.com/pub/rorycell...

I've started Elizabeth von Armin's Enchanted April about faded women making a bid for freedom and joy before it's too late after years of entrapment in loveless oppressive marriages etc and all good, except, these women are the close to death age of - thirty-three.

I read poetry every day -- maybe I read you. And every now and again something hits so hard, and I remember why. Here's one. www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56547/...

A neurologist once made med students write down 3 things: somebody they love, something they look forward to, a skill they're proud of. Randomly she then tore up some of the bits of paper. That, she said, is what neurological diseases do. In a year of loss and cancellation, I think of this so much.

Thank you again @markantonyowen.com for giving these three shy poems a chance to step out into spring sunlight.

And she once said she spent most her time lying on the sofa and thinking about poetry. open.substack.com/pub/onlypoem...

So after extensive consideration of AI and threats to us all I conclude: if you do your job sitting down, you’re toast. Unless you’re an airline pilot.

I can’t hardly stand it this is so light footed and melancholic. All I want to do today is read it. Thank you @chenchenwrites.bsky.social.

Look what arrived today in sleepy, frosty Gloucestershire.

Bsky experiment! Here's Elizabeth Loudon (@esloudon.bsky.social) reading her poem “Renunciation” from our forthcoming issue Shō No. 8. You can also read the poem on our website: shopoetryjournal.com/elizabeth-lo... An earlier version of this poem appears in Best New Poets 2025.

BBC: "Photo appears to show Andrew laying across laps." No it doesn't. It shows him lying.

For really no reason I implore you to read this poem by Rachel Wetzsteon, published in 2002. www.thenation.com/article/arch...

So much done so swiftly here - grief, suspension, dailiness, wonder and terror, in the fourteen lines of a pared down sonnet. shopoetryjournal.com/robert-okaji...

Sometimes at dusk I walk around and look (ok snoop) through people's windows, after they turn on lights and before they close the curtains. This poem just out in the lovely Dawntreader (from @indigodreamspub.bsky.social) is in part about that - in part about heartache.

All year long I've given things up -- hopes, roles, dreams. This one hit hard. But out of it came this one poem. With thanks as always to @shopoetryjournal.bsky.social. shopoetryjournal.com/elizabeth-lo...

And thanks to Sho Poetry Journal from an ex American who will always love America for its wild poetry.

I've been on the board of Judith Dimant Productions (formerly Wayward Productions) for a while now and this new show is going to be a stomper. www.shittheatre.co.uk See you there?

Here I am, folks. I’m so glad this very personal poem landed safely with @tinderboxpoetry.bsky.social. tinderboxpoetry.com/mine

I know spiderwebs are a dime a dozen and ditto photos of them, but look what the dog and I woke up to.

www.facebook.com/share/p/19C1... My friend Mark Mardell was chucked off his Turkish Airlines flight at the weekend because he had Parkinson’s and his son had asked for assistance for him. (He’s written about it as a public post on Facebook but the link is proving hard to share outside,)

Dear everybody out there - here's a new anthology of prize winning writing by carers, including a poem by me. The anthology officially launches on Wednesday November 12th: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-curae-.... Want to buy a copy for a carer? It's renardpress.com/books/the-cu....

A lovely gift for the caring reader?

So much hidden suffering for patients and their carers.

For a year or two I taught English to Ukrainian refugees, and several of them became close friends. They're scattered now, some back to Ukraine, some across the UK, and some still close by. This poem is for them.

Well, Dusty Springfield and Aretha Franklin made the cut. And a director's wife. I know I know, but whatever the reason, it's so disheartening to be erased this much. www.theparisreview.org/interviews/7...

Coming soon coming soon.... an anthology of new work by writers who are also carers. I'm in here somewhere. Thank you so much to @bookwormvaught.bsky.social and a heads up to @ylbooks.bsky.social and any other bookshops who might like to carry a copy (out in November).

I've been involved with Wayward Productions from its inception six years ago. The new name says it all: Judith Dimant is an outstanding leader in theatre, we're lucky to have her, and there are brilliant things to come. www.judithdimant.com @waywardprods.bsky.social @judithdimant.bsky.social

What you may wonder is the big deal with a parent begonia and its titchy baby shoot from a leaf cutting. Well my lovelies this is literally Einstein’s begonia or at least a cutting therefrom. It’s a thing. There’s even an opera about it. I’m so damn proud.

Guess whose work will be in Best New Poets 2025? Which goes to show, you can endure months of battling with hospital park and pay machines and poetry still wins, for all of us.

Also when somebody very close to you dies slowly while you watch helplessly, nothing encourages more magical thinking. Magpies and owls. Trees lit up at sunset. The wolf hour. Everything's a damn sign.

One of the weird things about somebody very close to you dying slowly is that you keep thinking how you'll tell them all about it when they're done.

The first rainbow of the autumn and it’s a double.

Pensions, productivity and the myth of the migrant “drain” – why Britain’s real crisis is ageing, not immigration. Another cracker from the Bear. @eastangliabylines.co.uk @bearlypolitics.co.uk

It is. It's an omen. Wordle 1,539 2/6 🟩🟩⬜🟨⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Could this be an .... omen? Wordle 1,538 2/6 ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩