Congrats to @denniswise.bsky.social for making the 2026 finalist list for the Mythopoeic Society's "Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Myth and Fantasy Studies" for his book, "Speculative Poetry and the Modern Alliterative Revival: A Critical Anthology"! www.mythsoc.org/news/news-20...

Why do poetic poetry call-outs for submissions turn me away so? It feels like the editors have done all the work of poeting already, & I'm being asked to write on a flowery page, instead of a plain one. #PoetrySky

Muninn as 'memory' is an almost universally accepted translation. Even so... thinking on what 'memory' is, the scale can vary from 1s & 0s on a floppy disc to a moment of such significance that it guides a life ever after, & that last, amongst soooo many moments remembered & forgot. #HeathenSky 1/2

Might I acquaint you, #PoetrySky, with the poetry channeI I made on YouTube? www.youtube.com/@MathJonesPo...

And on that poetry channel, #PoetrySky, #PaganSky, #HeathenSky, a number of poems inspired by mythologies, Old Norse & otherwise... www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

The pull of my own words Keeps me from yours; It is a sad stream. #PoetrySky

My shortest ever poem, which is also my shortest ever magical spell, poetry workshop, & grimoire. Step in. #PoetrySky

That particular kind of stretch, which is as much a clench, or a twist, after inactivity, which leaves me giddy & slightly blacked-out, having stopped my blood-flow before starting it up again...

As a poetry co-editor for the Morning Star, I want to feature poets who are often marginalised. Except they seem to be marginalising themselves by not sending their work. Send poems for June! I'd be grateful to receive them at: [email protected] morningstaronline.co.uk/article/new-...

It'd quite nice really, to die on a hill. Uffington, maybe. Herefordshire Beacon?

Reading your poem aloud, you must learn which of the words to present in focus, & which must a blurred a little. #PoetryThreads

Heathenry for the Solitary Practitioner. If you’re feeling the pull of the Old Ways but find the prospect of massive, academic sagas a bit daunting, this little gem is the warm, steady hand you’ve been looking for. #paganportals #heathenry #heathens #heathensky @moonbooksci.bsky.social

#PoetrySky #AudioSky Put out onto the waves and currents... A homemade album, of poems of the sea, & other tides. It's FREE to listen to online, though you can buy to download (& gain two bonus tracks) mathjones.bandcamp.com/album…

Reading myth, you've a foot in their world, a foot in ours, & a foot in your own. #PaganSky #HeathenSky #SkyMyth

D'oh! That's not an eagle! That's Lleu Llaw Gyffes in a brown study! That's no falcon, that's Freyja, oh no, it's Loki's borrowed her dress again. And that's no owl...

A new issue of Forgotten Ground Regained is out. Theme: "Moments Sensed and Seen"! 26 poems by ten poets, and two articles. alliteration.net/back-issues/... #alliteration #alliterative #poetry #poetrysky #poetrylovers #poetrycommunity #BlueSkyPoets #poetsofBlueSky #medievalsky #poems #poemsabout

Tomorrow!

#NYCPoetryFestival news: Forgotten Ground Regained will have a book table and poetry reading this summer at Governors Island. July 18th, 1-1:30 pm, White Horse stage. Readings by: Aaron Poochigian, @zachweinersmith.bsky.social Lancelot Schaubert and myself. #NYCPoetry #NYC #poetry #poetrysky

Can't believe I started this project a year ago. I was supposed to be done by now … But here, I've completed Hagalaz and explained its history and meaning here. #futhark #runes #OldNorse #ScandiMyth

There's a case for saying that #HeathenSky should really be #HeathenSkull...

There is a spring named Hvergelmir, where Loki came to drink, and found his nature. #HeathenSky

The two Ravens 🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛ Hugin and Munin, The Allfather's all seeing Ravens. Never tired of watching what happen on Midgard. #heathensky #pagan #witchsky #nordic #mythology #raven

Odin didn't always know. #HeathenSky

It being Friday, when bandcamp puts its fees aside... An alliterative poem, recast from Snorri's Edda, for the making of things, Midgard, goddesses, gods, people, heaven & Hel, Loki's children, Baldr's death & the doom of powers. In 9 parts. #HeathenSky mathjones.bandcamp.com/album/gylfag...

I've a Ragnarok joke at the end of my set.

I've made a rough & ready album of poems I wrote in the 1980s, aged 17-25ish. Some were published. Some were performed in a poetry show. Some are still in my head, ingrained. Funny how these things stick around #PoetrySky Free to listen to on bandcamp, here mathjones.bandcamp.com/album/80s-po...

I am, to my surprise & delight, to be part of this celebration of Iolo Morganwg, on the second centenary of his death. Organised by Bardic Books, & marked by a new anthology, The Honest Forger. I've my poem to read & a part in the Druidic blessing. 7 March, 7pm, St. Illtud's, Wales

#PoetsofDoom @sonnetsmith.bsky.social

With a poem you've written, it's like you're asking the reader to hold the other side of it. #PoetrySky

Here's what may be an even easier read. My free online translation's up to 80% complete, working on finishing the Green Chapel scene. alliteration.net/poetry/sggk/

#HeathenSky #PoetrySky Just published on bandcamp: Gylfaginning in Verse A recasting of Snorri's Prose Edda, source for Old Norse myth, in alliterative verse. Free to listen to, for now. Also, Tales of Godhome, by Thorskegga Thorn, pt 1. mathjones.bandcamp.com/album/gylfag...

Yours was the last book of poetry, Did you notice? The others did not arrive. My own was too late. After, there was no stopping. We had to grab our breaths as we ran. Shouting at times the words - Poem! Song! Geste! - Ro - Ro... Romance! Folded knees, Bowed heads, clutching as before ... 1/2

The poetry calls that shout for 'your most --- ing poems, your --- est'... ...for me, they're off-putting, far from encouraging, or enticing. I wonder how others react to them. Is my poem '---ing' enough? '---est' enough? It feels like jumping for hype, & hype never serves poetry. #PoetrySky

A poem of mine, toadish, from In the Shadow of Gods. Have a read of it! 🐸

From a place of knowing What you know, you come To think it common knowledge, Learning with some surprise That it never touched another's thought, Or crossed another's eyes... So all that time spent silent, In the know, but of no use, Was time you might have taught.

Wondering how much of this prolonged, & perhaps enforced, stillness & inactivity is because, in other areas, I am plummeting.

"Wyrd" by @mathjones.bsky.social in the current issue of Forgotten Ground Regained. alliteration.net/poetry/wyrd/

Forgotten Ground Regained, A Quarterly Journal of Alliterative Verse the new issue features psalms & meditations. #PoetrySky alliteration.net/back-issues/...

"Song-form" by Math Jones in the current issue of Forgotten Ground Regained. alliteration.net/poetry/song-... #alliterative #poetry #alliterativeverse #psalm #song #meditation #poetrysky #poetrycommunity #poetrylovers #writingcommunity

Why are the reconstructed rune names, *thurisaz etc, so ubiquitous & popular, when we have Old English names so close to their modern equivalents? 'thorn', gyfu for giving, dæg for day, ger for year, ken which survives in Scots, wyn still in winsome. The younger Norse names, the same. #HeathenSky

#HeathenSky There is Wyrd. The way things are. Even the gods are subject to Wyrd. Then there is the World. What men see. The difference between what men see & Wyrd, is often expressed as 'wierd'. more...

Seeing the edge can put the stoppers On a wild career; 7 sisters Told me that. The green lawn suddenly halts; The encouraging slope pulls away. Sky: fly or die! Or else, still, stoop, step on knees & hands, crawl, flat as pancake, If you dare, to the end Of the earth, & gaze... MJ26 #PoetrySky

Everything comes from the earth, helped by the sky. #Pagan

A line in Snorri's Prose Edda, in describing how all the things in the world wept for Baldur, to bring him back from Hel, All peoples, all beings, all creatures, plants... even metals... ...metals, which seem to weep when brought in from the cold into a warm place. I do that too. We do that too.

The visual is me, static in dressing gown, in an armchair, centre of my living room. The interior is me on a medieval Fantasy quest with emotional hardship & hurt, lethal threat, defeat, despair, a roiling landscape. The aim is not to the quell the threat, but to understand & heal it.

Recalling the climactic scenes of Civil War with great fondness...

Wolvercote Cemetary

The difficulty is in expressing or describing or explaining the truth of the gods. Though it may be as simple as breathing, or heartbeat. Because even with removing all talk or thought of the gods that truth will still be truth. Like a solstice that happens even unnoticed. #HeathenSky