Sunday evening. A small poem from Hollywood or Home about art, lost love, and reversal of fortune. Guest stars the marvellous Alvin Pleasant Carter, a patriarch of the legendary Carter Family, who pioneered country music. I’ve never performed it at readings. Must fix that.

Sunday night poem from Hollywood or Home. E.T./The Goonies meets mortality. And, oddly, probably the nearest I’ll ever come to an ecopoem, as it dawns on me now.

One of my all-time favourite tracks from the Boss. Tunnel of Love is one banging and beautiful album all round. youtu.be/_91hNV6vuBY?...

Unsure what it says about modern life, but the first thing on a social feed of mine this morning was a clip of the Brookside moment when Barry Grant finds his mum, Sheila, in bed with Billy Corkhill. “It’s the most natural thing in the world,” she claims. Brookie is not the Chekhov I remember.

Old photos. My grandmother comforting her little brother, my great uncle Danny, after the Commonwealth Games 1958 cycling road race. He came 8th—pretty darn great. Both of them gone to light now. Amazing people. ❤️

Reality Bites. Still iconic. youtu.be/SQVw58aDt3Y?...

A reminder that our @badlilies.bsky.social submissions window closes this Sunday! If you’re thinking of submitting some beautiful blooms, you can find our submission FAQ here: www.badlilies.uk/submit

Annual rewatch of The Firm—a v v good Tom Cruise movie. So many biggies in the cast! Among them—and most prominently—Gene Hackman, who takes his role so seriously that he elevates the whole. Pollack directed, perhaps why so many stars wanted in, despite their slight parts.

Marvin Gaye’s often-incendiary album, Let’s Get It On, was released today in 1973 on Tamla. The lp was controversial in its time but is today seen as groundbreaking – & doubtless is one of the most important albums of the 1970s. It’s a deep work of art – with a revelatory Gaye going for broke.

It’s almost two years from the birth of Hollywood or Home, my second collection—the work I’m proudest of. Proud because of the sense of risk, the sense of coming from a *true* place, for whatever that can mean. Now, it’s to the new poems, with a somewhat heavy heart. Onwards. No Surrender Dorothy. 🌸

Last year marked 20 years since beloved poet, teacher, and friend to so many, Michael Donaghy, left us. His widow, Maddy Paxman, created a site for his students of yore to share their memories of Mikey’s unique, transformative, lasting power. Here’s mine. michaeldonaghywordshop.com/2024/05/29/k...

A reminder that our @badlilies.bsky.social submissions window closes this Sunday! If you’re thinking of submitting some beautiful blooms, you can find our submission FAQ here: www.badlilies.uk/submit

Last year marked 20 years since beloved poet, teacher, and friend to so many, Michael Donaghy, left us. His widow, Maddy Paxman, created a site for his students of yore to share their memories of Mikey’s unique, transformative, lasting power. Here’s mine. michaeldonaghywordshop.com/2024/05/29/k...

I had the most heavenly swim today. I don’t swim nearly enough. When I was at school, I was like a little, mousy-haired fish. Yes, I was a wonderful, fast and bold swimmer. Whenever I swim, I go to the mindful place—zoned-out, so natural and free. The Pisces in me needs more of this.

Meryl Streep’s filmography has seen me through the bad times and the good. Here’s a poem from Hollywood or Home, featuring some of my favourite performances.

Meryl Streep’s filmography has seen me through the bad times and the good. Here’s a poem from Hollywood or Home, featuring some of my favourite performances.

Massively looking forward to reading at Chener Books on 4 September with two brilliant poets I hugely admire, Sarah Corbett and Tamar Yoseloff, to celebrate the launch of Sarah’s sixth collection of poetry, The Ishtar Gate. It’ll be a wonderful birthday party! Do join us for poetry and joy. ❤️

Endlessly in love with Dorothea Tanning. Endlessly in love with her Self-Portrait (1944).

Rewatched Brooklyn last night. Is it one of the greatest movies ever made about radically ‘leaving home’, reinvention, and the tension between being ‘here’ and ‘there’/being ‘there’ and ‘here’? I think so. Ronan’s fragility, brittleness, wide- and sad-eyed bewilderment. Incredible.

Daughter came in from clubbing at 4.30am. Was up, looking fresh as a daisy (and utterly beautiful) by 10am. Youth is one wild superpower.

Six mini love letters to the late, great John Cazale—peerless actor. From Hollywood or Home.

Six mini love letters to the late, great John Cazale—peerless actor. From Hollywood or Home.

Massively looking forward to reading at Chener Books on 4 September with two brilliant poets I hugely admire, Sarah Corbett and Tamar Yoseloff, to celebrate the launch of Sarah’s sixth collection of poetry, The Ishtar Gate. It’ll be a wonderful birthday party! Do join us for poetry and joy. ❤️

Fantastic opportunity to learn from poetry masters Kathleen Jamie and Niall Campbell here. 👇

LIONESSES! 🙌

Always on the ledge of quitting poetry forever. But a wise friend told me recently: “Don’t quit poetry—quit the business of poetry!” That is, all the things that make you forget your art. A salutary reminder. Here’s a poem from Hollywood or Home. First published in beautiful Poetry Brum!

Always on the ledge of quitting poetry forever. But a wise friend told me recently: “Don’t quit poetry—quit the business of poetry!” That is, all the things that make you forget your art. A salutary reminder. Here’s a poem from Hollywood or Home. First published in beautiful Poetry Brum!

How I mourn a more balanced world. Strange to reach over half a century and see the world changed so much during that span—beyond all measure. ‘The best lack all conviction, while the worst/are full of passionate intensity.’ Yes, Yeats—that’s why you’re Yeats. Those words are once again perfect.

A huge honour to have my poem ‘Bournemouth’ included in such a wonderful, important anthology, alongside so many terrific poets and poems. Very special. Immense gratitude to @rachaelboast.bsky.social and @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social

A huge honour to have my poem ‘Bournemouth’ included in such a wonderful, important anthology, alongside so many terrific poets and poems. Very special. Immense gratitude to @rachaelboast.bsky.social and @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social

Have you read our latest issue? You can also now subscribe to our new mailing list for news on submission windows and future issues! www.badlilies.uk/issue-twenty-1

Posting this exemplary poem by an exemplary poet, Kona Macphee, is something I love to do every few years or so. The smallness of it—but the immensity. Utterly beautiful poem-making.

Posting this exemplary poem by an exemplary poet, Kona Macphee, is something I love to do every few years or so. The smallness of it—but the immensity. Utterly beautiful poem-making.

Subscribe to our Bad Lilies mailing list! We'll send you early-access alerts on open submission windows and a link to each issue as it drops—nice-and-easy bloomagrams, straight to your inbox! 🌸

Someone amazing I know told me that someone amazing I don’t know loved an essay I wrote for The Dark Horse on Robert Lowell in 2023. A precious thing to hear. Writing poetry/writing about it is often heartbreaking. If a tree falls in the woods etc. Being read is wild, lovely.

Subscribe to our Bad Lilies mailing list! We'll send you early-access alerts on open submission windows and a link to each issue as it drops—nice-and-easy bloomagrams, straight to your inbox! 🌸

That’s a wrap on the @badlilies.bsky.social spotlight for our July issue! We’ve another heatwave weekend ahead of us, so decompress: grab a cool tipple, settle into a deckchair, and catch up on our blooms if you’ve missed them—or revisit your favourites! 🌸

That’s a wrap on the @badlilies.bsky.social spotlight for our July issue! We’ve another heatwave weekend ahead of us, so decompress: grab a cool tipple, settle into a deckchair, and catch up on our blooms if you’ve missed them—or revisit your favourites! 🌸

Maybe the biggest grift is the very nature of the memoir genre these days.

This online journal makes bringing quality poetry to screens everywhere look effortless. More digital publications should study and learn from @badlilies.bsky.social.

There is a new bunch of Bad Lilies out and two of them are mine www.badlilies.uk/jo-bratten-1. It’s a corker of an issue

Just been to see F1. It has more film tropes packed into it than I have seen in many a long year, and Brad Pitt looks fabulous in a racing suit. In short: it’s fantastic.

So pleased to have a new poem in this beautiful new issue of @badlilies.bsky.social alongside many poetry superstars!!! #ukpoets

Very grateful to @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social & @kathryngray.bsky.social for publishing this in the latest @badlilies.bsky.social. It’s an absolute corker of an issue. www.badlilies.uk/gareth-prior-2

The latest issue of Bad Lilies is here! We’ve come of age—21!—so very far from a conversation on a sofa in COVID times. That’s community. Enjoy the issue—free, made by poets, for readers, curated with love. www.badlilies.uk/issue-twenty-1

OUT NOW. Issue Twenty-One: Long-limbed Darlings badlilies.uk/issue-twenty-1

Our new issue is out tomorrow! And now you can subscribe to our new mailing list to get updates on issue launches and submission windows. www.badlilies.uk/subscribe

"And even though we know its end, those trees beyond seem, for now, so fixed in their scheme that they are strangely unhurtable." #TodaysPoem #poetry The Winter After by @kathryngray.bsky.social‬ (2001 New Welsh Review) tinyurl.com/3bavyy2p

Hampstead, you’re gorgeous.

Like poetry? Like film? Agnostic about one—or even both? Give my second collection Hollywood or Home a try. Laughter and sadness—and a plentiful popping of ego balloons along the way. I waited almost twenty years to publish—some of that time planned, most not. www.serenbooks.com/book/hollywo...