Hi folks! This week's #PromptCombo is #MaidenVoyage Formative travel experiences - those that left an indelible mark, transformed your understanding of the world etc. Hashtags👆& tag @janpsolivagant.bsky.social to take part Ends Thursday noon! #poetrycommunity #writingcommunity #PoetsOfBluesky

The Lothlorien Poetry Journal has published 2 of my poems and 3 experimental haibun. I like these pieces - some of my favorites from a completely new phase of my writing. Many thanks to Strider for giving this new work space. 🖤 #dissociation #starmaker #shatteringillusions #newpoems #newrelease

Pleased to have a new poem called 'Owning the Narrative' published within The Candyman's Trumpet Magazine. The theme for this edition was 'In my Craft/Sullen Art'. Many thanks to Jack Caradoc for curating this issue. #NewRelease #NewPoem #PoetryDrop #spilledink #Poetry

New poem out today in the inaugural issue of Not Quite Right Lit.

Mahler 5. The finale. Why? For no better reason than to remind us that human beings can raise their sights rather higher than the loathly assortment of materialistic, small-minded, grifting, philistine gargoyles accorded prominence in our daily news narrative. Conducted here by Scouse Maestro Rattle

Mahler 5. The finale. Why? For no better reason than to remind us that human beings can raise their sights rather higher than the loathly assortment of materialistic, small-minded, grifting, philistine gargoyles accorded prominence in our daily news narrative. Conducted here by Scouse Maestro Rattle

It’s a huge privilege to be in @paulwritespoems.bsky.social’s rundown of his Poetic Voices feature in The Book Bag👇alongside such wonderful poets. Paul is a wonderful poet, indefatigable champion of the #poetrycommunity and a great friend 🙏🙏🙏

This month in The Book Bag: Poetic Voices I am sharing echoes from the past year. Thank you to the exceptional poets who have allowed the opportunity to spotlight them and share their work. Let's see what the next year brings... Stay Poetic and Be Kind Paul

31 May 1819 saw the birth of the poet Walt Whitman. By way of tribute, here is Ralph Vaughan Williams’ setting of sections from Leaves of Grass in his early work, A Sea Symphony. Vaughan Williams, introduced by Bertrand Russell to Whitman’s work while at Cambridge was a lifelong admirer of the poet

31 May 1819 saw the birth of the poet Walt Whitman. By way of tribute, here is Ralph Vaughan Williams’ setting of sections from Leaves of Grass in his early work, A Sea Symphony. Vaughan Williams, introduced by Bertrand Russell to Whitman’s work while at Cambridge was a lifelong admirer of the poet

On 30th May 1593 Christopher Marlowe was stabbed to death in Deptford in circumstances that have provoked centuries of conjecture. Marlowe’s status as a great playwright should however be beyond dispute. Here’s a thread👇with my recordings from his Tamburlaine the Great #shakespearesunday #poemsaloud

Channeling a voice like Edward Alleyn, fittingly, to honor this day of Marlowe mourning—

Shoutout to poet Paul Connolly for re-upping this tribute (& linking w/ our Marlowe Forum edited by @lucycmunro.bsky.social ) on the man’s death date. (In related news, so glad I finally made it to the Nandini Das gig on Empire podcast, elegantly interjecting who actually wrote Tamburlaine—at last!)

On 30th May 1593 Christopher Marlowe was stabbed to death in Deptford in circumstances that have provoked centuries of conjecture. Marlowe’s status as a great playwright should however be beyond dispute. Here’s a thread👇with my recordings from his Tamburlaine the Great #shakespearesunday #poemsaloud

Wandering an English graveyard provides opportunities to construct period-piece names. Today I invented the Honourable Percival Mumford Chowne, QC, scion of the Kent Mumfords & the Dorset Chownes, a backbench supporter of Gladstone, whose ministerial ambitions were thwarted by a nameless impropriety

…The week-end bigot dips his shoe in a home steroid and settles down to await “developments”-no screen can chart the hostility of his desire… J.H. Prynne from News of Warring Clans, 1977

Cool in the air on my walk this morning, slightest watery edge to wind-breath. Under my tread the dirt path over the field looks like an aerial shot of a floodplain in the dry season, cracked mudflats, bouldered with rabbit droppings. Sudden cloud gloom. Day seems to ache for something. Perhaps I do

Or to put it another way…

Consulto Speculo geris omnia; fallet imago: Te nam (an jurares) sera Ruina manet.

Rachmaninoff died on this day in 1943. A virtuoso pianist, aided by very long fingers, & artistic conservative, his lush, sometimes mawkish music challenges pianists but eschews the innovations of his time. Yet he was capable of emotional depth, as in his All-Night Vigil, a work of quiet profundity

@sophiedumont.bsky.social’s Sculling arrived this morning, previously highly recommended in The Book Bag by @paulwritespoems.bsky.social Looking forward to it

If you’re looking for a workshop on redrafting poetry, this one is highly recommended. Rosanna doesn’t just bring her own experience to bear in these sessions but also insights gleaned from interviews with dozens of poets for her excellent books on the process of poetry composition #poetrycommunity

So you've written a first draft of a poem, but what next? Do join me for an on line poetry workshop where we will explore approaches to redrafting. Pl share 😊 #poets #poetrycommunity #poetry #workshop #redrafting #masterclass rosanna-mcglone.sumupstore.com/product/poet...

What a strange work is Britten’s setting of Rimbaud’s Les Illuminations. Britten is so far from my idea of Rimbaud, whose language seems to demand something at once more more weird, violent & ethereal, a blend of Boulez, Stockhausen & Messiaen. Yet the music is so involving @rolandbates.bsky.social

What a strange work is Britten’s setting of Rimbaud’s Les Illuminations. Britten is so far from my idea of Rimbaud, whose language seems to demand something at once more more weird, violent & ethereal, a blend of Boulez, Stockhausen & Messiaen. Yet the music is so involving @rolandbates.bsky.social

The new issue of the Vaughan Association’s Scintilla Journal is out. Grateful to new editor @sjjackson32.bsky.social for including one of my poems. This brilliant magazine, praised by Heaney, contains fine articles & poems & can be purchased here: www.amazon.co.uk/Scintilla-28... #poetrycommunity

Safe Spaces 🖤 🏩🖤 #NewUpload #PoemsAloud #safespaces #differenttypesoflove #passions #dowhatyoulove #hobbies #love youtube.com/shorts/dfixa...

Perhaps the enforced stillness, thought slowed to contemplation, brings music of sustained meditation to mind. Here’s George Szell’s account of Sibelius 2, a symphony which moves organically to an initially effortless climax, which rumbles with dark possibilities for a moment, then triumphs serenely

Perhaps the enforced stillness, thought slowed to contemplation, brings music of sustained meditation to mind. Here’s George Szell’s account of Sibelius 2, a symphony which moves organically to an initially effortless climax, which rumbles with dark possibilities for a moment, then triumphs serenely

#PoemsAloud A poetry film as prayer & petition for the protection of whales. 🐋 They need speed limits for ships and innovations that already exist (ropeless buoys & fishing gear), but the current administration is backing legislation against them. #PromptCombo #Pray @dragonslayerma.bsky.social

Listening to the Vaughan Williams earlier evoked the Great War, the central historical moment for his generation. I then remembered that it’s #MemorialDay in the United States. Below👇is my recording of a very fine poem, Wilfred Owen’s Dulce Et Decorum Est. It may be appropriate for today #PoemsAloud

In truth the air’s lipid, proteinaceous, drenching plant life in density, fecundating at first, incubating rapid vegetable expansion, but soon oppressive and annihilating as the liquid thickness self-exhausts and becomes a choking, tinderous dry. Day for stillness, for finding cold flannels of shade

The news today: I hate the hot weather…I love the hot weather…St John’s Ambulance strongly suggest people with…hate the hot weather…love the hot weather…record breaking…as a doctor I’d say at least factor…I hate the hot…I love the hot…in cars without a cracked window is very bad…hate…love…hate…love

Dear Friends, AN ANNOUNCEMENT: My first poetry collection will be published in the Spring of 2027 by Broken Sleep Books. I am simply delighted - and immensely grateful to @godzillakent.bsky.social and everyone at @brokensleepbooks.bsky.social #poetrycommunity #poetsonbluesky #poetryislife

Joyce by Wodehouse

Wodehouse by Joyce

The air is thick. Warmth moves through it slowly and slowingly. The leaves outside are still in the syrupy sunshine and gilt-coated. Today I write. But the motionless ecstasy of heat, its tender charm, almost erotic poise, will capture me soon enough. Meantime, a Mahler Adagio. From the 6th Symphony

Never rest. Always challenge, learn, dare, go to the limit

I am always wary of letting writing ‘principles’, which may be useful guides, or even the experience of what has worked in the past, crystallise into a totalising ‘theory’ of ‘how to write’. This risks inflexibility, dogma, imprisonment in sameness, the terrible danger of believing your own bullshit

Cover reveal! I am very proud to say that my novel Parch Marks will be published by @goldsf.bsky.social in September this year.

Such a joy to bathe in JH Prynne’s work. Imagine his composition & revision methods! There must have been bits of repointing even eradication of less resonant phrases, but so much is elaboration, layering, like Joyce, rejecting the cult of sterile plainness, a Celan in English, Mallarmé’s inheritor

40,000 followers. So many friends in the #poetrycommunity & #booksky community. Thank you for all the encouragement & support. I came here sceptically with a specific goal. What I didn’t expect was community & kindness Here’s Beethoven’s great paean to friendship. The finale of the Waldstein sonata

Delighted to have my poem The Bluebell Wood published by excellent editor Barbara Leonhard on MasticadoresUSA. stridermarcusjonespoetry.wordpress.com/2026/05/22/d...

In delerium to have five connected sonnets published by @lothlorienpoetryj.bsky.social. Thank you, Mark. lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/2026/05/five...

Here’s my recording of Claudius’s Act 3 scene iii soliloquy in Hamlet. It’s one of the finest accounts in verse of the contorted musing of a guilty conscience #poemsaloud #ShakespeareSunday

Schubert. E flat trio, 2nd movement. There’s melancholy of course, glorious longing in the cello, a mature, dignified but perhaps defeated swan song, & an inescapable pulse, time’s onward march, impossible to arrest, in the keyboard. Brilliantly used by Kubrick in Barry Lyndon. A ghostly masterpiece

@bethosmond.bsky.social’s Hatchery arrived. Highly recommended. Contributing to a rich tradition of physician creatives, apothecary Keats, doctors Bulgakov & Chekhov, the poetry’s controlled mix of historicism, professional observation & personal engagement reaches beyond memoir towards universality