So exciting! My winning poem (and a bio and a big picture of my very worried-looking face) is now available. Please give it a read 🥹 www.new2thescene.co.uk/blog/bad-hab...

“Tracing my lips like the brimming rim  of a wine glass learning how to sing.” Sarah James, from Darling Blue (Indigo Dreams) IDP: https://indigodreamspublishing.com/sarah-james Or https://www.sarah-james.co.uk/?page_id=17191 #IndigoPoets With thanks to Dawn & Ronnie at Indigo Dreams

Merry Christmas to poets and poetry lovers everywhere! As a seasonal gift to you all, @iambapoet.com has a new, simpler web address: iamb.uk It's not yet 'official' across the site – but it works right now. URLs for individual poets' pages may misbehave for a while till everything settles in. 😉🎄

Merry Christmas Everyone! So excited to have my first ever solo Filmpoem published by @inksweatandtears.co.uk today for their 12 Days of Christmas #poetrycommunity #filmpoem it’s been such a brilliant year publishing under my real name, exploring new creative paths & relationships! Hap🎉🍈 🌒🐸🙏

Eleanor Holmes' 'Melon Moon' is a surreal collage which evokes the magic of storytelling shared between a mother and her child. @eleanorholmes.bsky.social Read it here: inksweatandtears.co.uk/eleanor-holme #12DaysOf #FilmPoem #ChristmasPoem

A #LifttotheSky and festive greetings to all my friends in tha amazingly brilliant and supportive #poetrycommunity #BlueSkypoets #PoetsSupportPoets who come together in #PoemsAbout #promptscombo. Have a fine time and may ‘26 be kind to us all @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk

I’m so grateful to the wonderful Liz Berry for this endorsement of my forthcoming poetry collection, ‘The Way the Water Held Me’ (available to pre-order now using the link below 👇)

This is absolutely gorgeous! 🎄 ❄️ 🥰

Artwork and winter landscape poem written for #toptweettuesday this week #poetry #winterpoetry #illustration

Final #ekphrastic poem of 2025, and a second consecutive outing for poetry inspired by the work of Frank Auerbach. 'For two years he has worked her rich in black and white, scraped her back to canvas, ghost and bone.' afterpoetry.com/poem/dec-20...

So thrilled to be sharing a third piece in this month’s Book Bag: Poetic Voices feature from @sophiedumont.bsky.social exquisite debut collection Sculling instinct of a glass eel is one of my favourites in the book Link 🔗 shorturl.at/zHPMn 📸credit Jae Frederick #bookSky

#PoetryCommunity I’m thinking that my next collection/chapbook might have to be self-published. What do people think?

Second read of the latest @poetrywales.bsky.social and this poem is superb. Hats off to @katrinanaomipoet.bsky.social for a piece of cleverly-staged theatrical brilliance

For this week's #PoemsAbout #Money with thanks to @thebrokenspine.co.uk and all those participating. Hope to catch up with everyone later.

What to do with scraps of light found in our battle with life's darkness. Victoria Spires makes this #ekphrastic poem from a Frank Auerbach drawing. 'Suggestible of something rending, something Far from abstract – the exquisite flash Of pain, as private teleology.' afterpoetry.com/poem/dec-04-...

Missing Parts – Meg Pokrass atriumpoetry.com/2025/12/12/m...

I feel, though I am biased, that there is something poetic about this image, silent words on Yell being sent abroad, hopefully with some sense of the beauty of where they came from -- but with meanings also beyond us.

Not too often these days that I join in with things poetic on social media (don't fret – I'm still all about the poetry behind the scenes with @iambapoet.com and @afterpoetry.com), but if anything is likely to make me respond, it's @rfsmith.bsky.social's #promptcombo #memorial. Grief, I know well.

Now unwrapping: #PoemsAbout #YouShouldntHave Post through Thursday. Use Alt Text. Tag it or it’s lost. #TakeRisks #EndOnAnImage #AvoidCliché Read 3+, repost, reply. Don’t ghost. Inbox prompts here: shorturl.at/0Xm7A

An unexpectedly romantic poem for Christmas #PoemsAbout #YouShouldntHave #Poem #Poetry @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk

Forgot to tag @thebrokenspine.co.uk !

Morning #poemsabout crew! Here’s a poem about an unexpected gift which was not unwelcome to a poet and neonatologist 😊. Published this year by the wonderful @atriumpoetry.bsky.social atriumpoetry.com/2025/05/27/m... #youshouldnthave @alanparrywriter.co.uk @karenpgonzalez.bsky.social

Our NEW ISSUE featuring 30 remarkable new poems and stunning cover art by printmaker Molly Lemon is LIVE. You can read it all here: www.dustpoetry.co.uk/issues/categ... We hope you enjoy this issue and look forward to hearing what you think 🧡✨

Join us, tonight! Lots of stellar poets on board!

Delighted to have a poem in the wonderful new Christmas Anthology from @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social! 🎄 My copy arrived just as I discovered 'Hellebore' has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize! ❄️

Amazing to me, but @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social and I began @badlilies.bsky.social five years ago this coming spring. Five years! A lockdown project of optimism in a sad time. The world continues to disappoint. Bad Lilies keeps going. Explore our archive: www.badlilies.uk/issues

A wonderful surprise to see that, due to recent interest and demand, my @vpresslit.bsky.social pamphlet '(m)othersongs' has just gone to a fourth print run – two years after publication! Get 'em while they're hot... ❤️‍🔥🍂❤️‍🔥

The @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social Christmas-Winter anthology volume 6 arrived! Honoured to have 2 poems included with stunning work by poets worldwide & beautiful illustrations by Emma Bissonnet. Many thanks to EIC @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social ✨️ Order yours today 🎁 www.blackboughpoetry.com/news

‘Obituary’, from my forthcoming poetry collection ‘The Way the Water Held Me’. Sharing for National Grief Awareness Week (2-8 December) and sending solidarity to anyone experiencing grief, no matter how long ago you were bereaved x #bereavement #griefawarenessweek @theemmapress.bsky.social

So happy to have this poem up on After... Poetry, for a few reasons: More than any other art I've seen in recent years, Auerbach's charcoal heads have stayed with me. I'm pretty sure it was either the first or second ekphrastic poem I wrote (really should do more). I've waited a year for this!

Over 150 calls for literary competitions and submissions including poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, art, photography, and more - contests, literary journals, residencies, bursaries etc - open or with deadlines in December 2025. Please share & best of luck! www.thisiswordbox.com/wordbox-blog...

I hope someone draws this wonderful story about Tom Stoppard's Arcadia and the power of the arts to help us see things differently, to the attention of our Education Secretary. Do read it, it will lift your spirits.

For this week's #PromptCombo #ThisPoem with thanks to the wonderfully playful host @victoriaspires.bsky.social and all those taking part. Something a little different, you say...

The Poetic Licence has a 24-day advent calendar event.... every day a FREE post with a poem to consider and the chance to discuss it with other members. Here's the first! www.patreon.com/posts/advent...

I'll be updating the poetry magazines spreadsheet this coming week, so if you're not on my mailing list, join now (it's free) and you'll never be short of places to send your poems... robinhoughtonpoetry.co.uk/poetry-magaz...

So thrilled to have Midnight Swingball out there in the world with @inksweatandtears.co.uk 🤩

Super grateful to the @madridlitmag.bsky.social for choosing a poem of mine for their stunning new issue, which is out now ❤️

So a short poem today for #poemsabout #nofuture A meditation on the climate emergency Thank you as always for the prompt @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk

Good morning #BlueskyPoetry Community on this Friday’s #PoemsAbout #NoFuture @brokensleepbooks.bsky.social I wrote this about Mum’s Dementia. A #WIP still. Look forward to reading the other takes on the theme. #poetry #poems

...listen to @carolinebirduk.bsky.social's documentary through BBC Sounds (or in the Falling Tree archive) www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

🧵/ Today a damning parliamentary report on the state of palliative care services in England was published. Services are patchy, underfunded & “ill-equipped” to address end-of-life needs. Bereavement support is “frequently inaccessible. The palliative care workforce is in a “critical” situation”.

I love this!! @julwe1.bsky.social I feel seen! Plus I love the original Helen Mort poem!

Hannah Fry: Don’t patronise me. I have a PhD in fluid dynamics www.thetimes.com/article/95e2...

Gender-based violence has no place in a free and equal society. No woman or girl should have to live in fear. On International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, we call for an end to all forms of violence and affirm the right for every women to live in safety and dignity.

This is a truly fabulous way to spend each morning in January/ as many as you can !

On December 21, from 2-4 PM EST, I’ll be teaching a 2‑hour generative craft class diving into the underrated, luminous work of poet Laura Gilpin. We will read well beyond “The Two-Headed Calf,” discussing the work of caregiving & poetry, approaching both with deep curiosity & attention to mystery.

Today’s joy is a poem, inspired by words on a vending machine, on a lilac page in @eatthestorms.com

Hullo @thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social and to #promptcombo #onroofs Love the theme, as great as Fidel’s from last week!