Will poets and children ever stop trying to capture light? Not any time soon ✨ Another poem from my Silver Branch feature, with thanks to @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social 🫶🏼

Enjoy a Good Friday with some excellent poetry, harp, artwork and a Q&A with the tremendously talented @eleanorholmes.bsky.social 🪉

This was my favourite

Really excited to reading at the launch of @eleanorholmes.bsky.social immaculate new book #Moth published by @the_ethelzine in April. A fantastic lineup of poets. Full details and audience tickets here: shorturl.at/5Nm7I #poetry #poetrycommunity

Finally. The day has come to release Unwhispered Legacy from The Book Bag x Write Here, Right Now out into the world. Thank you to all the poets who contributed to this book. Proudly raising money for MSF. Visit 🔗 shorturl.at/iVhZN to download your copy. #poetry #anthology

Easter time seems a happy coincidence to share a preview of the cover of my debut chapbook, Hatching soon with V.Press Poetry which tells the origin story of neonatal care. #poemsabout #poetsonbluesky 🪺

It's April 1st which I find quite frightening. Spring has properly sprung and a new month brings a new Poetic Voice to The Book Bag. This month we are treated to an incredible poet who has a thing for moths... We have poems, interview and a bonus recording. Click here to unveil April's Voice

So good.

This is an unusual, striking and important hybrid collection challenging stereotypes around mental health and the doctor patient relationship. @eleanorholmes.bsky.social - I’ve never read anything like it! It’s beautiful 🤩 💎 Available from www.ethelzine.com/moth

Still loving our current Featured Publication - Palmer by R. M. Francis @vpresslit.bsky.social atriumpoetry.com/2026/03/01/f...

“On the other side of the city is a girl with the same body as me, and we are both wearing our own clothes.” from grown girl by Eleni Brooks @elenibrooks.bsky.social vpresspoetry.blogspot.com/p/grown-girl...

#PoemsAbout #InBloom starts Friday. Write ripeness. Exposure. The point where restraint becomes pointless. Blooming isn’t gentle. It’s a demand. Draft now. Share from Friday. Tag your post. Use Alt Text.

This is not to be missed! @eleanorholmes.bsky.social explores the doctor-patient relationship during a psychiatric consultation, reviewer @dr-rachel-ali.bsky.social explained: “the author leaves us wondering how western medical models can ever hold any of us in all our complexity and depth”

Project Hail Mary : Amaze amaze amaze Thank goodness because I was worried it couldn’t live up to the book, where an alien teaches us about humanity ❤️ 🍿 🎥 📖 👾

In honour of #worldpoetryday, I thought I’d share one of the beautiful poems that @poetsarahdoyle.bsky.social read at my book launch last night. ‘Sea Gooseberries’ is from her pamphlet ‘(m)othersongs’, available from @vpresslit.bsky.social

What a line-up of readers for #Moth launch 🚀 readers on #internationalpoetryday Huge thanks to @carolebromley.bsky.social @taniahershman.bsky.social @bethosmond.bsky.social @sarahraybould.bsky.social @rfredekenter.bsky.social @paulwritespoems.bsky.social @the-ethelzine.bsky.social for saying YES 🙌

and suddenly you are the old – Steve Pottinger @bigstevepoet.bsky.social atriumpoetry.com/2026/03/20/a...

Wonderful to see the outpouring of love and respect for @catherineredford.bsky.social at the Zoom launch of 'The Way the Water Held Me'. I was so moved by the tenderness and humanity of these poems, the imaginative yet deeply authentic articulation of bereavement. theemmapress.com/shop/poetry/...

For #poemsabout #melt I offer a poem about my nostalgia for my teenage self in French supermarkets @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk

Guest-tutoring an online creative writing class tomorrow with this sparkler of a workshop adapted from my five-week email course. Can't wait to see what prayers are offered and spells cast… 🙏✨⚡️

A poem about teenage boys on the cusp of adulthood - one of three bird-child pieces. Thanks so much @atriumpoetry.bsky.social for featuring it! 😊 #poetry #writing

🎙️ NOTHING BUT THE POEM - JANE HIRSHFIELD A brand new NBTP podcast, where our usual host @samueltongue.bsky.social goes in deep on 2 poems by American poet Jane Hirshfield. #poetry www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/podcast/noth...

Jackdaw Son – 17 Rachel Burrows @rburrows.bsky.social atriumpoetry.com/2026/03/17/j...

Happy Mother’s Day to all who do the work of mothering! Here’s my beautiful mum, me plus kids when they were small and a poem, abecedarian for maternity ward, previously in The North & in my forthcoming pamphlet from @thebraag.bsky.social #mothersday #poetrysky #motheringsunday

Sometimes I smile (5): Let's Remember – poem, poem biography, discussion points & prompt(s), including motherhood & memory https://moresarah.substack.com/p/sometimes-i-smile-5-lets-remember

Despite the rain, the chill, winter's reluctance to cede his throne, spring arrives with daffodils, birdsong, the lengthening of days. Welcoming it are the 15 poets of wave twenty-five of @iamb.uk. Expect 45 poems, written and read – fresh as the incoming season. iamb.uk/index/wave/25

I’m absolutely delighted that the brilliant @poetsarahdoyle.bsky.social will be the guest reader at my online launch of ‘The Way the Water Held Me’ on Friday 20 March (link to book in my bio). I’ve longed admired Sarah’s poetry and am very much looking forward to hearing her read on the night.

For #PoemsAbout #consent I offer my commended poem from the Hippocrates Prize 2024 which also appears in my forthcoming chapbook with V. Press @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk

Enjoying time with @corinnaboard.bsky.social ‘s pamphlet this morning. My favourite at the moment is A dunnock’s prayer- which I had previously enjoyed in Carmen et Error and was Commended in the Forward prize. Recommend !

They’re a bit like poetry tarot. Three weeks to go. www.therialto.co.uk/pages/nature...

My brilliant poetry friend @corrintachibana.bsky.social ! Congratulations on your win 🏆 Fab interview! vervepoetry.substack.com/p/im-interes...

#PoemsAbout #Consent starts Friday. Write the clarity. The moment the body relaxes because it’s heard. The heat that arrives only after agreement. Consent isn’t the absence of refusal. It’s the presence of want. Draft now. Share from Friday. Tag your post. Use Alt Text.

Order this right now. It’s FAB!

Gorgeous gorgeous book - you'll be wanting to pre-order this one!

God, but this is good.

Goodness what a line up!! Have booked a workshop and 2 events ! Thankyou Lyra x

Super excited to announce that #MOTH is now available to pre-order with @the-ethelzine.bsky.social … details of the on-line launch to follow! Save the date for Sunday 19th April, 19.30 GMT 🎉 🦋

Massive TY to both @taniahershman.bsky.social & @carolebromley.bsky.social for their fab endorsements and support from inception to completion of #MOTH, and to my bestie Rachel Ali, who will be hosting the on-line launch on Sunday 19th April, 19.30 GMT. Pre-orders: www.ethelzine.com/shop/moth-by...

Hi @corinnaboard.bsky.social and @victoriaspires.bsky.social I really enjoyed the launch last night, what amazing poems from everyone. Thankyou ❤️ Awaiting delivery of maedwe - can’t wait to read the whole thing 😊

Wrote a post today sharing the blurbs for IF YOU LOVE THAT LADY for the first time. Profoundly grateful to anyone who pre-orders (wrote a whole post about why pre-orders matter to the literary ecosystem, too!). 🤍

Every poem speaks of lived experience of caring, something undervalued and ignored by a society that prefers not to think about illness. It's easy not to understand something if one hasn't experienced it. Poetry matters because it can communicate this experience in a visceral way.

Meet the 15 poets whose work you can read (and hear read) from March 15th 2026 as part of wave twenty-five of @iamb.uk. #poetry #newpoetry

As the warmongering of a self-styled ‘peacemaker’ scatters shrapnel & body parts across the Middle East, & sends flames soaring over the region, which may yet engulf the world, it seems appropriate to dwell on what war is & what it isn’t in the company of one of its greatest witnesses, Wilfred Owen👇

Fantastic article!

As a poet and neonatologist, I wrote a poem about these tiny nappies- which appears in my new poetry chapbook out this year about all things neonatal www.dustpoetry.co.uk/post/the-tin...

It was a real privilege to read at the launch of ‘Craft of Care’ yesterday evening. The anthology - collated by @clairewalkerpoetry.bsky.social and Charley Barnes - brings together creative responses to the act of caregiving.

keep testing the spiny leaves

Elizabeth, what a clever poem for #UnderTheSkin! I smiled from the title all the way through to the end! Simply delightful! And you show with vivid imagery, all the sad things we do to be beautiful!!! 🤣

This week in The Book Bag, we try not to get tangled in spokes as we cycle Along The The Home Roads with Andy Perrin as we heal in nature and live with hope. A real tonic of a book. And just what I needed this week. Plus news, opps, shoutouts and of course the playlist, so settle down and take 5.