Very sorry to hear this. I was once assaulted and slavered on, in the nicest possible way, by Roy's dog Buster. www.thetimes.com/article/9fcc...

Next weekend!

An excellent review of the recent Seamus Heaney annotated Collected by one of my poetry heroes, Edna Longley: Edna on the Heaney Collected drb.ie/article/when...

Anne is a poet I have always thought was brilliant and so I am obviously happy with this verdict! 🙏

The Scottish poet Roddy Lumsden would have been 60 today. I wrote this version of the Tang-era Chinese poet Du Fu with Roddy in mind and, much to my surprise, the Jamaican-British poet Linton Kwesi Johnson went on to use it as an epigraph to his Selected Prose. Perspective.

Claire Tomalin's The Time-Torn Man is excellent but I'm surprised she doesn't draw a connection between this infamous passage in Jude the Obscure and one of Hardy's best later poems.

Poem for today...by Robert Hayden.

It's so hot I am unironically wearing this to protect my poor noggin.

Poetry reading. In June. In London. Super company. Please join us. 🙏

It's beautifully and relentlessly sunny in London. I don't have much in the way of poems in Little Griefs featuring the sun, so here's one featuring the moon instead. The final part of 'Dates with the Fates'. Buy a copy here! www.bluediode.co.uk/product-page...

It's beautifully and relentlessly sunny in London. I don't have much in the way of poems in Little Griefs featuring the sun, so here's one featuring the moon instead. The final part of 'Dates with the Fates'. Buy a copy here! www.bluediode.co.uk/product-page...

Poetry reading. In June. In London. Super company. Please join us. 🙏

No need to go back far into the history of our isles to find the love of punishment engrained in all things British. Reading Claire Tomalin's 'The Time-Torn Man', her biography of Thomas Hardy, I'm only 40 pages in and not only has the child TH already viewed a hanging (1/2)

Thank you @matthewepaul.bsky.social for these kind words on Little Griefs, which I have only just seen. matthewpaulpoetry.blog/2026/04/05/w...

Clouds are brewing even as it is approaching summer because our next issue is developing with all due drama and it drops NEXT MONTH. Subs window to follow...

'These are poems worthy of deep and lengthy excavation.' - @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social, in @prospectmagazine.co.uk, on the expanded edition of Scenes from a Long Sleep: New & Collected Poems, published on 10 April to mark Peter Didsbury's 80th birthday. www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/book...

Cool review by @nemoloris.bsky.social of Kathleen Jamie and Peter Davidson. I am not sure I'd have had the confidence to 'be a poet' (whatever that means) without the local example of KJ. www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

Thanks to @prospectmagazine.co.uk for publishing my brief review on Peter Didsbury. An immensely important English poet given some due amid the (excellent) attention otherwise given to Sylvia Plath by @jntod.bsky.social and Peter Williams on Auden. Great to see a political magazine honour poetry!

Poem from the London launch of Little Griefs.

Last night I launched Little Griefs in London! A lovely crowd and it got emotional. No action shots but here I am signing afterwards and flashing cover-colour-adjacent socks. Book available to order here: www.bluediode.co.uk/product-page...

I’ve written about Peter Ackroyd’s remarkable new biography of Auden. mathewlyons.substack.com/p/auden-by-p...

Poem for a Sunday. By Peter Didsbury, who turned 80 this year.

A very good review of Sylvia Plath by @ravoon.bsky.social in The Times. When Richard Wilbur wrote of SP that her poems were "free and helpless and unjust", I think he was suggesting that Sylvia was unjust to others but also towards her free and helpless self. www.thetimes.com/article/3788...

My poetry collection, Little Griefs, has not one but two launches next week! The London launch is sold out but tickets are still available for York on Wednesday. If you are in the environs and can come, please book a free ticket here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/little-gri...

Honoured to have a poem in this lovely festschrift for Peter Didsbury, from @brokensleepbooks.bsky.social

Very much looking forward to reading next Wednesday evening alongside @kathryngray.bsky.social and @kmahonpoet.bsky.social in support of @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social for the York launch of his wonderful Blue Diode collection Little Griefs at @poetrypharmacy.bsky.social, Coney Street, 7pm

Little Griefs is travelling the world!

The Drama is an excellent film about punitiveness, cancel culture, deviation. Also, forgiveness and understanding. Something very interesting is going on in the Hollywood water. Brilliant performances by Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Este Haim.

The Little Griefs tour has taken a...detour. Next reading in York, for Our Friends in the North. London following! Book York tickets here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/little-gri...

Book launch postponement! Now taking place...same time, same venue, same readers...on Thursday 7 May. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/little-gri...

I YAM WHAT I YAM N DATS WHAT I YAM. Thank you Rafael for these kind words on the sailor's life.

Happy eightieth birthday to that fine poet Peter Didsbury, from Sean O’Brien, me, and all the contributors to During the Late and Long Continuing Cold, a Festschrift in his honour published by Broken Sleep Books. Hoping he enjoys the work we have taken such pleasure in secretly assembling.

New on the writer’s bookshelf this morning: eight questions about writers, books, and reading with the brilliant Andrew Neilson.

"I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse".

It feels a missed opportunity that Ryan Gosling's Ryland Grace in Project Hail Mary was not named Thomas, or Tom...Tommy...etc...Grace. A great film, bar the very final screen-test-pleasing shot.

I find this persistently fascinating and moving - the mind and the sea -"how it folds itself / over and over". One of the great 21st Century poems.

I'm reading with some fantastic fellow poets at the London launch of Little Griefs next month. Here's @kathryngray.bsky.social on Rosemary Tonks/Lightband. Free tickets: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/little-gri...

Little Griefs the mini-tour continues with a gig at the brand spanking new Poetry Pharmacy in York! Featuring @kathryngray.bsky.social @matthewpaulson.bsky.social and @katymilkman.bsky.social Hope to see anyone northwards there 🙏 @poetrypharmacy.bsky.social www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/little-gri...

Little Griefs the mini-tour continues with a gig at the brand spanking new Poetry Pharmacy in York! Featuring @kathryngray.bsky.social @matthewpaulson.bsky.social and @katymilkman.bsky.social Hope to see anyone northwards there 🙏 @poetrypharmacy.bsky.social www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/little-gri...

Alastair Reid, poet and @newyorker.com critic, friend of Robert Graves and inveterate Hearts of Midlothian fan, would have been 100 today. He also wrote the definitive poem of my patria 🙏

London book launch for Little Griefs! Next month in Covent Garden. Free but ticketed: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/little-gri...

London book launch for Little Griefs! Next month in Covent Garden. Free but ticketed: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/little-gri...

The government is failing on fire safety in prisons and backsliding on 20 years of intended improvements! Excellent reporting by The Guardian and featuring my excellent colleague Gemma www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

Book developments. A tour schedule of sorts with further details TBC! www.bluediode.co.uk/product-page...

Tragic. Almost 20 years on from the Corston Review, women in prison are still dying needlessly. 'Missed opportunities', particularly in this case as regards fire safety, seems an understatement. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

I’m very moved by this poem by Graeme Richardson from his new Carcanet collection Dirt Rich

My Mother's Day poem is for my mum's mother. From Little Griefs. Poem, and my mum. ❤️

Lovely post on a lovely afternoon.

The first words in Little Griefs are an epigraph from James Merrill. So this news is wonderful and I am very grateful to the spirit of JM and his legacy. 🙏