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. 🙏

Edinburgh launch for Little Griefs complete! Next up: London in April. Free but ticketed: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/little-gri...

Ahead of the Edinburgh launch of Little Griefs tonight, there's a poem from the book on the Poetry London website poetrylondon.co.uk/origins/

A thread for James Merrill's centenary.

James Merrill would have been 100 today.

Richard Wilbur, a writer who means rather a lot to me, would have been 105 today

Last promo push by me for the Edinburgh launch this Friday coming of my poetry collection, Little Griefs. Tickets almost sold out! Details of a London shindig imminent...https://www.eventbrite.com/e/little-griefs-by-andrew-neilson-tickets-1982316379654

Despite, or perhaps not despite, the Jewish reference in this poem...I wrote it at the height of the depredations in Syria and dedicated it to my life partner. A time to remember our shared humanity, and the immense luck some of us experience over other people.

Exactly one week from now! www.eventbrite.com/e/little-gri...

Exciting moment, if you are me!

Edinburgh calling! Come to Leith and enjoy some poems. www.eventbrite.com/e/little-gri...

"Grief wrongs us so". Poem for a Sunday, by Douglas Dunn.

Edinburgh calling! Come to Leith and enjoy some poems. www.eventbrite.com/e/little-gri...

ICYMI 👀 Don't miss this guest post: Auden's 'Imaginary Friends' – @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social on how the literati cope as Rome falls buff.ly/2GbQ3tb #NorthSeaPoets #PoetrySky

I have a book out in less than a month and so I am plugging it shamelessly. Here is the opening poem. Please consider joining our attendance to the office of the moment by pre-ordering a copy here! www.bluediode.co.uk/product-page...

I have a book out in less than a month and so I am plugging it shamelessly. Here is the opening poem. Please consider joining our attendance to the office of the moment by pre-ordering a copy here! www.bluediode.co.uk/product-page...

OUT NOW. Issue twenty-three: 'Wildfires' badlilies.uk/issue-twenty-three

New guest post 📰 @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social on how the literati cope as Rome falls Read here: buff.ly/2GbQ3tb #NorthSeaPoets #PoetrySky

Everything happens all at once. My debut poetry collection, Little Griefs, is out in March...but available now for pre-order: www.bluediode.co.uk/product-page...

A bump for this guest @northseapoets.bsky.social post. I've always loved this Auden poem and I have always loved the notion of an imaginary friend. So here I am writing about both: open.substack.com/pub/northsea...

A bump for this guest @northseapoets.bsky.social post. I've always loved this Auden poem and I have always loved the notion of an imaginary friend. So here I am writing about both: open.substack.com/pub/northsea...

Coming soon...

OCEAN'S FOUR: merely a hop, skip and a lengthy jump away from Leith's Ocean Terminal. Not a heist but a quest, or maybe even a bris (ouch, at my age). Yes, it is the Edinburgh launch for my debut collection, Little Griefs, out next month! www.eventbrite.com/e/little-gri...

OCEAN'S FOUR: merely a hop, skip and a lengthy jump away from Leith's Ocean Terminal. Not a heist but a quest, or maybe even a bris (ouch, at my age). Yes, it is the Edinburgh launch for my debut collection, Little Griefs, out next month! www.eventbrite.com/e/little-gri...

Our co-florist @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social has written a guest post for @northseapoets.bsky.social on Auden and 'Imaginary Friends' northseapoets.substack.com/p/audens-ima...

I posted elsewhere about a lady in one of my Leeds Irish Health and Homes workshops who wrote 'I've had dementia / for as long as I can remember'. It came back to me reading @ravoon.bsky.social's tremendous debut 'Dirt Rich', full of technically brilliant, emotionally-devastating work like this:

‘Supermax-style units’ for most dangerous criminals to be introduced in England and Wales

I don't know what it means but it means something. People publishing poetry for the first time who are turning 50, including myself. Call us the True Generation (we've lived and loved, and come bearing hard-won lessons for life) . @ravoon.bsky.social @jobratten.bsky.social

X.J. Kennedy, RIP

Catherine O’Hara has sadly passed away at the age of 71.

Federal law enforcement agents shot and killed a man in Minneapolis on Jan. 24 according to local police officials. DHS told Fox News that the man was “armed with a gun”. A video of the shooting appears to show that a gun was taken from the man before the first shot was fired. x.com/BillMelugin_...

RIP Alex Pretti. The nurse was shot dead by federal agents in Minneapolis as he wss filming & protesting agents involved in the Trump ICE deportation effort. Guardian www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Delighted to see this review of Summers Are Other and my fellow Rack pamphleteers by Ian Pople thehighwindowpress.com/2026/01/16/t...

Poem for a Sunday. I've always thought of this as a concentrated blend version of Larkin's 'Mr Bleaney'. By @dharmabam.bsky.social

I found this piece fascinating - especially in the links it makes. If you have the spare change, do subscribe to the LRB - www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

I have a book out in a couple of months. It's only taken me 50 years to get there. So of course I have been mired in total lethargy as I regard its emergence on the event horizon. Then I fixed a toilet lid yesterday and now I am all POETRY ACTION. #DIYDONTDIE

We have a new issue out in February. In the meantime, enjoy our latest offering! badlilies.uk/issue-twenty-two

Robert Hayden.

Tributes pour in for Sir James Munby, the former head of the family division of the High Court, who died suddenly on new year's days -- in the @lawsocgazette. www.lawgazette.co.uk/practice/mor...

Ten years after Bowie died and I am living in a house where Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable is used to pin down a sweater dress in an attempt to unshrink it. #Fashion

Poems on the Underground marks 40th anniversary www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

My debut book of poems is out this year in March, or thereabouts, from @DiodeBlue. Here's a sample.

Always this poem at this time of year. One of Michael Donaghy's startlers.

Thank you, Gareth!

It's almost the end of the year, and so it's time to thank all of our contributors for 2025. CONSIDER THE LILIES! badlilies.uk/poets

It's not snowing this Christmas, at least in the UK. So here's 'First Snow in Alsace' by Richard Wilbur. Written in his early twenties whilst serving as a GI, aged 22-23, on the Western Front.

Merry Christmas, folks. I was very grateful to Poetry London for publishing 'Doors' earlier this year.

At this end of the year, it's good to look back. I'm immensely grateful to The Dark Horse for publishing my essay on the Seamus Heaney letters earlier this year. Heaney was a great man but also just one of us, keeping on. I felt for the contortions he felt over his fame.

This time of year.

Unashamed self-promotion, thanks to a wonderful review from Matthew Paul. There's still time to order from Rack Press as stocking filler! rackpress.blogspot.com?m=1