I just published Reading poetry medium.com/p/reading-po...

Excuse the bloody photo. You might like the poem that goes with it and the collection of poems that are available in a downloadable PDF. Enjoy! (And subscribe) From lovely people @thebrokenspine.co.uk open.substack.com/pub/benbruge...

Impeach. Convict. Remove. Now.

Give it another hour or so, and it'll be a year exactly since a WhatsApp message from my sister informed me that our father had died. Speaking of WhatsApp, here's a poem about my (largely textual) relationship with my dad, written roughly 14 months before he passed.

If travel through time and space had allowed Dante and Samuel Beckett to collaborate on something, they would have created Jools Holland’s Hootenanny

Happy new year.

HNY via Samuel Beckett

Are you interested in a free PDF of poetry to download? How about the latest edition of Harrow House Journal? substack.com/@benbruges/n... And also my new Substack account to follow.

It is an honor to have two new hyper vulnerable poems in the latest issue of SALAMANDER, a journal I’ve been trying to burrow into for a decade. If you need your Bell Jar fix, want to hear about my study abroad to France 20 years ago, or want a splitter explained, read these!

Walking down from the coastal path into Tenby, and came across this blue plaque. I thought I'd share.

If there was a justified humanitarian Zionist movement, it has mutated now into a monster. Perhaps ISIS began by feeding the poor. Perhaps the swastika used to mean "good luck" in Sanskrit but not today. Those who continue to describe themselves as Zionists are ignorant or guilty by association.

Attempting to start a Substack for my poetry. Please subscribe or follow. open.substack.com/pub/benbruge...

I write for my pain to breathe. #healingjourney #writing #poetry #writesky #survivor

My first poetry chapbook, "Talking to Irwin," should be published in 2026 by Kelsay Books. I will be posting about the publication date when available, where the book can be purchased, times and dates for a release event and (hopefully) readings in Louisville, Pittsburgh, and other venues.

"I see literature as activist, particularly the epic forms of literature. It’s great to have lyric poetry that explores the self and identity, but the voice you choose gives you what you see, and if your voice is private, your vision will be private." Alice Oswald in the Paris Review resonates.

Why not read it online? www.theparisreview.org/interviews/8...

Surely one of you has a subscription to the Paris Review and can shoot me a copy of this: Alice Oswald, The Art of Poetry No. 119. Please? Pretty please?

Starmer’s government is letting the hunger strikers die.

Make the mag - print, fold, read.

Excited to share that two new poems of mine are now published in @darkwinterlitmag.bsky.social! Read them both here: www.darkwinterlit.com/post/a-fores...

Over the moon that my poem “Two Headless Snowmen” is in @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social's Winter Anthology! ❄️ Grateful to @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social for my first-ever Pushcart Prize nomination! 🏆

Tomorrow: #PoemsAbout #Money The pressure to perform in pounds. Write the things we buy to feel wanted. Post from Friday. Tag it. Use Alt Text. Prompts: shorturl.at/0Xm7A

I suppose the shortest day / longest night is a thing, a slight end of a dip towards 'getting colder and darker' and the start of 'getting longer and warmer', albeit in the UK we then go through a period of more wet and cold, but ignoring that.

Great concise advice from @dodgingtherain.bsky.social 's Neil Slevin dodgingtherain.com/2016/12/01/_...

'A Tissue of Lies' portrays a speaker grappling with hypervigilance from past trauma, juxtaposed against global fragility exposed by Gaza's conflict. An exploration of life's fragility, the personal and the global. Published in Mobius Magazine. mobiusmagazine.com/poetry/tissu...

Visibility that makes a difference: For £3/month, promote your open calls, workshops, and competitions—while supporting our £5000 #BrokenSpineAward Fundraiser.

The wonders at @thebrokenspine.co.uk have released their Autumn 25 anthology, including a poem of mine - 'A Goring of Butchers' about a life-in-the-day of a younger self who worked in a well-known supermarket. The anthology is available as a free PDF download thebrokenspine.co.uk/product/sele...

Dear Israel, Yes, YOU are the baddies. Love, the entire world.

Once every 20 years or so, the director-general of the BBC is forced to resign for being insufficiently rightwing. Alastair Milne in 1987. Greg Dyke in 2004. Tim Davie in 2025. The great irony is that the BBC was in all cases profoundly biased towards established power. But just not biased enough …

Monday’s got off to a great start with news that Tommy Robinson is suing Nigel Farage 🤣😂👌🏼 This is definitely a case of “may it be brutal, painful, drawn out, eye wateringly expensive and neither man win” 🍿🍿🍺😄

Grifter.

I expect nothing less from the BBC. It has been a conduit for the Israeli propaganda machine since its compromised Panorama reporting of Corbyn's supposed "antisemitic" Labour. Nothing will change until Robbie Gibb, his editorial plants & wider leadership are excised from it. Starmer's govt too.

This Friday meeting for all Your Party members in Hastings. Free but sign up: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/your-party...

Aw, lovely present for the beginning of December. Highlighting my poem 'Ringing the Changes' theorangeroselitmag.com/2025/11/07/r...

Came home to a flyer featuring Nigel Farage offering to "save Britain" No thanks. If I wanted to see that grifting racist's face I'd turn on BBC news.

I literally do not care if Nigel Farage was a racist as a teenager, because it’s much more important that he’s a racist now.

I remember when people used to say "oh, Jeremy Corbyn" without it being followed by a facepalm

The BBC has a lot of problems But Justin Webb spending nearly 15 mins talking to Minister turned Spectator editor Michael Gove on #R4Today about Covid inquiry And not mentioning this?! This is our money he was involved in handing out

Here in Hastings, the Gaza genocide is personal - friends and colleagues are being killed. "One of the recent detainees is Hana Al Bidaq, a woman who helped with the thobe show at Hastings Palestine on the Pier 2022, ...." hastingspeoplesparty.uk/just-because...

#HPP activists are involved in local campaigns. Grace Lally, HPP member and secretary of the local branch of @unitetheunion.bsky.social , writes in Hastings' local community volunteer-run paper about the situation in the care industry. www.hastingsindependentpress.co.uk/articles/com...

We in YP need to build a culture of development. In Hastings we're doing what we can.

Fragmented Voices (who I don't think are on bs, let me know if they are) have published a poem of mine celebrating working class history and bigging up my mum for her past activism. fragmentedvoices.com/2025/11/07/a...

By definition a landlord is a paradise, surely? And the fact that apparently 1 in 20 homeowners in the UK is now a landlord is not something to celebrate.

A puzzle, to me at least. I thought Stockfish was all-knowing. Here the fish tells me I should save the knight instead of castling. I assumed I should ditch the knight and castle, because if I don't I certainly lose one rook and probably the other as well. Can you help? #chess

An aside to my previous post. I'd recommend something like Linktree as your email signature etc. I was once convinced that Medium was the right fit for me so used a page on there as my 'fixed link' as it were. A landing page. Which I'm still using, but I've otherwise given up on Medium for poetry.

I set up this page as a test. I'm considering Opol, but can find nothing about it on the web - no reviews etc, from other sources. See thoughts below. But any thoughts about Opol? Any thoughts from poets or poetry readers, specifically, on Opol? opol.space/@ben-bruges

GM Target Applied Materials Conoco Meta Nestle Accenture Spirit Air Starbucks Ford Salesforce Paramount Kroger Just some of the mass-layoff announcements of recent weeks. Here's a handy tracker: intellizence.com/insights/lay...

... and the full version. youtu.be/crCZXwO4OEY?...