Very grateful for this generous and perceptive review from Jade Cuttle - observer.co.uk/culture/book...

In my teens, I used to visit an old lady, Lilian, who had advanced dementia. I talked to her, hoping to spark something. If I talked to her about politics, she suddenly piped up: "Rogues do die" she said, "Rogues do die".

"if you are ever going to improve you must keep biting off more than maybe you can chew; otherwise, the bites get smaller and smaller and eventually all you have is the taste of your own saliva" (Updike - aged 28 - in a letter to the Rector of his local church)

...

This time of year.

THE HAPPIEST CHRISTMAS DOG IN THE WORLD!

Nobody in The Moral Maze gets eaten by the Moral Minotaur, which is a fundamental flaw in the programme.

Great tribute. JC's approach to reviewing is an approach I share, and one which poetry needs. If your review only cements a friendship, or solicits a good review in return, or is only written for "the community", it's not doing its job.

As we move into “foreigners are cancelling Christmas in the name of political correctness” season it’s worth remembering that Christmas was indeed once banned in England. By Christians. And the man who enforced the ban has a statue in his honour outside the Houses of Parliament.

Raban on Carey: "Carey brings to academe all the virtues of Grub Street: cleverness, wit, concision, impertinence, and an endearing readiness to sacrifice messy accuracy for a memorable and slashing phrase. He is the hatchet man’s hatchet man.’"

John Carey RIP. Everyone should read his books on Dickens and Donne and the Faber Book of Reportage. Vary rarely a dull review...

Also in 2026, my cross-channel Modernisms book. Starts with Mallarmé and Yeats, finishes with Derek Mahon's translations , by way of TE Hulme, Lynette Roberts, TS Eliot and the NRf , Rosemary Tonks, Odilon Périer, the birth of avant-garde theatre and other things.

Matthew Paul reviews 'Summers Are Other' by Andrew Neilson (Rack Press, 2025) open.substack.com/pub/thefrida...

Bit rough on Armers this

I have a new poem, about ancient history, in the winter edition of @thelondonmagazine.bsky.social. Very pleased I am about it too. You can get a copy and read some other pieces online here: thelondonmagazine.org/product/curr...

State funeral flattering, obv. But still a bit of a shock.

Would love this sort of headline to say "read"

A joy to see After Party is one of The Times six poetry collections of the year!

This month, we are publishing A Letter to the Dead by Lynette Roberts, edited by Charles Mundye and Patrick McGuinness!👗 www.carcanet.co.uk/978180017505...

In the Times today offering commentary in the Love Song of RFK Jr:

A lot of people should be ashamed, having behaved disgracefully. Congratulations, @poetsarahdoyle.bsky.social. This shows immense character: www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/... I also wrote about this, for PNR: www.pnreview.co.uk/archive/rema... But read Sarah's if you only have time for one.

Remember in Working Girl where the well-connected Sigourney Weaver character presents the outsider Melanie Griffith's idea as her own? But Griffith can explain how she arrived at it, and Weaver can't. Shame on Canongate and on her famous defender if still unmoved. www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/...

Tom Paulin's 1986 LRB piece on Yeats' letters is a glass of champagne - both dry and sparkling. Look at these 3 sentences! "The impulse dissolved in helpless love..." What a writer he was.

I'll be on a ship in Canary Wharf reading some poems - not all by me, thankfully - for The Little Review launch party tomorrow from 1300hrs. Why not come along? Ticket includes a (little) magazine. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/guest-even...

if equal emailing cannot be / let the more bugging one be me

This is the illustration accompanying Robert Pinsky's review of Seamus Heaney's Collected Poems in the New York Times... But who the fuck is it supposed to be?

"They fuck not up as we that are left fuck up"

Some readers of my substack might be interested in this interview I did with Greg Allum as part of the launch of his new Ink and Ribbon press:

My comment, for @pnreview.bsky.social, on the Len Pennie & Sarah Doyle affair - or Canongagegate, as I like to think of it. Honourable mentions: @naush.bsky.social, @thetimes.com. Feel free to share, to attack me with your little jelly pitchforks, or to ignore. www.pnreview.co.uk/archive/rema...

On whether or not a harsh review is pointless, I call, as my next witness, Michael Hulse:

I'm amused to discover that Peter Porter, reviewing Michael Hofmann's first collection 'Nights in the Iron Hotel' for the Observer, described it as 'glum', 'leaden', 'turgid', and 'a remorseless set of patronising vignettes'.

Nice to make the cover of the latest Literary Review for my piece on the enormous new Poems of Seamus Heaney. It's free to read here: literaryreview.co.uk/the-pen-the-...

Among the 5000 German war dead in Cannock Chase Cemetery... History surprising and complex.

Attend the New Walk Editions online reading with Mark Ford and Sean O'Brien, 7pm on 20 November. It'll be excellent, I assure you. us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

I love all the @badlilies.bsky.social babies (so to speak!) equally but this sequence by @ravoon.bsky.social is worthy of some attention ahead of his collection coming out next year badlilies.uk/graeme-richardson-1

A taste of my forthcoming book, thanks to @badlilies.bsky.social - www.badlilies.uk/graeme-richa...

I like this, by Clare Pollard - the best "lockdown" poem in a very overcrowded field - and now included in her new collection "Lives of the Female Poets". Note the quietly infectious internal rhymes...

I'm thrilled to say that my collection "Dirt Rich" will be published by Carcanet in January. I've been working at it for almost 30 years: love poems, elegies, lamentations, jokes... The aim is "all killer no filler". Please buy it if you can. Here's Andrew Latimer's brilliant cover:

JN-T's substack this week laugh-out-loud funny at points! Highly recommended

Sometimes good things do come to those who wait. I have read a version in ts, and think this will come to be seen as one of the significant debuts of the decade. @carcanet.bsky.social throws another 180. And yes, the cover looks excellent.

This is really fascinating - on rewilding and Wolves in Europe rewilding.org/episode-158-...

I'm thrilled to say that my collection "Dirt Rich" will be published by Carcanet in January. I've been working at it for almost 30 years: love poems, elegies, lamentations, jokes... The aim is "all killer no filler". Please buy it if you can. Here's Andrew Latimer's brilliant cover:

I had the privilege of spending some time with Seamus Heaney over the last week... www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

'Knowledge' isn't just an infinite raw material, you dopes

Hurrahing in Harvest

Is it ok to like this poem, and to judge that it narrowly misses the obvious pitfall of the sentimental? I hope so.

Tony Harrison RIP. Cracking poet

💥AUTUMN BOOK TOUR💥 #everymonumentwillfall in Oxford, Brighton, Paris, Cork, Dublin, Belfast, Edinburgh, Durham, Bristol, London (x3), Nottingham dates throughout Oct-Nov 2025 details/tickets >> danhicks.uk/talks