What Ive been reading Number 5 sixtyoddpoets.substack.com/p/what-ive-been-reading-5 A little article on some of my reading since Christmas. Not a lot - I'm a slow reader #books #poetry #60Odd

Anyone in or near Leeds on April 15th. I am excited to be involved in the Leeds Song Festival. I get to read a poem and hear it set to music and sang at a grand piano, with a related artwork, In association with Opera North! Tickets here - #poetry #composers www.leedssong.com/whats-on/com...

#Spent too much time reading classical stuff lately So this week's #PoemsAbout came out as a sonnet

Eye opening #Poetry from a communist ex-satanist with a history of paranoid schizophrenia and a quirky taste in hats. Well worth a read. #60Odd sixtyoddpoets.substack.com/p/54-helen-h...

Yesterday I was thinking about how my mother used to use the phrase “cockard’s way on” to describe something being back to front. I tried googling it - and it wasn’t there. It kept directing me to Howard’s Way. “Cockwards” got even worse results. Was it only my mother who used the phrase? #words

Heres a bellyaching piece bemoaning the fact that there is no money in #poetry. Who cares? Love is the Pepto-Bismol that conquers all!

Paul Connolly @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social put on a link to Brahms' First Symphony yesterday, and I had to mention that whenever I listen to Brahms I'm always initially disturbed by an image from a Charles Bukowski poem. I couldn't rest until I had found that poem. Here it is (in all its glory)...

I made this little advert to publicise the ten volumes of Sixty Odd Poets which preceded the Odd Journal which was launched yesterday. You can find all of them and Odd on amazon. #poetry #SixtyOdd www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DK3MSV3L

A fantastic set of poems from the wonderful c.oulens @owlnsquirrels1111.bsky.social graces the #sixtyodd #poetry site this week. From the sound of the convenience store to the happy release from night time anxieties - It's all there, in perfectly chosen words.

This did start life as a response to #PoemsAbout #UnderTheSkin. Honestly

It is with a degree of contrition that I must own that I have denied myself the joy of reading #Dickens for longer than I care to admit. Yet upon completion of the novel Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, I at once picked up a copy of David Copperfield, and now bask in delight within its pages.

Odd - the Journal of the #SixtyOddPoets is already available on amazon. It will be officially launched at The Fox Gallery in Mexborough on Sunday 22nd Feb at 3pm. If you can come along, please do. If not, please buy a copy of the book. If you can’t afford to buy a book, God bless you. #poetry

it is 462 years since the birth of Galileo! Some fabulous poets of Bluesky have contributed to this small celebration of heresy on #SixtyOddPoets. Remember to speak truth to power wherever possible!

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... Click on this BBC Sounds link to a Thursday night on Radio Wiltshire. Speed along to the 49 minute mark to hear a magical #poem "Stored" from our #poemsabout friend Rachel Burrows @rburrows.bsky.social

#PoemsAbout #Undressed

I didn't realise how much I liked Tennyson until I started writing about him for #SixtyOddPoems. Apart from being a cracking Victorian poet - He looks a lot like my Brother in Law. #poetry

The rather remarkable Jane Sharp, who will have a poem in the inaugural edition of #Odd (The journal of the fellowship of the #60Odd poets. But not one of those featured here... #poetry

Heres what I am doing (when I remember that #BlueskyPoetry posts work better with tags. #poetry

Here's what I am currently doing - (when I am not procrastinating on social media)

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan An adult pleasure zone decree

Today's #SixtyOdd Poet is Ulrica Hume - with a collection of six short, punchy and keenly observed pieces of #poetry.

I just rebalanced my first poetry collection. I added newer poems & made as much space for urban verse as for material about a city sensibility confronting the natural world. Much of it has been tested by publication in top magazines. It’s in fine shape. I’ve almost 30,000 followers. Publishers…?

Here’s a little gem. I like the skellingtons in the picture too.

poemsabout

Sorry to jump on the #poemsabout hashtag, but I am thinking of putting out a selection of poems on the theme of heresy on the #SixtyOdd #Poets page on Sunday Feb 15th to commemorate Galileo's 462nd Birthday. Anyone want to send me anything? (email in alt text)

Tough call this week. Mouths? We've all got em, me included... Great poetry on a theme of mouths? A lot less of us can claim any, I certainly can't. #PoemsAbout #Mouths

Odd - A new literary journal from #SixtyOdd Poets. Those lucky enough to be within striking distance of Mexborough - Come to the launch... Those who are less lucky than that - you will still be able to buy a copy - and maybe even help me to organise a launch near you. #Poetry

How lovely to get something in the mail, (the actual postman comes to your door and pushes it through the letterbox mail). And its never too late to get a Christmas card. And #poetry stickers too! It's made my morning. Thank you Danielle @the-engine-idling.bsky.social

What a moving piece of #poetry. I imagine that this writer is vey experienced in this genre.

More #SixtyOdd #poetry from Sheffield. Heres Andrew Stott, with a collection which spans both comedy and tragedy. (incidentally submissions for sixty Odd Poets are currently open)

I've just read through all the #PoemsAbout #BlackVeils that have gone up so far. I have to say that the quality is stratospheric this week. My breath is taken away. I'd better throw my veil into the ring...

Its time for some serious theological discussion. Traditional views of the deity all have him as a holier than thou figure. Perhaps this is a built in feature of Anselm's ontological argument. But by the same argument wouldn't God be able to curse more strongly than any other being in creation?

I just finished this yesterday. One of the #books that I got for Christmas this year. What a magnificent read. I heartily recommend it. A story of a tough childhood and drug addiction with a political dimension too. Built around Charles Dickens' David Copperfield. Which I shall read next. #booksky

Jim Jepps, bookseller #poet who brings stories of discord, reconciliation and #Yorkshire life.

And while I still have the air of Mexborough version of Caledona fortifying my blood, here are my thoughts on #RobertBurns, and the art of rude #poetry. Its the last of my articles in #60Odd Poems for a while. I have lots of other exciting things to do over the next few months.

What a fabulous #BurnsNight Celebration we had in Mexborough yesterday. The whisky flowed, as did the #poetry! Here's the #SixtyOdd poets Burns Night Special, for all those who partake.

#poemsabout #falsecrowns

Is it going to snow? Can we build a #snowman? Can we build the best snowman on the block so that all the other kids will look upon it and despair? Did #Shelley ever build a snowman? Would he have written snowman #poetry? What happens to snowmen when they die? So many questions.

Have a read of some of Val Bowen's #poetry, with her cats, roses and trees, along with a flight to Africa on the wings of a butterfly and a coach trip to Whitby

It's great to be in this fabulous science based literary journal. Well worth a read. You can buy a print or a kindle version. If you have kindle unlimited, you can download it for free!

the #Poetry of Allan Wilkinson: With Jinks toi his excellent #Jazz and #ClassicRock radio shows. That's your entertainment covered for the day folks!

Are you taunted by the Ghost of Plato? W.B. Yeats was. I think perhaps it happens to us all when we reach a certain age. Bugger off Plato! I just want to enjoy myself. I'm telling Epicurus on you if you don't leave me alone!

Ohh - what a read!

#PoemsAbout #Timeslips Ohh - go on then. I was far too tired yesterday - had such a good time at a Thursday night poetry gig.

Ivor Cutler would’ve been 103 today. Here’s Gruts For Tea… youtu.be/iL6pUqJRp5w?...

Long gone are the days when boys were willing to stand on burning decks. I wrote a piece about the #poem where that well known first line, beloved of seventies comedians, actually came from, and what the boy was standing there for.

Greg Muscroft, Actor, #Poet and a man who who knows the importance of self-love.

The marvellous Sister Chain and Brother John and more besides.

When even the UK government, whose default position is to suck up to the tech bros, is threatening legal action against X over its disgusting material, anyone continuing to be on that loathsome platform isn’t creating some island of progressivism but colluding with a malevolent actor. Leave X now…

What can be said about #OscarWilde that hasn't already been said? Well, has anyone ever compared his #poetry to the music of #GeneAutry?