Merry Christmas to poets and poetry lovers everywhere! As a seasonal gift to you all, @iambapoet.com has a new, simpler web address: iamb.uk It's not yet 'official' across the site – but it works right now. URLs for individual poets' pages may misbehave for a while till everything settles in. 😉🎄

'we are corroded from birth like the coast not destined to the constellations – not plough nor star. We formed words fucked words flung words but the language was never ours to comprehend.' iambapoet.com/wave/24-dam...

Winter arrives beneath the cloak of the old blue-faced one. She moves over hills, through woods, in shadow. Tightening the land with frost. Shaping the weather. Come in out of the dark to where poems gather like embers. Listen and drink in the latest wave of @iambapoet.com. www.iambapoet.com/wave/24

Poets, I owe SOME of you an apology. A recent database fail caused around 12-14 poets' pages on @iambapoet.com to become corrupted. Bios vanished – taking with them all the effort put in to enhance these with links – and poems were replaced by the work of other poets. I've hidden all affected pages.

Over the Christmas break, I will painstakingly repair all these broken pages and bring them back online. In the meantime, please accept my sincere apologies if yours is one of the pages currently unavailable. Thank you for your patience. 🙏🏻

With five days to go until the publication of wave twenty-four of @iambapoet.com, a sneak peek at the new indices page coming to the journal in 2026. You'll be able to scroll left and right to navigate between waves – and have less far to scroll down. There'll also be an improved search function.

This is a process I began a year ago but had to park for various reasons. A big one being the huge and laborious database I have to hand compile to make this page work. My hope is that I'll have this simpler navigational structure in place by the new year! 🤞🏻

Another issue with @iambapoet.com is the large amount of technical debt incurred since making changes to how poets' pages are served when you type in their address or use the index page. This debt affects waves one to four – and evidence of its impact can be seen when visiting pages in those waves.

This is a BIG undertaking to fix, but I'll endeavour to do so next year – starting with wave four and working backwards (there's a sound technical reason for this). My apologies then to the first 80 poets whose words and readings launched @iambapoet.com. You've not been forgotten about! 😘

One final thing to mention: you may have noticed the mobile-friendly version of @iambapoet.com isn't working. This is to do with design debt that happened when I made some subtle changes across the journal over the past month. Put simply, I'll switch that version back on when it looks less ugly! 😁

Auditions are over, poets have been informed of which wave they'll appear in throughout 2026/27, and Christmas is just around the corner. Time to say hello to the poets who'll make up wave twenty-four of @iambapoet.com – including special guest poet @johnglenday.bsky.social. iambapoet.com/wave/24

To the six poets still to submit their work for wave twenty-four of @iambapoet.com – hurrah! Time is running out to retain your place. Get in touch with @markantonyowen.com ASAP (and certainly, by October 18th) to secure your slot in this December's wave. Let's get your poetry seen and heard! 👏🏼⭐🎉

**PUSHCART PRIZE NOMINEES ANNOUNCED** Please join @iambapoet.com in congratulating Theresa Donnelly, Kerry Trautman, Rishika Williams, @jahshabby.bsky.social, @victoriaspires.bsky.social and @johnglenday.bsky.social on their nominations for the next edition of the @pushcartprize.bsky.social.

**AUDITIONS CLOSE – 23:59 BST** Not yet submitted your audition to @iambapoet.com? You're in luck – there's time left! If you're still thinking about it, think about this instead: two years is a long time to wait till auditions reopen in Sep 2027. So go on. Be bold. Whip out your mic – and do it!

The final day of auditions for @iambapoet.com has arrived. The last few hours, in fact – the auditions window closes promptly at 23:59 BST today! So, if you've been wondering, 'Should I? Now?', the answer is definitely, 'YES!!' Go to iambapoet.com/audition to submit. Good luck!

**OPEN AUDITIONS CLOSE SEPT 27TH** So far, 71 poets have auditioned to feature in @iambapoet.com in either 2026 or 2027. Of those, 53 have secured places. Another 50+ spaces are waiting to be taken by talented poets – poets like YOU! Don't let this opportunity pass you by. iambapoet.com/audition

'Men’s faith in what you’re not has made you what you are. Fall upwards. Do not cry out. Do not return. Refuse to bring yourself back to bone.' iambapoet.com/wave/23-barn...

'Like, do you want to be kept alive if there’s a good chance you won’t wake up, and if you do, you’ll not be able to wipe your own bum or feed yourself?' iambapoet.com/wave/23-clai...

'I could, I thought, I could just step right out onto the frozen surface of the sea in Vecaki, but something—urgency or doubt or love—metastasized throughout my body ... ' iambapoet.com/wave/23-eric...

'Bless the Earth and the voices that sing her anthems in your cities. They are the planet’s prophets. Bless the man you divorced. Bless the man you married after.' iambapoet.com/wave/23-este...

'Hands are as useless as the grey hookbones of mangled sparrow wings.' iambapoet.com/wave/23-hele...

'So soft our hearts— how to keep the softness the give the resilience when to be hard-hearted seems solution or result ... ' iambapoet.com/wave/23-hila...

'The excuse is effervescent, more delicate than expected but who can deny that weight of legs in the centre of an outstretched hand?' iambapoet.com/wave/23-hila...

'the drift of mouth of cheekbones seawards, lips & lashes currentstricken spurred into confluence' iambapoet.com/wave/23-kara...

'I am coming back inside / you the hayrick oikos I’ve been looking for / I know there are some changes I should make ... ' iambapoet.com/wave/23-kate...

'Trapped within my own silence. Calling myself away from home. Frequency waning. But today the sky is the bluest of bluest of blues.' iambapoet.com/wave/23-lysz...

'The world is wondrous, frightful sometimes: feet, disembodied, stick out under hedges, canines off-lead bounce towards us fast, humans are nervous, or calm, open-hearted.' iambapoet.com/wave/23-mari...

' ... you all head down / shy-faced round town / all flat cap / all man bag you all dressed up / all plaid / all sandals / soft lad / smelling all tea tree / Versace ... ' iambapoet.com/wave/23-mich...

'This was a day of revelations: bleed with me until the tenderness of a pause smoulders from within' iambapoet.com/wave/23-pier...

' ... the anonymous artist had patience and knowledge and an obsession with bears, catching a glint of amber fire ... ' iambapoet.com/wave/23-sara...

'The way fucking is – for you – a state of grace, which can be achieved alone, or together The way you are see-through, like the pleats of time made visible' iambapoet.com/wave/23-vict...

Poets, the time is NOW ... and through till Sept 27th, when the window for auditions (submissions) for (to) @iambapoet.com closes. I'm looking to fill a whole eight waves worth of the journal across 2026/27 – so don't be shy! Go to the Audition page, and give me your best. iambapoet.com/audition

Drop what you're doing and go audition for iamb right now. You won't regret it.

Go on, you know you want to...