Note from my notebook (2017).

Enid, the surprising and eccentric owner of the brilliant Sound Records in Stroud, UK, has an encyclopaedic knowledge of jazz, soul, funk, ocean fish and wool.

End of month, but just the start. Thanks to everyone who's made this launch matter. @martinkennedyyates.bsky.social #ThisWilderness www.amazon.co.uk/Wil...

This Friday’s theme: #Mannequin. Frozen glamour. Object over voice. Write about being posed, silenced, moulded. Ideas: window displays, shop floor ghosts, plastic skin. Use Alt Text. Always tag #PoemsAbout so we can find and share your work.

Something Gothic this way comes… Submissions are OPEN for The Havisham Steps: Modern Gothic Poetry. We want poems of neon dread, fractured love, haunted minds. Closing date: October 31st #PoetrySubmissions #SubmissionWindow #TheHavishamSteps #ModernGothicPoetry

One of the most quietly powerful presses out there, @epistemiclit.bsky.social, has been spotlighted for #IndieLitMagGala 2025. Big thanks to Jennifer (@einetogi.bsky.social) for the heartfelt nomination—this one hit us deep. Read the full feature here: thebrokenspine.co.uk...#IndieLitMagGala #SmallPressLove

You don’t need a headshot. You don’t need a filter. You just need a voice. #NotJustPretty 🗓 Oct 4 | 8pm GMT 🎟 Free to attend. Donations welcomed. thebrokenspine.co.uk...#NotJustPretty@karenpgonzalez.bsky.social #WednesdayWIPs

#NeverAgain is quite a recent expression, one that would have made any monarch or ploughboy laugh out loud in perhaps more honest times. For #PoemsAbout @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk

Showing my age for #PoemsAbout #NeverAgain Huge thanks to @thebrokenspine.co.uk and @alanparrywriter.co.uk for this wonderful prompt every week that keep us pushing words around. (Alt Text on the image) #poetlife #poetrycommunity #PoemAltText #poetsofbluesky #poetrymatters #poetryforall

Happy Friday all. Here's a wee stream.of consciousness prose poem thingy for today's #poemsabout #neveragain for @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk it's meant to be breathless and fast. The lack of punctuation isn't a mistake. I'll check in later and read the others! Sorry it's so small

#PoemsAbout #NeverAgain @thebrokenspine.co.uk I will post either a reel or a link in the comments, in which I will say I don’t want to disparage or discount anyone’s service but I don’t like being in a society in which only those who wear uniforms and carry guns can be heroic.

Hullo @alanparrywriter.co.uk and to #poemsabout #neveragain Found this tricky, so it’s not quite fully on topic. Apologies.

Hello, Poets. It’s good to join you on an important theme: #PoemsAbout #NeverAgain. Many thanks to @hool415.bsky.social for the invitation, and to @alanparry83.bsky.social and @brokenspinearts.bsky.social for hosting.

Tomorrow is #PoemsAbout #NeverAgain Dig deep. Write with precision. This one demands more than feeling—it needs truth. Tag your post + tag: @alanparry83.bsky.social @brokenspinearts.bsky.social Then Read. Repost. Reply. Prompts arrive Saturday: shorturl.at/oEXAM

"Voices... sometimes." Still echoing down the canals of Birmingham. @martinkennedyyates.bsky.social #ThisWilderness www.amazon.co.uk/Wil...

By predicting the Nazi playbook used by MAGA-Russia to mythologize Kirk, it minimizes the utility of turning him into a martyr. Knowing history can deflate the potency of their moves and allow pro-democracy factions to regain control of the narrative, ie truth.

I have really come around to the idea that art - all kinds - including street action, writing, music, satire, painting, music is more important now than it has been in awhile, but we have, sadly, allowed too much withering and it’s taking a long time to find its feet.

"We’re witnessing, in real-time, a profound consolidation of power & collusion among political & tech elites... wherein the tools and technologies that this industry has built... can now be deployed in service of an authoritarian regime" — @katie-drummond.bsky.social www.status.news/p/wired-kati...

DRUMMOND: “.. Ultimately, this era in history is a WIRED story: The United States’ authoritarian turn, aided and abetted by the tech industry’s complicity. And that’s how we’re covering it.” @status.news @oliverdarcy.bsky.social @katie-drummond.bsky.social @wired.com www.status.news/p/wired-kati...

"Have you ever written words you thought might get you killed? Have you ever written words you worry might get someone you love killed? That’s the reality federal judges are facing…." https://archive.md/2025.08.07-093236/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/07/opinion/judges-courts-threats-fear.html

FRIEDMAN: “If the behavior this administration has exhibited in just its first six months continues and is amplified for its full four years, the America you know will be gone. And I don’t know how we will get it back.” ‘1984’ is upon us. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/o...

NEW: I just published what is probably my most important article in while. In it, I reveal how the Trump administration is covertly manipulating social media platforms & algorithms to boost the administration’s narrative and suppress opposing lines of thought. 1/ open.substack.com/pub/weaponiz...

Fascism is now in the algorithms, the neural pathways, the social interactions. How did we fail to see all this? “We wanted to see Trump in terms of his absences, so that our way of seeing the world would go unchallenged,” @timothysnyder.bsky.social writes.

"There is good reason to believe that Putin, having lost his war against Ukraine completely, would not be able to stay in power. His dictatorship, based on the rule of the Secret Services, could collapse like the Communist dictatorship some 35 years before." by Dr Helmut Hubel.

Together, we can defeat the Borg. Times are tough, have an Enterprise:

🧵I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about kindness since I've moved here to Aotearoa New Zealand and would like to share some thoughts. (Please bear with me!): 1. Kindness is learned. It's not innate. People are taught kindness by other people. We are creatures that learn by example.

Today's The Starbeck Orion Issue #9 Showcasing: Alan Parry, Page 24 of 25 Legacy? "Just impact." open.substack.com/pub/the880/p...

Honoured to have my fiction "The Freedom Roads of Mahogany" in issue 34 of Southern US culture journal 'The Blue Mountain Review'. My piece runs from pages 141-144. issuu.com/collectivemedia/docs/the_blue_mountain_review_april_2025 Submissions are open for the next issue. See site for details 🔥

Sinister Trump dims the lights for another White House ambush “Like a Bond villain startling guests with noxious gas, the president pushed his 'white genocide’ delusion to Cyril Ramaphosa.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/21/trump-south-africa-cyril-ramaphosa

Trump's “Big Beautiful Bill” gives billionaires a raise, kicks 15 million off health care, and adds $3.8T to the deficit. Nobody in the GOP bothered to actually read the CBO report—they are too busy setting fire to the middle class and calling it policy.

Hidden in the “Big Beautiful Bill” … Many things are hidden there but this is one of the worst..

If a foreign adversary snuck into our Federal budget and cut science research and education the way we’re cutting it ourselves — strategically undermining America’s long-term health, wealth, and security — we would likely consider it an act of war.

AOC: When you wake up in the morning, you will realize that you voted to defund planned parenthood and take away health care from 13.7 million Americans and when this country wakes up there will be consequences to pay for this

Are you referring to light sabers?….Because the only light coming out of Washington DC, is a destructive beam intent on erasing diversity, the rule of law, Constitutionally based rights and the guarantee of voting rights.

Seven-years-old! Old enough to go work in the mines, I guess. The U.S. is redefining the meaning of dystopian. As Leonard Cohen sang, “You want it darker.”

CNBC International: Two staff members of Israel’s Embassy in Washington, D.C., were shot dead outside the district’s Capital Jewish Museum on Wednesday night, officials said. Full report here: cnb.cx/43vsSWF

This is incredible. Professor @marcishore.bsky.social for @nytimes.com‬: "The lesson of 1933 is you get out sooner rather than later." #mustwatch #news #trump #USA #democracy www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXR9...

@rollingstone.com: "I wish I had a plane to give you," a seemingly exasperated Ramaphosa said at one point. "I wish you did. I would take it," Trump responded. "If your country offered the United States Air Force a plane, I would take it." #news #trump #politics www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

REPORTER (to Trump): What will it take to convince you there is no white genocide in South Africa? RAMAPHOSA: I can take that. It will take President Trump listening to the voices of S. Africans…It will take him listening to their stories, their perspective. Trump: Let me whitesplain this to you.

✨ A new short poetry film has arrived ✨ Of all the origami characters I made, the shell was the toughest. After numerous tries, I finally got something that looked a little less like a windsock, and then I took it for a visit to the lake. youtu.be/Sgwhz4G5bpo

For #PoemsAbout #NeverForget, for @alanparry83.bsky.social @brokenspinearts.bsky.social, this is ‘EXPECTATION’, first published in ‘Afterfeather’ by @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social *THE SENSITIVE THEME OF THIS POEM IS #STILLBIRTH* #poetry #poetrycommunity #poetsofbluesky #blueskypoets

In addition to my excitement about Kelly's forthcoming book, I am so happy that my friend and comrade @ollycostello.bsky.social created the book cover. It's beautiful. You can pre-order the book here: www.akpress.org/read-this-wh...

“Can artists turn the tide? Are they more influential than elected officials in driving change? Can their speaking out mobilize mass demonstrations? Will Springsteen’s moral clarity inspire other artists?” https://open.substack.com/pub/america/p/must-artists-help-turn-the-tide?r=58l6r&utm_medium=ios

Birdseye view of papal conclave via the Figen. 😂 💃🏽 Video: https://x.com/thefigen_/status/1920579585009172621?s=61

Holy Vatican, Batman, check your notifications for white smoke. We have a new Pope, and he is AMERICAN. Pope Leo, from the south side of Chicago, served among the poorest people of Peru, one of the cradles of Liberation Theology. 🧵 1/

“I want to be burned here, too, with the three-hundred-year-old trees—“ Blown away by the amazing @rfredekenter.bsky.social Robert’s raw poetry over at Black Bough’s Silver Branch feature this month. @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social www.blackboughpoetry.com/robert-frede...

Such a pleasure to listen to @paulwritespoems.bsky.social Paul Short’s poetry on @susanrichardson.bsky.social Susan Richardson’s A Thousand Shades of Greens. The images linger for days. Highly recommend having a listen to this episode. Listen here... podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/p...

For #PoemsAbout #Green and the wonderful @alanparry83.bsky.social @brokenspinearts.bsky.social here's 'ABUNDANCE'. 💚💚💚💚💚💚 #poetry #poetsofbluesky #blueskypoets