Here's a great offer - a poem a day delivered to your inbox for a donation (£1 or more) to Médecins Sans Frontières - link in the comment below:

Thanks for this to Eric Evans and his team at Ink Publications. As I've rather got out of the habit of submitting, I'm chuffed one of my poems found an online home here in the new edition of The Bond Street Review - and in such nice company! inkpublications1.wixsite.com/mysite

When they arrest poets as terrorists it’s time to start worrying. Alice Oswald arrested for SUPPORTing PALESTINE ACTION

Southbank Centre - Wednesday 6 August, 8pm www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/spe... Bank of England Museum - Thursday 7 August, 12.30pm www.bankofengland.co.uk/museum/whats...

Keats House - Thursday 7 August, 6:30pm www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/events/femin... Bethlem Museum of the Mind - Saturday 9 August, 2:00pm museumofthemind.org.uk/whats-on/eve...

Hello folks, if you fancied some poetry this week, you could do a lot worse than attending one (or all ) of the following events from Femina Culpa. Each event features readings inspired by historic cases relating to women tried in court in the 1800s.

Great poetry events in London this week! Southbank, Wed 6 Aug 8pm www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/spe... BankofEnglandMuseum, Thur 7 12.30pm www.bankofengland.co.uk/museum/whats... ... (1/2)

In aid of UNICEF: Hello folk in the St Andrews area. I'll be reading at this very worthwhile event on 11th June in aid of UNICEF for their appeals for Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan. Do come along if you can. It's un-ticketed and donations on the door.

President Donald Trump commenting on how much money his billionaire friends made when he paused tariffs, "He made $2.5 billion today, and he made $900 million" Is this corruption, insider trading, or just good timing and coincidence?

despite hate (a riff on Ashberry) there’s only this one moon – look up, we share it there isn’t anything you can do to prevent that dailies, 10.IV.25

No, it is not in heaven that we find the dry fine winds of fact, but in the stones of March, Holy One, in the knots of their essence… —Iain Crichton Smith, “Not in Heaven” published in NEW COLLECTED POEMS, @carcanet.bsky.social 2011 www.carcanet.co.uk/978185754960...

Isn't it odd how the State Department can get people out of jail in Russia but not in El Salvador.

I hear your bold blackbird, that slow singer, alone at my desk yet walking with you through your valleys and hills, that shining stream bubbling notes of your music your pure Welsh music… —Sheila Templeton, “For R.S. Thomas” in A Little Touch of Cliff in the Evening: New Writing Scotland 30 #poetry

It’s for weddings and funerals and reading on the train and for taking a person out of herself and bringing her back more sane… —Helena Nelson, “Poetry Forum” Published in DOWN WITH POETRY! (Happenstance, 2016) #WorldPoetryDay www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/poetry-...

I listened this morning to an interview with her on The News Agents, catch it while you can in case they are made to remove it. Meta, champions of free speech??? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... #thenewsagents

Gorse thrusts yellow into spring

He nails it.

Have a wee vote, folks! Be assured it's not me, Liz Lochhead and Jackie Kay in competition with each other - god forbid! It's you choosing a line by each of us to be carved on the Parliament Wall. www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/2025/02/publ...

Ah, memories. When everything else was locked down in March 2021, the Botanic Gardens in St Andrews was a great place for an exhibition (thanks, Jane Yolen!), and a welcome 'necessary' reason for me to travel there to set it up.

Every mid-February those first days arrive when the sun rises higher than the Black Hill at last… —Kathleen Jamie, “The Dash” published in THE OVERHAUL, @picadorbooks.bsky.social 2012 www.panmacmillan.com/authors/kath...

This is *exactly* what the UK government is failing to do. Please read this thread to understand the critical risks at the heart of our democracy.

✊ Solidarity with Palestinian storyteller, publisher & bookshop owner Mahmoud Muna, who visited Edinburgh & our library last August with the Momentum literature delegation. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/10/israeli-police-raid-jerusalem-bookshops-and-arrest-palestinian-owners

This'll be ace...!

My latest book is soon in Italian, Hungary and Macedonia, a Danish, and Swedish translation is also out. Poems from the Edge of Extinction is a powerful anthology of poetry combining the dying of languages with environmental humanities and poetry.

Gaelic & Scots in the 20th & 21st Centuries 19 Feb, Scottish Parliament Free (booking essential) Dr @poncarova.bsky.social discusses literary & historical connections, inspirations, & the role of new users, in the preservation & revitalisation of Gaelic & Scots www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/gaelic-and...

Of course; and thank goodness Starmer isn't equivocating.

Because ... ".... Canada would spend $1.3 billion on a plan to reinforce its border with new helicopters, technology and personnel, as well as additional resources to stop the flow of fentanyl. Canada had announced its $1.3 billion border and immigration investment at the end of last year."

Can ye wheeple Nocturnes frae a rone-pipe flute? —Edwin Morgan, “Ay, But Can Ye?" “Morgan brings out sonorities audible in the Russian but beyond the scope of standard English” – Carol Rumens on Morgan’s translation of Mayakovsky’s “А вы могли бы?” www.theguardian.com/books/2017/o...

Support Canadian alternatives!

If we don't use our small poetry presses, we'll lose them. This is why I refuse to flinch or shy from asking you to purchase a copy of Whatever You Do, Just Don't, my second full collection. Here's a sample poem from the book. Just drop me a DM and I'll sort out a signed copy for you...

"Chaste Snowdrop, venturous harbinger of Spring, / And pensive monitor of fleeting years!" (William Wordsworth, from To a Snowdrop)

There’s currently 10% off website prices if you’d like to book a writing retreat in Feb or March. Contact us for details and get your 2025 projects going! Www.kalewatercottage.co.uk

Hello, February, nice to meet you!

True! Dan, Joan and our late friend Kamilah made history, thanks to the Library of Congress. The record of our Pride event...first ever inside a Federal building...is likely to be erased. I hope other libraries will hold onto our LGBT history and preserve it for future generations. 🏳️‍🌈

Perfectly said.

Lyra Celtica: Harry Josephine Giles on Wilfion 19 Feb, Edinburgh – free Harry Josephine Giles & special guests explore the work & legacy of genderweird Celtic Revival writer Fiona Macleod / William Sharp (1855–1905) – known as “Wilfion” by their wife www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lyra-celti...

Hamish, Burns, & Music 11 Feb, Mitchell Library, Glasgow – free Hamish Henderson & Robert Burns recreated Scotland – especially through their song-writing. This is an Immortal Memory with a difference by Prof Fred Freeman of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland www.glasgowlife.org.uk/event/2/hami...

Rainer Maria Rilke: »Première élégie«

We grow up with the unacceptable, and accommodation becomes a tool we use to make our lives easier. Accommodating the unacceptable is often easier than doing the right thing. Eventually, we use it to let ourselves off the hook, because that’s easier, too. www.marytrump.org/p/there-is-n...

Is there for honest Poverty That hings his head, an’ a’ that; The coward slave—we pass him by, We dare be poor for a’ that! For a’ that, an’ a’ that, Our toils obscure an’ a’ that, The rank is but the guinea’s stamp, The Man’s the gowd for a’ that. —Robert Burns #BurnsNight poets.org/poem/mans-man

For Burns Night youtu.be/8pD_TcPmLhM?...

NEW: Wednesday @newsagents.bsky.social Trump releases his army. A politics which is not normal but which is normalised Listen now podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

In pardoning all of the J6th insurrectionists, with barely a whimper of opposition, Trump has signalled a new age of acquiescence in American politics. He's trying to control not just the present but the past. In effect, he was pardoning himself. New from me. open.substack.com/pub/goodalla...

'Meadowsweet, loosestrife sway along the ditch Waiting to cross over at the end of our days.' Dear Michael Longley.

Thanks very much to @poncarova.bsky.social and @glasgowrevbooks.bsky.social for publishing this interview about poetry, translation, Scots, Burns, and eco-writing. Our discussion is followed by two original poems belonging to a new ongoing project. Good to see them in the GRB! tinyurl.com/ynfjk4pb

BURNS NIGHT SKIES We now have 12 poets featured, including a golden oldie from a hunder years ago. 10 of the poets are writing chiefly in Scots. One in Gaelic. One in English. A galaxy of poetic talent. 🪐

100 Differences Between Poetry and Prose Glaswegian poet Tom Leonard curated a wonderfully eclectic website where he kept a journal for 5 years, published his letters, poems, prose pieces, and other miscellany. It rewards a visit. Here's one of the poems: www.tomleonard.co.uk/online-poetr...

Even when the sun is staying away, Anstruther harbour is worth a photograph.

Sir Walter Scott all lit up about Christmas ...