Anne F. Walker, Ink and Ink and Flesh and Length robmclennan.blogspot.com/2026/02/anne...

I have just realised that peppermint tea, under some circumstances including a slight cold, smells like pepper!

My 7-year-old: "What's the point of a pencil?" Turned out he was being serious. "Why don't we just use a computer?"

Poetry reading @hotnumbers.bsky.social went ok. The vibe was great, a mix of ages and a wide variety of styles.

Feeling oddly nervous about Thursday: my first booked-in-advance open mic since before COVID. Not sure I have the wardrobe for this.

Didn't know that there may have been a pre-Christian belief in a "chthonic otherworld"... this book "Twilight of the Godlings" a fascinating cauldron of information @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social

Like Defying Gravity: Me chatting to Gail Schwartz, editor of Hotch Potch Literature and Art, about leaps of faith: substack.com/@hotchpotchl...

God had the book of life open at PLEASURE and was holding the pages down in one hand because of the wind from the door. For I made their flesh as a sieve wrote God at the top of the page and then listed in order: Alcohol Blood Gratitude Memory Semen Song Tears Time.

“There’s always a next right thing to do.”

The stories are great but y'all need to see those storytelling artworks. No paywall.

Reading @victoriachang.bsky.social in the small hours, soaking it up. Maybe if I soak it up I could write like this. Poems that make you say "oh my god". & tell such truthful lies. "I have cut eight lines off this poem for no/ other reason except that they were lies. Perhaps all lines/ are lies."

Reading (for the second time) @victoriachang.bsky.social 's "With My Back to the World". I love the way these poems inhabit the artworks they describe. But I also love the moments of distance: "I realized that I needed to/ return on a day when I too could rope off my sadness."

Unbelievably, I have had a second drabble published in: www.hotchpotchliteratureandart.com. This time last year, I didn't know what a drabble was. Apparently, a drabble is a very short fiction, 100 words or so. Like a dribble. Hopefully not drivel.

Current read: Monster by @dzifabenson.bsky.social . It's phenomenal. It's like attending a stunning multimedia exhibition - but it's a poetry book.

Pleased (and relieved) that one of the many poems I wrote based on the Epic of Gilgamesh has been published!! So excited to be in the first issue of Glasgow-based SEXTET magazine in conjunction with @sixfootgallery.bsky.social : sextet.co.uk/hannah-floyd

It's not even October yet and somehow my class have eaten all 5 of my whiteboard markers. 👍 Special ed.

Excited to have another drabble coming out in the next issue of @hotchpotchliterary.bsky.social! A sneak preview of the cool genre-bending artworks: www.youtube.com/watch?v=enDU...

Amazing 😍 night out at @cambridgejunction.bsky.social seeing @jayahadadream.bsky.social and Lowkey (Kareem Dennis). Words are not just for nerds!! Restoring faith in humanity.

Day 7: Prelude to Bruise by @theferocity.bsky.social . "The dress is an oil slick. The dress/ ruins everything." Sexy, slick lines and commitment to personal story, all of it gay, all so hot I don't get a dull moment to figure out the pitch perfect techniques.

Day 6: When God Is a Traveller by Arundhati Subramaniam. After yesterday's tough reading this book was refreshingly lightweight. No bad thing - there was even some humour. My favourite poem was "Bhakti": the suggestion was to put God in a hip flask to "keep it illicit".

Day 5: Gathering of Bastards by Romeo Oriogun. It's solid and powerful. Each is a travel poem but it's not "travel": it's exile. He grieves for home, and for the dead, killed by colonialism. "your language is extinct, /a dead thing wandering at the boundary of darkness; you must/ hold it and shout".

Day 4: "Blade By Blade" by @danushalameris.bsky.social. These poems show a bright, painful love of life, and each tells a story: "Many things are inherited./ Whole histories, for example - and the long paths walked in the heat, /in the dead of night -away from them."

I didn't realise this was a book of essays till I unwrapped it. But I devoured this book. It explores the lives of several West Coast US poets and digs up gold. for me it lit up the question not of "how good" a poem is but why write poetry? How to live & practice? And how to use poetry for change?

The End of Everything and Everything that Came After That by Nick Lantz. My favourite poem ended up being the first poem "Ruin". It takes huge strides between continents, stanzas, ideas. "Everyone// has a burning building inside them. (Maybe / just a dollhouse /smoking from its dormers."

Gephyromania by TC Tolbert was a great way to kick off the challenge. Muscular, fun and passionate. Plays with grammar and preconceptions: "Because letting you go/is a trip to the mailbox. And to think of you/ near is to prepare a picnic by slitting the paper bag..."

A friend recommended this: It's an encouragement to read poetry in book format. I've ordered a few books off their list, or at least the ones I could find on this side of the pond anyway, and the rest of August is looking good! www.thesealeychallenge.com