What we call the beginning is often the end and to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from. T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets Happy Solstice

Dear all, Please find issue 28 of the Manchester Review at the link below. Thank you to our wonder writers and readers who continue to support the review. The Editors www.themanchesterreview.co.uk

“Sometimes I am so surprised I show up to write a poem completely empty and yet, something shows up. Just keep making space for your work. Even if it doesn't make sense.” -- Kelli Russell Agodon

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Liminality In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between them, there are doors. William Blake

'Up here with the crags and windbrush I look down oh the amber world and I say truthfully to you, I do not miss it.' Love this poem 'Sweeney As a Girl' by Jaki McCarrick I received this postcard with a recent purchase from Dedalus Press; a lovely way to promote other authors published by them.

still my favorite poem "Black Sea" by Mark Strand

Two of our giants of poetry--Charles Wright & Mark Strand,conferring in,& toasting,the late light. Masters of the line,masters of the image--(& if Merwin & Simic had been there that Oct 9,2014,you'd basically have the corner on the"deep image"in the mid 20th C).We miss Mark, gone 11 years. Read him.

Linda Pastan

Check it out!! Hodder & Stoughton have an open submission window for all fiction genres. Get in quick. Details in link. Please share :)

For those (like me!) who aren’t quite up to speed with some of the year’s excellent poetry releases, this round up by Rishi is a delightful read. And a useful heads-up when it comes to gift ideas for the poetry lover in your life!

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ✨️ "We always hope, and in all things it is better to hope than to despair." "Magic is believing in yourself; if you can do that, you can make anything happen." "Love and desire are the spirit's wings to great deeds." 🎨 J.G. Lange (1811–1887)

“After one has abandoned a belief in god, poetry is that essence which takes its place as life’s redemption.” Wallace Stevens #poetry #poems

Barry Dempster, RIP

“The true meaning of a poem isn’t hidden in a textbook, or in the mind of a teacher, or expert, or even the poet who wrote it. It comes to be, each time, in the mind of each half-dreaming reader.” Matthew Zapruder #poetry #writingcommunity

A beautiful reading by @notjustdancing.bsky.social tonight for the launch of Hotel Amour. As @serenbooks.bsky.social editor @zoebrigley.bsky.social said, it's a beautiful brilliant book, full of nearly unbearable grief and nearly unbearable joy. www.serenbooks.com/book/hotel-a...

“When have I ever not loved the pain of love? The inimitable Walcott, with a poem that packs a powerful punch. #poems #poetrycommunity #writing

Charles Simic

If you're working on submissions this weekend, remember @icefloepress.bsky.social is open to your visionary, expansive hybrids on PROCESS/ MARGINALIA/OTHERWOR(L)D(S)! Hybrid = 2 mediums at least. Some brilliant work coming in so far. Deadline: 30 November. We look forward to reading your work🔥

Writing is a kind of revenge against circumstance too: bad luck, loss, pain. If you make something out of it, then you've no longer been bested by these events. — Louise Glück

"If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only way I know it. Is there any other way?" Emily Dickinson #poetry #poetrycommunity #books #reading

‘There is no doubt that food was available in Ireland throughout the crisis – just not to those who needed it most.’ Niamh Gallagher on a new history of the Great Famine. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

“Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but reckon up the chief of the blessings you do possess, and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were not yours.” ~ Marcus Aurelius November's Harmony 🎨 T.C. Steele (1893)

Chelsea Dingman ♥️ “There is such violence / in the sunset.” @chelsdingman.bsky.social

This years Christmas-Winter anthology is a bumper 50 pages more than last year's. That can mean only one thing! More poems! Art work by Gower artist Emma Bissonnet.

Sharing a poem I found today by @shelaghrowanlegg.bsky.social from an interview by @pinholepoetry.bsky.social Love the exquisitely crafted musicality that weaves its way throughout in lines such as: 'in that solitude / that sees any light / as solace and succour.' #poetry #poetrycommunity

you will pry the oxford comma and em-dashes from my cold, dead hands

A strange experience yesterday. Afternoon collapsed on itself, not with a star’s power, exploded radiance falling back in concentrated immensity, but a drear apotheosis, a hum just above silent amid soiled white light. It was emptiness, not meditative or inviting action but a special kind of nothing

"From the true opponent, a limitless courage flows into you." ~ Franz Kafka 🎨 László Mednyánszky (1890)

Pause for a moment, and read... • Sara Teasdale •

You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. — Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum

After a break, I've started adding to my 7th UK Poets list. Look in my Starter Packs for all 6 lists (see comments)+ to find 900 poets based in the UK. You can browse or follow all on each list so it makes it easier to find people. + link to the thread of above poets bsky.app/starter-pack...

To detach yourself elegantly from the world; to give contour and grace to sadness; a solitude in style; a walk that gives cadence to memories; stepping towards the intangible; with the breath in the trembling margins of things; Emil Cioran

“Advice from this elderly practitioner is to forget publishers and roll a sheet of copy paper into your machine and get lost in your subject. Write about it by day and dream about it by night.” -- E.B. White

Jack Gilbert knew a thing or two about loss, distilling it here with exquisite precision. “Grief makes the heart apparent as much as sudden happiness can.”

The glory that is my hometown—Aberystwyth. Wales’s first UNESCO City of Literature. Y peth gorau! unesco.org.uk/news/wales-f...

From Naomi Shihab Nye's book, Everything Comes Next: bookshop.org/a/862/9780063013452 #poem #books #writing

Aspens will always be my favorite but in the Autumn they really ✨ 🍂🍂 #Photography #Nature #BlueSkyArtShow #Autumn

From ‘Magdalene: Poems’ (2017) —Marie Howe #poetry #poems #booksky

Bertrand Russell to Oswald Mosley. Perfection.

• Edward Thomas •

. From 'Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings' (2015) —Joy Harjo #poetry #poem #booksky

A successful moment of poetry won't let you calculate anything, for as long as it lasts, it is a mental force that silences all other mental forces. -- Clive James

Pause, and read... • Kenneth C. Steven •

Tony Harrison’s poem ‘V.’ is to be performed in the Leeds cemetery that inspired it. The day of site-specific readings will now also serve as a tribute to the poet, who died last week. Read the article: www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/s... Book tickets here: www.slunglow.org/v-a-homecomi...

If you haven't heard of Poets for the Planet until now please take a look at our website for more information about who we are and what we do. Our artwork was created by the wonderful Henny Beaumont. #poetrysky #nationalpoetryday poetsfortheplanet.org.uk

"You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make." Rest in Peace, Jane Goodall 🙏🏻

From Linda Pastan's book, Queen of a Rainy Country: bookshop.org/a/862/9780393331417 #poems #books #writing

. From 'Deus Meus' (2025) —K. Sermonté #poetry #poem #poems

Running into a poem you loved is like bumping an old friend at a pub. Thus do I find Robert Creeley's "The Rain," six stanzas I copied on the back of my AP econ spiral notebook in high school, and re-read often during that neolib seminar. Ooof the splendid enjambment of that “semi-/lust”