"Is it dusk yet?" ask the Minervan owls impatiently, itching to spread their wings. Photo of Nouvelle-Aquitaine clock tower by Bianco Da Vinci

What is, or was, the middle-distance poem? Where did it go? And why are there so many trains involved? substack.com/home/post/p-...

Poetry friends, Hampshire friends, everyone further afield! WPF is remixing the canon ft. brilliant poets like Fiona Benson, Richard Scott & @naush.bsky.social and activities for all. 10–12 Oct plus more before I’ll be helping out, come say hello 💫 🔗 www.winchesterpoetryfestival.org/wpf25friday

New from me in this week's Spectator. It's about decluttering.

“Once #AnimalFarm made him famous, & solvent, for the first time in his life, #Orwell immediately moved to the Hebrides. His diaries there are filled with rapt but unsentimental observations of animals, often ending with him killing and eating them.” engelsbergideas.com/notebook/ani...

This 80th anniversary of Animal Farm essay by @jwikeley.bsky.social is excellent, makes a good case of it being Orwell's masterpiece engelsbergideas.com/notebook/ani... (pairs well w/an essay of mine on the book's relevance for thinking about China & Hong Kong www.asiancha.com/wp/article/j... )

"The book in which George Orwell is most himself." I'm over at @engelsbergideas.bsky.social today, making the case for a much-neglected novella called... Animal Farm. engelsbergideas.com/notebook/ani...

‘Sea-fever’ -a poem I’ve long disliked. It was read out, tediously and laboriously, with interjections, by my middle school head teacher in assembly every year for some reason. This has removed some of the ick.

"Leadbetter’s subject is poetry itself. His belief in its potential is both rare and contagious." I am back in the T, writing in praise of Gregory Leadbetter's 'infernal garden'. Awesome, eerie and just out from @ninearchespress.bsky.social.

Absurd, grotesque and completely unsustainable. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This is such a great idea: a whole ensemble of voices reading Larkin's The Less Deceived, which is 70 this year. It's also the first and last time I will appear in the same production as Cate Blanchett.

I must down to the see again... ...or is there a missing word there? I've written about 'Sea-Fever' and a wonderful discussion in Carol Rumens's Poem of the Week. jwikeley.substack.com/p/the-long-t...

I've written about The Bean Eaters (a masterpiece), lists and list poems. substack.com/home/post/p-...

2025 Reading 40: The Little Review No. 1, ed. Tristram Fane Saunders. I picked this up for a fiver from by the till at my local bookstore. I'll always give a new literary journal a go. This one was, frankly, a delight. It's a poetry journal, but promiscuous in its interests both in form and content.

The rasp of a chainsaw triggers a meditation on permanence and change in Kent's Oak by @jwikeley.bsky.social www.fictionable.world/stories/kent... Image: josh AD #books #reading #writing #fiction #ShortStories #translation #comics #podcast

Coming up on BBC Radio 4’s The Verb today, Sunday 22 June: Gillian Allnutt will be talking to host Ian McMillan about her tenth collection Lode and will be reading poems from the book. Tune in 📻 at 5.10pm or listen later. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

"Adlestrop—only the name." It's late June. It's very hot. I've written a blog about Adlestrop. jwikeley.substack.com/p/rememberin...

"Adlestrop—only the name." It's late June. It's very hot. I've written a blog about Adlestrop. jwikeley.substack.com/p/rememberin...

Obituary: Barbara Holdridge, the audiobook pioneer American publisher whose early recordings of Dylan Thomas kickstarted a global phenomenon.

Poetic Delivery Service, one from 2017

I was very glad to do this one. Rory's book is superb.

I thought the reviews of my Come Here to This Gate (@carcanet.bsky.social 2024) had stopped coming. I'm very grateful for this perceptive piece by @jwikeley.bsky.social, in the new Poetry Birmingham/PBLJ. It is an honour to receive this kind of attention.

Anecdotally, yes. I still think like a historian. For better and for worse.

The rasp of a chainsaw triggers a meditation on permanence and change in Kent's Oak by @jwikeley.bsky.social www.fictionable.world/stories/kent... Image: Marek Studzinski #books #reading #writing #fiction #ShortStories #translation #comics #podcast

When Muriel Spark assumed the editorship of Poetry Review in 1947 it ‘officially deplored the “morbid tendency” of contemporary poetry.’

Current read The Heart of Winter by Kevin Barry. Crackling sentences, vividly visual. Woke me up on the train. Very, very good so far.

'...plain speech made devastating. [...] Allnutt’s poems move between playfulness and austerity, eccentricity and anonymity.’ – @jwikeley.bsky.social, in today's Telegraph Review, on Gillian Allnutt's just-published tenth poetry collection #Lode. www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-t...

Head to the @fictionable.bsky.social podcast to find out why friends and family have been using the words "surprisingly articulate".

Here's me for the T in praise of Gillian Allnutt's latest "spectatcular" collection. "Allnutt may well be the best poet you've never heard of." @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-t...

RIP Paul Durcan - a really incredible poet, simultaneously laugh-out-loud funny and heartbreaking

I am not above reposting praise, especially when it's from @adamroberts.bsky.social.

All trees this week. Here's something on Philip Larkin's "The Trees", a seriously uncanny poem disguised as a simple one. jwikeley.substack.com/p/like-somet...

I now come as a podcast. Huge thanks to Richard at @fictionable.bsky.social for the invitation, and for the flattering edit.

Great news. My review here for anyone who needs to catch up: www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-t...

The Second World War had its poets too | @jwikeley.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/reviews/the-...

The rasp of a chainsaw triggers a meditation on permanence and change in Kent's Oak by @jwikeley.bsky.social www.fictionable.world/stories/kent... #books #reading #writing #fiction #ShortStories #translation #comics #podcast

Paul Dehn (better known for writing Goldfinger and The Planet of the Apes) at the end of WWII. Suitably gruesome.

– H.W. Fowler, Fowler's Modern English Usage (2nd edition) #NorthSeaPoets #CommonplaceBook #PoetrySky

Permanence, change, and summer in the suburbs. It's all there!

Some nice news. I have a short story - "Kent's Oak" - in the Spring edition of @fictionable.bsky.social alongside Susanna Clarke and many good things: www.fictionable.world/stories/kent...

#Spring is here, with exclusive #ShortStories from Susanna Clarke, Fríða Ísberg translated by @larissakyzer.bsky.social Bronia Flett @jwikeley.bsky.social and PR Woods. And @mrphoenix.bsky.social gives us a glimpse of his sketchbook. Catch it all at fictionable.world #books #reading #writing

Very excited to be a part of this!

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Here's... something (genre unclear) I wrote on lanes, which I love. An elegy for Edward Thomas: substack.com/home/post/p-...

If babies love routines as much as all the advice says they do, why don't they stick to them? Little hypocrites.

This week in the poetry blogs w/ @briankspears.bsky.social @robmclennan.bsky.social @mcrucefix.bsky.social @hanvanderhart.bsky.social @jwikeley.bsky.social @kimmoorepoet.bsky.social @richardjnewman.bsky.social @kent-nj.bsky.social @angelatopping.bsky.social 1/3 www.vianegativa.us/2025/03/poet...

Literature is a thing like us... here's a version of my piece on @zibaldoni.bsky.social's history of the notebook: jwikeley.substack.com/p/things-lik...

I wrote a few hundred words about the sky and the things that are in it. jwikeley.substack.com/p/who-owns-t...

Glad to find myself in such good company.

Quite a few bits and bobs in the works for Feb. In the meantime here are some good books I read last year, in various moods and genres: jwikeley.substack.com/p/books-of-t...