My bit on Larkin's The Less Deceived, which is 70 this year -and every bit as good as The Whitsun Weddings. Thanks as ever to @engelsbergideas.bsky.social & thank you again to @plsoc.bsky.social for hosting the live version.

A Poetry Notebook enters the Kingdom of Winter, with cameo appearances from Christina Rossetti, Frost, Stevens, Larkin and Toby Martinez de las Rivas. jwikeley.substack.com/p/snow-on-sn...

"These days, I stress that close reading is not magic. Its power lies in argument: always vulnerable, nothing simpler and yet nothing harder." @bostonreview.bsky.social www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...

I have a new poem, about ancient history, in the winter edition of @thelondonmagazine.bsky.social. Very pleased I am about it too. You can get a copy and read some other pieces online here: thelondonmagazine.org/product/curr...

This was a lot of fun. Thank you @plsoc.bsky.social for the invitation. Print version to follow. And here is the beautiful piece by Rachel Cooke I mentioned at the start. Such absences: www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...

I have a new poem, about ancient history, in the winter edition of @thelondonmagazine.bsky.social. Very pleased I am about it too. You can get a copy and read some other pieces online here: thelondonmagazine.org/product/curr...

Our December / January 2026 issue is out now! Cover image by Tom Johnson, cartoon by Dan Sperrin. Order your copy here: thelondonmagazine.org/product/curr...

Many words of the year are in fact more than one word

I'll be on a ship in Canary Wharf reading some poems - not all by me, thankfully - for The Little Review launch party tomorrow from 1300hrs. Why not come along? Ticket includes a (little) magazine. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/guest-even...

This week in the poetry blogs w/ @suefinch.bsky.social @velveteenrabbi.bsky.social @linarvitvideopoet.bsky.social @mcrucefix.bsky.social @emmalee1.bsky.social @jwikeley.bsky.social @kimmoorepoet.bsky.social @richardjnewman.bsky.social @shotscarecrow.bsky.social 1/4 www.vianegativa.us/2025/11/poet...

And very much looking forward to it too!

A friend and I wrote to Larkin from 1960s New Zealand, quite baffled by the poem. He wrote back, explaining the various references very straightforwardly, and entirely without condescension. Pretty impressive.

“It’s both funny and serious. The speaker’s a shit. That’s always serious.” Philip Larkin joins the culture wars. jwikeley.substack.com/p/solemn-sin...

A taste of my forthcoming book, thanks to @badlilies.bsky.social - www.badlilies.uk/graeme-richa...

Someone - I think it was @jwikeley.bsky.social – pointed out a while ago how different post-war English poetry might look if Douglas had lived.

New post: why children's books are the most important genre, plus another run out for my bit on @questingvole.bsky.social's The Haunted Wood (now out in paperback): jwikeley.substack.com/p/the-end-of...

Still Life with Pottery and Two Bottles - November 1884 https://botfrens.com/collections/46/contents/3109183

What, if anything, does To Autumn have to say about the history of rural labour? I went walking with Keats... jwikeley.substack.com/p/walking-wi...

Interesting times as always this week in the poetry blogs with @robin-gow-poet.bsky.social @wendypratt.bsky.social @jwikeley.bsky.social @kimmoorepoet.bsky.social @richardjnewman.bsky.social @edmundprestwich.bsky.social @salenagodden.bsky.social 1/3 www.vianegativa.us/2025/10/poet...

"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.