We need more poems about football so here’s one about the regenerating power of spring using the metaphor of soccer. ⚽️ 🥅 Our host this week on #TopTweetTuesday on Twitter is the talented writer and good human @iantattum.bsky.social #poems #poetry #writing #football

For #fragmentsfriday a #poem. Precipices: 1. That lives exist separate from you. 2. That love is heartache-fragile. 3. That your time will be unknown to you. Matthew M. C. Smith, 2026.

Hello @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social and @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social Here's my #micropoem for #fragmentsfriday

Today’s #fragmentsfriday micropoem 🌬️ Thank you very much to @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social and @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social for hosting 🙏

Hullo @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social and to @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social for the glorious 18 word challenge that is #fragmentsfriday #poetry

Gratitude [email protected] #fragmentsfriday After the sand storm At the wake of Christ, Their altered tongues Were rough as those of cats

Hi all #FragmentsFriday poets, @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social, @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social. I'm happy to share my #micropoem, 'Posturing'. Thanks 🙏💚 for the poetry plateform/community. #Poetry #PoetryCommunity

My micropoem for #fragmentsfriday Thanks to @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social and @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social for the prompt. #micropoetry #micropoem #micropoems

Time for a little #fragmentsFriday fun! Thanks for the inspiration @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social 🙏

Unfurling fiddlehead fern frond Strangford #Lecale #LeathCathail #CountyDown #ContaeAnDúin #SpéirGhorm

@iantattum.bsky.social is back in the hotseat next week 🤩 80 words max on an overlooked thing, natural, unnatural, human or quality which is precious to you. Include 2 inventive compound words, experiment with sound, use a barely known colour-shade, a strange metaphor. No cliches! Twitter only

3rd place on #fragmentsfriday this week 🥉 Ella Winters’s ‘Cuckmere Haven’ The crumbling chalk of a hand! @ella-b-winters.bsky.social

2nd place on #fragmentsfriday Dorian Nightingale 🥈 Who also happens to the author of our book of the month! #poetry #writing

1st place on #fragmentsfriday Ryan Hooper’s ‘What slips’ 🥇 🏆 ‘the wintered marble rolls away from arthritic fire’ ❄️ 🔥 Wow!

Check me out - made it onto the illustrious #FragmentsFriday podium, and in such fine company, too! Thanks, @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social

Catch up with my review of Dorian's musical, visual treat of a pamphlet below 👇🏼

Will poets and children ever stop trying to capture light? Not any time soon ✨ Another poem from my Silver Branch feature, with thanks to @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social 🫶🏼

TODAY ⚡️ ⚡️ ⚡️ #fragmentsfriday Startling #poems of UP TO 18 words. Tag in FF ⬆️ #poetry #poetrychallenge

If you want to be in the audience at the #UnwhisperedLegacy launch featuring a host of stellar poets, click the link below: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1985095180...

It's April 1st which I find quite frightening. Spring has properly sprung and a new month brings a new Poetic Voice to The Book Bag. This month we are treated to an incredible poet who has a thing for moths... We have poems, interview and a bonus recording. Click here to unveil April's Voice

It's finally the season for sitting on the back step and admiring treasures we collect for each other. This is from my new @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social Silver Branch feature, with huge thanks to @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social 🍃 www.blackboughpoetry.com/about-1 Take a look at the past features too!

🤩Exciting News! I'm delighted & honoured to have two poems in the beautiful #UnwhisperedLegacy Anthology which is brimful with stunning work. Congratulations to all contributors & huge thanks to our wonderful EIC @paulwritespoems.bsky.social ✨ Download here: 👉 paulwritespoems.com/unwhispered-...

Finally. The day has come to release Unwhispered Legacy from The Book Bag x Write Here, Right Now out into the world. Thank you to all the poets who contributed to this book. Proudly raising money for MSF. Visit 🔗 shorturl.at/iVhZN to download your copy. #poetry #anthology

Agreed Evie. Fine poems from @thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social & excellent design from @janecornwell.bsky.social

Something beautiful is coming our way✨

Calling all troubadours! An idea. Post your audio poems. Tag them #PoemsAloud so they're easy to find & share. That's the idea. 🥳 Why? #PoemsAloud syncs perfectly w/ #PoemsAbout or can stand on its own. Some poems live beyond the page. I recorded a bunch & don't know what else to do w/ them 🤷‍♀️

Some riveting, mind-expanding #PoemsAloud so far! Haven’t listened to all yet, but I heard a Sine Wave, a voicenote poem, & a poem based on the Fibonacci sequence! That was by @johnchmura.bsky.social, who was also the first to field this overall idea when I mentioned it to him on Friday. Carry on! 👏🏼

My opening contribution to @coastalpoet.bsky.social's new #poemsaloud initiative is a recording of me reading 'All fields' – a poem featured in the @eastridgereview.bsky.social, and subsequently nominated by that publication for The @PushcartPrize.bsky.social. on.soundcloud.com/gk8RHJadNWwIvbnCAu

Thanks all who commented on my earlier post 🙌 @markantonyowen.com set up a feed so you can now pin #PoemsAloud via this link: tinyurl.com/3ve8f27b Use the hashtag anytime to share your audio poems. (You don't have to tag me). Looking forward to listening. Go forth & enjoy the bardic experiment!

'Dispersed on the ground. Drawing a crowd. Her skirt long, thank goodness, pooled like blood around her.' iamb.uk/wave/25-van...

'The smudge of lipstick inside this facemask marks it as yours; I wear your kiss as an open secret in the supermarket queue.' iamb.uk/wave/25-sea...

'You will know me by these strange eyes lit by a hundred ancestors’ fire-sight— this left iris locked on the underworld.' iamb.uk/wave/25-sar...

' ... her / smile / is a poised river enduring down the pleats of corduroy hills and her heart is cracked porcelain ... ' iamb.uk/wave/25-sar...

'The floor was slick with bile and mother begged for Jesus who showed up naked, body of criss-crossed scars that wouldn’t heal ... ' iamb.uk/wave/25-sar...

'I recite the rules by rote by heart, by practise, practise, practise by trial and by error, so quietly the hum of my voice is a vaporous elegy ... ' iamb.uk/wave/25-lou...

'The bow is lifted and 𝄐 | Coasting down from her peak | the violin reaches perfect cadence.' iamb.uk/wave/25-lis...

'On a cellular level it happens every second Fragments of the body are let go to make survival possible.' iamb.uk/wave/25-kar...

'You have been to places like this, I know, But did you visit these monuments? Or did you dream your Dartmoor stones?' iamb.uk/wave/25-jim...

'Casual sex has left you just as empty and upset as the failed relationships you somehow kept with wonderful (incredibly patient) men.' iamb.uk/wave/25-hlr

'Your dreams will always cast you a tide of enigmas, soaked in the ambiguity of Pythian prophecies ... ' iamb.uk/wave/25-gle...

'In the tidal mud below lay bottles and shoes, reminders of when we too were wild, our wanton lives unborn.' iamb.uk/wave/25-eli...

'Nothing good ever came from being the first one in. More people have walked on the moon than have won from the number one position, remember that.' iamb.uk/wave/25-col...

'I wonder if the stars have named us too, with names that last far longer than our own – and echo, gently, mid that great unknown.' iamb.uk/wave/25-ant...

'I am comma after comma refusing to end on the untuned organ in the cathedral of your orgasm.' iamb.uk/wave/25-ali...

This is bloody marvellous news! Congratulations @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social! 🥳

📣 NEW 🔔 🔥 🎶 #bookotthemonth with Black Bough. Victoria Spires reviews Dorian Nightingale’s poetry chapbook! Click on the link for the full review 👇 www.blackboughpoetry.com/book-reviews... #poetry #books @victoriaspires.bsky.social

My review of @secretsoliloquies.bsky.social 's Songs from Last Imaginations is up now on the Bough 🤩

'I half-dream you are a tree,/deracinated from my womb and that I must adorn you' A sensational #SilverBranch series from our writer of the month, Victoria Spires. Immerse yourself in its poetic exploration & word power. @victoriaspires.bsky.social blackboughpoetry.com/about-1 #poetry #poet

On Sunday, I enjoyed attending one of the most thought-provoking book launches, Paul Brookes' collection, Hedgerow of Voices. Here's a poem & some lovely endorsements from: @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social @rhonagreene.bsky.social #LiftToTheSky @thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social @janecornwell.bsky.social

In 🥇 1st place on #fragmentsfriday, @helenlaycock.bsky.social back with the crown 👑 with this #micropoem of sharp contrasts, energy and sensuality.