Thank you, @MatthewMCSmith and @blackboughpoems for publishing “Winterspell” in the glorious Christmas & Winter anthology. I am elated to share these pages with so many talented poet colleagues. Happy New Year to all! 🌟

Poetry publication opportunity - call from Wed 28th January to Sun 1st Feb. Normal submis*ions are submit up to 3 poems but you can submit 5 if you bought our current anthology ❄️ 🦌 www.blackboughpoetry.com/events @paulwritespoems.bsky.social

Wonderful session with great poets. Thanks to @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social

Today at Process, Ice Floe presents a stunning collaboration by @marianchristie.bsky.social, Samantha Vazhure and Quinten Vazhure — Art, poetry, photography and music segue to explore life cycles, cosmic resonance and ancestry. Palindrome, Houses of Stone, Mbira 🔥 icefloepress.net/2026/01/07/pal…

The Starbeck Orion issue #14 Not Advent Anthology Day 15 of 25 featuring the poetry of Ian Tattum the880.substack.com/p/the-starbe...

Tickets are flying out for this event... #promptcombo #poemsabout crews, hope to see some of you there! 🤗

#Writing Boot Camp no 1 DONE!! Top job @mishiepoet.bsky.social @paulwritespoems.bsky.social @carolynthomas.bsky.social Doryn, @gphydeauthor.bsky.social Mary and Tracee #poetry

‘With each whispering cartwheeling flake’ 🌀 ❄️ Laurie Donaldson in our Christmas - Winter anthology. @powanpoetry.bsky.social www.blackboughpoetry.com/news

‘the teakettle song of a wren’ ‘so my frosted heart steamed a little’ 💙 Adele Evershed from our Christmas-winter anthology. www.blackboughpoetry.com/news

‘the swaddled-sun reborn in a blaze’ ☀️ 🔥 @gjgreenlea.bsky.social in our Christmas and winter anthology www.blackboughpoetry.com/news

‘Dark chocolate deltas on a sepia sky’ - Polly Oliver in the Christmas-Winter anthology 🧊 ❄️ 🦴 www.blackboughpoetry.com/news

‘Savour the nectar-sweet galette’ ‘Epiphany King Cake Magic’ 👑 👑 👑 by @meggiepoet.bsky.social from our Christmas & Winter anthology. www.blackboughpoetry.com/news #poetry #writingcommunity

Kendra Cardin’s ‘Epiphany Eve’ from our Christmas and Winter anthology. ‘Old crow, billowing robes, crooked nose, broomstick silhouetted in moonglow’ www.blackboughpoetry.com/news #poetry #writing 🧙 🐦‍⬛ ❄️

Next week’s TopTweetTuesday prompt - a highly imagistic narrative based on a children’s story or fairytale. Let the imagery dominate over the narrative. Ensure metaphors dominate over prosaic language and rhetoric. Make it inventive, not cliched. Make up two new words at least. 100 words max!

TOMORROW! 🖊️ 💎 If you've done the 'Crafting Your Year in Poetry' workshop, this is a refresher bootcamp planning your next 12 months with fresh ideas & tips! Limited places. Book now. Wed Jan 7th, 6.30pm. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bootcamp-c...

Content warning - dog poop. My first ever poop poem. I hope you like it - in a funny sort of way. Channelling a bit of Roald Dahl and experiments with word play. Perhaps a bit of Lewis Carroll too. #poetry #poet #poetic #writing

The artificial intelligence of humans. For #smallpoemsunday and its curator @tomsnarsky.bsky.social Thank you. 🧠

📣 Want your poetry to appear in our next Christmas and winter anthology? Check out the following information on or call from 28th Jan to the 1st of Feb! 🎅 ❄️ ⛄️ ❄️ www.blackboughpoetry.com/events

‘Two headless snowmen— glove-craft: sculpted stone and swan-ice’ ⛄️ ⛄️ 🪓 @vespertine4.bsky.social from our Christmas-Winter anthology. 🦢 🧊 blackboughpoetry.com/news

‘Those January mornings when the sun comes up a gold, unraveling ball’ ☀️ Anthony Paticchio with a poem in the Christmas-Winter anthology. 👣 www.blackboughpoetry.com/news

‘Wet crisp foil pigeons scramble from the dark, gnarled tree’ 🐦 ‘This brittle morning a gift of stringed pearls’ Tim Willmott with his first outing with Black Bough poetry. Welcome Tim! www.blackboughpoetry.com/news

‘Remember spring my love, hold tight with me’ 💚 The snowdrops lift lime-green lined umbrellas’ @suefinch.bsky.social from our Christmas-winter anthology. www.blackboughpoetry.com/news

‘the wild green blisters of usurping Spring’ ‘The weather prophets are unanimous’ David Birkett’s ‘Switching on the Christmas Lights’ 🎄 🥶 👑 www.blackboughpoetry.com/news

If you've done the 'Crafting Your Year in Poetry' workshop, this is a refresher bootcamp planning your next 12 months with fresh ideas & tips! Limited places. Book now. Wed Jan 7th, 6.30pm. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bootcamp-c...

Giving you the heads up. We will have a submis*ions window for the next Christmas - Winter anthology from Wed 28th Jan to Sun 1st Feb. Evocative, atmospheric, distinctive, imagistic poems please. No A.I. no cribbing, your work ☝️ Submission info in the next week!

@annachorlton.bsky.social with a poem from the Christmas-Winter anthology. blackboughpoetry.com/news

‘All through the burning we flee astride’ Marilyn Humbert in our Christmas-Winter anthology. www.blackboughpoetry.com/news

I am proud to be page 114 in this @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social winter anthology, and looking forward to reading all the poems. A great Valentine's, Easter and Christmas 2026 gift, btw.

‘Well, here you are again with your plucked lurex tights’ Sally Baker in our Christmas winter anthology. www.blackboughpoetry.com/news

Happy New Year to you all! Thanks to everyone who has supported Black Bough poetry and I this year! All the poets, readers, volunteers, boosters and good people ♥️ love ya! Rock on 🎸

✨🔔🥂💛🥂🔔✨ Wishing all my beautiful, kind, wonderful, sparkling friends here the best & happiest of years ahead. Thank you for lighting up my year with your dazzling brilliance🤩 I love you all. Shine on! ✨🔔🥂💛🥂🔔✨ #HappNewYear2026 #HappyNewYear #NewYearsEve

Charlotte Oliver, once again published in our Christmas and Winter anthology. @charlotteoliver.bsky.social ‘Needled with a tattooist’s care is suspicious frost’ 🪡 ❄️ ‘the dormant snakes of clematis’ www.blackboughpoetry.com/news

‘In this peeled potato winter/ the horizon goes on’ Ashley Linkletter in our Christmas-Winter anthology. #poetry #writing #writingcommunity

‘recreate the superionic phase of water’ Marta Bilkova with ‘Lunistice’ from our Christmas-Winter anthology. @martabilkova.bsky.social www.blackboughpoetry.com/news

‘New Year’s Eve’ by Ruth Higgins. ‘the moor’s a wave about to crest’ www.blackboughpoetry.com/news

Happy New Year to my guiding stars My one true North Star of Dublin Damien Donnelly @eatthestorms.com for steering me so graciously through my Storms Journal Odyssey & my Welsh Seren @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social for my perch on the #SilverBranch @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social You lit up my year🤩 I❤️U🥂

I’m enjoying the cold weather. I walk so much better. Here’s my poem Cold Repair from the Christmas & Winter Anthology @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social. Such a gorgeous book of poetry. I really recommend ❄️❄️❄️

Our Christmas tree has some interesting decorations including this year’s Christening and Winter anthology from @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social

🔔 A special two-day submission window opens for next year’s Christmas and winter anthology but only, as a thank you, for those who have bought our anthology. We will have another general submission window quite soon! 🙏 🎅 🎄 ❄️ www.blackboughpoetry.com/events #poetry #writing #poet

Our first TopTweetTuesday on Twitter for 2026 will be, you guessed it, a challenge… 26 words (max) on the theme of kicking over the traces/ new beginnings/ reinvention. As ever, focus on imagery, metaphor, invention. Happy New Year! May next year be a kinder, more humane one.

A new cohort of poets from the ‘Crafting Your Year in Poetry’ course 🤩 Focused!!!

Getting ready at the cafe on the Golden Gate bridge to facilitate a 'Crafting Your Year in Poetry' workshop, starting in 50 minutes, online. A group of writers joining to focus on their poetry objectives for the next 12 months. My, it's chilly up here!

Looking back at some of the places where my poems have found homes in 2025. Grateful for these opportunities and the brilliant poetry community I've met this year.

If you’ve signed up for this workshop today, check your inbox/ junkmail for instructions! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/crafting-y...

LAST CALL for participants for this workshop at 5pm, UK time, on Zoom THIS afternoon 30.12.25. We may close registration if we have too many sign up. Keep the size of the group sensible! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/crafting-y...

'a crystal-white, elven world' ❄️ 'vinyl crackle of carols' 🎶🎄 With the spirit of Christmas, a new poem 'A Christmas Bonus' for this week's TopTweetTuesday on Twitter and one of the themes, 'nostalgia'. 100 word limit was tough. Look forward to reading/ hosting. #poetry #Christmas

If you've done the 'Crafting Your Year in Poetry' workshop, this is a refresher bootcamp planning your next 12 months with fresh ideas & tips! Limited places. Book now. Wed Jan 7th, 6.30pm. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bootcamp-c...

‘I can feel the neighbours dreaming in their houses’ ❄️ 🎁 Kate Vanhinsbergh from our Christmas-winter anthology. www.blackboughpoetry.com/news