Share, like, boost in whatever way if you would like another Christmas and winter anthology next year - 2026 (and therefore a submission period in the new year) 🎅 🖊️ 📑 💻 ❄️ 🦌 ⛄️ 🎄 🪵 🔥 🎁 💝

Proof copy of the Christmas-winter edition has been e-mailed to the poets. Proof by Monday night please! Actual footage of exhausted editor!

Anyone know a poet Judy Smith - possibly English poet? Judy is a contributor for our Christmas edition but lost her email and bio!

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.

Christmas is coming! ❄️ 🛷 ❄️

Short biographies being completed for the proof copy of the Black Bough Christmas-winter anthology, no. 6! Bios usually take 2-3 hrs to do. 🎄🤶❄️🔔🎁📖

Thanks @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social for a lovely open mic evening yesterday. Everyone was brilliant! 🤩 Really enjoyable featured poetry From @paulwritespoems.bsky.social

What a wonderful way to spend an afternoon/evening--amongst such brilliant, convivial, and generous poets!

Poets, are you ready? Full details here: paulwritespoems.com/2025/09/08/t...

Brilliant @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social open mic last night expertly hosted by @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social with @paulwritespoems.bsky.social on superb form as the featured poet. I recommend the Black Bough open mics to all poets on here. Welcoming, convivial and of the very highest quality

Jabberwocky, read by Paul Connolly. @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social poem by Lewis Carroll #poetry #spokenword #openmic

@iantattum.bsky.social poet - at our #spokenword #openmic

Poet @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social at our #openmic #spokenword

Poet @eleanorholmes.bsky.social performing at our online #spokenword #openmic

@wrenwoodwrites.bsky.social at our #openmic this evening #spokenword

Great session tonight Matt. Many thanks for hosting. And a brilliant featured set from @paulwritespoems.bsky.social

Our feature writer at the #openmic this evening. Newcastle poet and blogger @paulwritespoems.bsky.social #openmic #spokenword

Our #openmic - rich, cerebral, inventive work tonight. Two poets new to online open mics who smashed it. Featured poet was Newcastle’s @paulwritespoems.bsky.social #spokenword #poetry @iantattum.bsky.social @eleanorholmes.bsky.social @sarahraybould.bsky.social @wrenwoodwrites.bsky.social

At many of our online #openmics we're going to have some surprise feature poets. This evening it's Paul Short @paulwritespoems.bsky.social Newcastle poet, who also moonlights as a book blogger on The Book Bag paulwritespoems.com

Pushcart Prize nominations need to be sent to New York by the end of the month (date stamped for end of Nov) www.pushcartprize.com

Our writing themes for next week on Twitter’s TopTweetTuesday: Humanitarian / pacifism / human rights / charity. Up to 80 words of poetry, free verse, imagistic, inventive. Combine posting a poem with doing something for charity and let us know what you did so you promote the cause.

A new #poem wot I wrote this morning in celebration of #Autumn for the lovely weekly event that happens to be TopTweetTuesday on Twitter. ‘Another Autumn Poem is Released into the World like a Takeaway Flyer’ 🍂 🌧️

‘on certain days, / you can see the finer points of a possible extinction/ baiting the blades. dances with hard winds’ 🗡️ ☁️ 🪽 🌧️ 🌞 An amazing suite of #poems by @jakkybankong-obi.bsky.social www.blackboughpoetry.com/jakky-bankon...

Wow! This feels like it was an AGE ago ... when in fact, it's been less than a year since this appeared. My thanks, still, to @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social, @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social, and my former BBC journalist interviewer @elcurwen.bsky.social. 🙏🏼

A poem from my collection, In the Shadow of Gods. Consider getting yourself a copy, links in post below or reviewing it. 👇

This year, we mourned the loss of Devon-based poet Sarah Connor - here is her Christmas special feature on the #SilverBranch in 2021. @sarahsouthwest.bsky.social www.blackboughpoetry.com/christmas-special-21-sarah-connor

Our Christmas 2024 feature, Mark Antony Owen - a #SilverBranch special. 'their orchestra of shovels tuning up on the ice' @markantonyowen.com www.blackboughpoetry.com/mark-antony-owen-christmas-24

' a dun sky pregnant with snow' Mary Earnshaw, our 2022 Christmas #SilverBranch feature. @maryearnshaw.bsky.social www.blackboughpoetry.com/mary-earnshaw

‘We have eyed the mystery of one another' 'Wren' by Rachel Deering from 'In the Shadow of Gods', available with Black Bough, a bumper collection. @racheldeering.bsky.social www.blackboughpoetry.com/rachel-deering

'consider the audacity of living wild' 💗 'we found their dragnet-cobwebs mazed and latticed in gaudy metaphors of finest spinner architecture.' 🕸️ An amazing writing feature by Nigerian writer Jakky Bankong-Obi @jakkybankong-obi.bsky.social www.blackboughpoetry.com/jakky-bankong-obi-october-2025

‘sweetness fledgling in the crowning dark as roving plovers, lovers, linger over last lights and coquetries.’ Jakki Bankong Obi 🖊️ 💎 @jakkybankong-obi.bsky.social’s #SilverBranch feature 🥰 www.blackboughpoetry.com/jakky-bankon...

Rewind back to last Christmas and our Christmas & winter anthology 🎄 ⛄️ 🎅 www.blackboughpoetry.com/christmas-wi...

Next week’s #writingprompt is… Winter, winter festivals, Diwali, Christmas. Imagistic, metaphorical, inventive, free verse #poetry, 80 words max, no A.I. of course ☝️ Get writing! On Twitter only.

#GuyFawkes #Firework night #poem from last year!

Good luck to @eatthestorms.com and @rhonagreene.bsky.social on the launch of The Storms Journal this evening!!! ⚡️ #poetry #poem #poetic #writing

Opportunity for those who like to make up caricatures of different types of poets (doing impressions). Fictional types of course, not based on anyone particular. Apply within.

At a foodbank near you. 😢 The quiet anarchy of the volunteer who cannot be in the photo with the MP. #poetry #foodbank #poverty #CeasefireNOW #welfarerights #politics #GazaCeasefire @teamlabouruk.bsky.social @plaidcymru.bsky.social @libdems.org.uk @socialistworker.bsky.social

One of mine in here 🥶, such an atmospheric collection.

Including my Best of the Net nominated poem "Night of the Winter Solstice" ❄️

A poem from my collection, In the Shadow of Gods. 👇

‘flamethrowers rut all season long and everything’s a flare of crimson hearts’ ♥️ 🔥 ‘we kiss in the aegis of bramble and pine so tender’ 🥰 @jakkybankong-obi.bsky.social #SilverBranch feature. Check it out! www.blackboughpoetry.com/jakky-bankon...

‘Like a stranger whispering in the next room, snow comes to the desert, surprising even the saddest bird.’ ❄️ Regine Ebner from her collection ‘Mountains that See in the Dark’ www.blackboughpoetry.com/regine-ebner...

Fill your snow boots with winter poems. Last year’s winter anthology in hard and soft back ❄️ 📖 🕯️ ❄️ www.blackboughpoetry.com/christmas-wi...

‘He moves his foolish tools along the rows, to tend his lonely life, the only sun he knows.’ @jamesmcconachie1.bsky.social from his poetry collection ‘Consolamentum’ www.blackboughpoetry.com/consolamentu...

‘a yearning of notes flung to the sky gods that sail upon the high wind’ 🐺 @racheldeering.bsky.social from ‘In the Shadow of Gods’ www.blackboughpoetry.com/rachel-deering

Are you a poet? Are you looking to improve your writing routines, profile, publication rate and self confidence We’ll be working on our writing plans. Join us on Sunday 16th November, 6.30 - 9.15 Uk time www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/crafting-y... #poetry #writing #writers #amwriting #poets

@saraswatinagpal.bsky.social poetry collection 'Drench Me in Silver' is available now on Amazon and at your door in days! Available at: shorturl.at/82QxI #poetry #writing #poet #poetic #Indianpoetry

@merrildsmith.bsky.social fantastic collection Held Inside The Folds of a time is in The Book Bag today. Published by @janes-studio.bsky.social Plus all the regular shouts/news/opps and playlist @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social @fullhouselitmag.bsky.social @eatthestorms.com

Thank you, @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social! 🖤

Two of our runners up from the #Halloween #micropoem contest - @hool415.bsky.social and @helenlaycock.bsky.social