Delighted to have two poems in @rustandmoth.bsky.social this autumn - one of my favourite magazines. rustandmoth.com/artists/esth...

The bird book said magpie. The window said rain. The memory said jam jars and giant’s grief. Jen Feroze turns softness into spellwork in #TheCodex. ➡️ thebrokenspine.co.uk...#TheCodex.@matthewmcsmith.bsky.social @jenferoze.bsky.social

There’s my husband! Somewhere in the bowels of Duncan…

HMS Duncan sails from Portsmouth this morning for sea trials and shakedown after 6-month maintenance period. Via: PortsmouthProud / Steve Wenham

Delighted to have placed joint second with myself (!) with two poems in the Write Out Loud poetry competition, judged by @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social's wonderful editor Neil Astley. Read his remarks (and all the winning poems) here: www.writeoutloud.net/public/bloge...

First taste of the cover and colours of Ghost Stations, out in September from @cbeditions.bsky.social . Essays on trains, stations, places, not-quite-places, centres and perpheries, imaginary poets and real artists, memory and forgetting. Ghost signs and missing letters.

The Friday Poem on 16th May 2025 open.substack.com/pub/thefrida...

Well this was a nice surprise. Turning to see my first born sitting on the shelf next to me while drafting her younger sibling.

If we hit our £5,000 goal, we’ll launch a poetry competition unlike any other—free to enter, big cash prize, real support. We’ve done it before with chapbooks & Reader’s Choice. Now, we need your help to go bigger. Donate today. #TheBrokenSpinePoetryAward 🔗 shorturl.at/G2mMo

If you haven't discovered @marjorielotfi.bsky.social yet, she is one of the best contemporary poets out there (Forward Prize winner 2024), and also a tremendous teacher. She's running an editing workshop on the 2nd of May - highly recommended. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/editing-po...

Tomorrow - Saturday!

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, even Barbie knows, that Ash Wednesday's a must. Tomorrow at St. Mark's; 7 a.m, noon, and 7 p.m. ⚓

Looking forward to tuning in at 12:00 today #PrivatePassions @imtiazdharker.bsky.social + Michael Berkeley #illustration #poetry (currently available on BBC Sounds) www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... 🎨🖌️📻

Only five days now until I interview the wonderful poet Imtiaz Dharker @imtiazdharker.bsky.social in Wootton Village Hall, just north of Oxford. 6.30pm, 8th of March. Get your tickets while there are still some left! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-evening...

Floored — totally and utterly — that one of my poems has been submitted for consideration in the @forwardprizes.bsky.social 2025. Hurrah!

There are still tickets left for this incredible opportunity to hear the poet Imtiaz Dharker speak in Wootton by Woodstock. 6.30pm on the 8th of March, curry supper included! Book here: www.eventbrite.com/e/an-evening...

See you there!

This event with renowned poet Imtiaz Dharker is going to sell out fast. Get your tickets now — especially as there’s a deadline of 25 Feb (catering requires it; a curry dinner is included!) www.eventbrite.com/e/an-evening... @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social @imtiazdharker.bsky.social

Stop saying ‘cringe’, start saying ‘gauche’.

I’m delighted to share that £5m of funding has been confirmed for the National Poetry Centre ✒️ When I learned that the funding for the Centre was under review, I began working with Simon Armitage & the Centre to lobby the Gov. to secure the funding. #NationalPoetryCentre

I’m thrilled to have just found out I’ve won the East Riding Festival of Words Poetry Competition 2025 — the poem will be published in ebook form with others, and will also be available to read shortly at estherlay.com

My poem “Citizen” from The Wrong Person to Ask (Bloodaxe Books) sums up how I feel about being an Iranian-American-Scot just now ⬇️

This is going to be a brilliant poetry evening! I’m interviewing the wonderful @imtiazdharker.bsky.social on March 8th in Wootton by Woodstock. Get your tickets (which include dinner) here: www.eventbrite.com/e/an-evening... 6.30 talk 7.30 dinner 8.30 open-mic

1. Sketch | 2 Feature on the New Yorker website | 3. Closeup of my favourite character in the ink drawing.

I drew the cover for this week's @newyorker.com

I am running a poetry workshop on ekphrastic poetry - writing inspired by visual art - on Tuesday the 11th of February at 11am in Wootton Church (OX20). If anyone from here would like to come along, please drop me a line!

I’m done dating humans. I’ve got a better idea—

Very exciting post just arrived from Canada. I couldn’t be prouder to have been published in Grain Magazine (now available for the first time as a digital issue!). grainmagazine.ca

This is a perfect poem.

Also, while I’ve got you, my new book ‘A Dress With Deep Pockets’ is available for pre-order now from the @poetrybusiness.bsky.social shop. Which is rather exciting. Grab yourself a copy here, if you like: poetrybusiness.co.uk/product/a-dr...

Next Monday 20 January, it is the Eve of St Agnes. Join us on zoom for a friendly event which combines new poems by Helen Farish and a communal relay reading of Keats’s atmospheric poem. 7pm UK time. Book free tickets at the link below.

It’s not too late to join January Writing Reset. 30 min = a warm up, poem + two writing prompts. We’re 1/2 way through and new folks are joining live/using the recordings every day, with bursaries still free. Comment if you’d like to join or help me spread the word if you’re writing & enjoying!

In around 4 weeks’ time the first blossom will appear in the hedgerows. Cherry plum flowers (Prunus cerasifera) are delicate & unassuming but that subtle glimmer of white (sometimes pink) is perhaps the most beautiful as it marks the end of winter & the prospect of warmer days.

The key thing, as poets and readers, is that we remain brave enough to stay true to ourselves, to trust our own instincts, whatever our preference...

The chortling at every appearance of Stanley Tucci’s “cassock” in Conclave meant that several Anglo Catholic priests missed chunks of the plot.

I have to develop a convincing 1940 Yorkshire accent by Saturday. What source material do I need to listen to?

Sketchbook doodling for the cartoon quoted below...

My new year’s resolution generator for @theguardian.com. Let me know what you get!

My latest cartoon for @newscientist.bsky.social

Hi everybody. We're a Madrid, Spain, based literary magazine. We publish in print and online. Right now Issue 2 is free to read and download from www.themadridreview.com Writers, poets, readers, artists: follow us and we'll follow you. Nice to be here! #litmag #literature #writers #poets #poetry

#DoubleDactyl of the Week falls mainly on the plain…

Still on my list of best decisions….

January news: tinyurl.com/yrud5rnf #GeorgeSzirtes awarded #KingsGoldMedal; @imtiazdharker.bsky.social on #NewYearHonours list; #MarieHowe @theguardian.com #PoemoftheWeek; #HelenFarish, #KatrinaPorteous & @vaikuspg.bsky.social London readings; @rsliterature.bsky.social remembers #FleurAdcock (19/02)

Word of the Day is ‘uhtcearu’ [ucht-kay-aru, with the 'ch' as in the Scottish ‘loch']: Old English for ‘the sorrow before dawn', when you lie awake in the darkness and worries crowd your mind.

8yo’s advice to 5yo on how to be polite: “Imagine I’m the Queen.” She keeps telling the guards to put him in jail when his speech isn’t 110% on point, and then saying, “Ok! Now let’s start again!”

'Dharker combines her poetry and drawings to deliver an exquisite and complex vision of exile, immigration, and adopted homelands.[...] This spectacular collection astonishes.’ - Publishers Weekly, on @imtiazdharker.bsky.social's new collection Shadow Reader. www.publishersweekly.com/978178037709...

For Twelfth Night, I made Twelfth Night buns, which were available on the streets of eighteenth-century London for those who could not afford the huge decorated cakes. Could these be a hit in our bakeries today? Please bring back the Twelfth Night bun I say. Who's with me?

Want to improve your poetry but don’t know where to start? Join me for an hour of Poetry Editing Basics that will help you hone your work into its best version. Friday 31st January 12-1pm. Plenty of bursary places available too - just email via my website! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/poetry-edi...