History has lured me here – a lining of moss on a crumbling log. This year, I'm hoping to release a 3-pamphlet sequence of haibun with @longbarrowpress.bsky.social. It has a Covid-19 theme, lockdown-restricted walking/writing process, & illustrations by my partner, Ruth. #HaveYouAlwaysBeenHere?

If one habit unites the leaders, inventors, scientists and artists who have forged our civilisation it is reading. Serious readers are over-represented in almost every area of human achievement. jmarriott.substack.com/p/the-dawn-o...

Staff were left in tears and there was a "real sadness in the room" when more than 200 University of Derby workers were called to a redundancy meeting earlier this week. It comes after the university announced proposals which could see around 265 staff lose their jobs... www.msn.com/en-gb/educat...

A union has said it is balloting for strike action after the University of Derby announced plans that could see more than 200 members of staff made redundant. The BBC understands the redundancy proposals involve 265 full-time equivalent job losses. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

On the 'opportunity cost' of Smartphones, 'behavioural contagion', & the new societal norms they produce: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad-s...

John Bevis, 'Cloud Study'; Dymo tape edition, 1981. “There is always a danger that the use of any system of names based on types shall lead to the neglect of everything not typical.”—Arthur W. Clayden, Cloud Studies, 1905.

Climate change though. Absolutely insane lack of panic about this www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Voters' voices are being shut out of British politics. Your Party has a radical plan to change that | Jeremy Corbyn

'... all going to nowhere, make no mistake...' www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlYt...

‘Seventieth Birthday’ - #RSThomas (Between Here and Now, Macmillan) #Bardd #Barddoniaeth #Cerdd #Poet #Poetry #Poem

I thought this John Berryman poem, exhumed from an archive by Shane Macrae and published in the TLS, was very fine.

Tony Harrison, poet 1937-2025

Sad to hear of the death of Tony Harrison at the age of 88. He was perhaps the last surviving major English poet of the 20th Century. I posted this on his birthday last year: x.com/SimoninSuffo...

‘Arriving’ - #RSThomas (Between Here and Now, Macmillan) #Cyrraedd #Arriving #Bardd #Barddoniaeth #Cerdd #Poet #Poetry #Poem

Initial Illumination, by Tony Harrison poetryarchive.org/poem/initial...

nside the Tony Blair Institute: Larry Ellison’s Money, NHS Data, and Democracy at Risk www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JHO...

Three places left on this guided walk around Ted Hughes's national service landscape. 11.00-3.00, Saturday 4th October. www.eventbrite.com/e/ted-hughes...

‘The Empty Church’ - #RSThomas (Frequencies, Macmillan)

RIP Tony Harrison: the first poet from my home city I read. I remember my first girlfriend calling me downstairs when she saw the re-showing of 'V' in the late 80s. 'There's a poet on TV! He's from Leeds!' The School of Eloquence is his masterpiece, & The Loiners is underprized.

And so everyone needs IDs? Are they actually saying this? What?

Nearly half of UK families excluded from modern digital society, study finds Exclusive: Lack of online skills and access creates digital divide that amplifies other exclusions, says report www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

trickle down economics trickle down economic trickle down economi trickle down econom trickle down econo trickle down econ trickle down eco trickle down ec trickle down e trickle down trickle dow trickle do trickle d trickle trickl trick

Available for a while on BBC Sounds…

Can't help feel that Labour's recent strategizing has shifted the Overton Window against their own interests & those of their core voters. The Morgan McSweeney approach seems to melt principles, fog long-term vision, & set up perfect conditions for backlash. It worsens cynicism.

I look forward to the peace conferences of the future when lies, hidden behind speeches, shall have their smiles blown away by the dove’s wings, fanning in silence. RS Thomas, from ‘One Day’

I enjoyed RS Thomas's Autobiographies more than Ian Hamilton did in 1997. Many passages read almost like those of a Japanese haibun master - & DO shed light on his relationship to poetry, Welsh nationalism, religion & science, & to nature especially. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v1...

Sadly, I don't currently have good enough tech to get age-verification through a picture, so I'm unable to use my 'chat' facility. Apologies to those who are trying to message me.

Out on the street, I went walking in a punishing heat -nobody meets my eyes except witty signs & luxury designs. Every neon sign every flashing light tries to fool you. Get you on their side, everybody swears they need you & only you to make the buy... www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMbi...

‘To be modern is to find ourselves in an environment that promises adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves & the world – & at the same time, that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are.’ All that is Solid Melts into Air, Marshall Berman

He was the ideal laureate of our age, painfully alive to the glory of what we’re losing. Now we’ve lost him, our Anthropocene spirit guide. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

Bruce Springsteen - Adelita (Official Audio) youtu.be/dbM6bwUeFq4?... via @YouTube

Godmother, when I die Make of my clay a jar And when you are thirsty, drink from it... youtube.com/watch?v=biwz...

Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful. www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/89897/...

Small choices came to matter in new ways. It felt important to me that the Akkadian word rīmu, often translated “wild cow,” should instead be rendered “aurochs,” to make clear that this was [..] a now extinct species of formidable, undomesticated bovines. themarginaliareview.com/climate-chan...

From Gilgamesh Book 1 translated by Stephen Mitchell: www.theguardian.com/books/2004/o...

Dead Internet Theory—the suspicion that you might be the only human left online in an internet full of bots. As the deluge of AI slop increases exponentially, James Ball suggested there is more than a grain of truth to this conspiratorial joke. www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/techno...

Uncomfortable hearing Campbell & Stewart 'reviewing' Gary's 'character' afterwards. What kind of character review would he give them? A strong media performance from Gary - valuable on several levels - inequality, social & mental health, meritocracy. www.youtube.com/watch?v=iD2s...

Actually recorded in a sea cave at North Landing [not South] Flamborough Head, East Yorkshire, August 2010. soundcloud.com/longbarrow-p...

‘Poetry is most deeply concerned with telling us what it feels like to be alive at any given moment… Before the poets we had no evidence of what it means to be a living person on this earth.’ ~ Stanley Kunitz, ‘On Poetry & Life: an Interview with Gregory Orr’

As Keir Starmer hires former Sun editor David Dinsmore as his new communications chief, a quick reminder of the sorts of communications Dinsmore helped to put out in his former job

"The major advances in civilization are processes that all but wreck the societies in which they occur.' ~A.N. Whitehead

Maybe the best poetry walk I've been involved in - thanks to the mighty Ray Hearne & the happenstance of the Mexborough Canal. Good memories, good weather, great audience. soundcloud.com/navigators-m...

Correction: Superstruct - the owner of Tramlines - was acquired by KKR in June 2024. KKR is "the largest stakeholder in the conglomerate that offers housing spaces in territories belonging to the State of Palestine" and continues to invest in fossil fuel companies. @sheffcitycouncil.bsky.social

Summer now is diminished, is less by him. Something that it could say cannot be spoken – As though the language of a subtle folk Had lost a word that had no synonym. ~ Norman NacCaig A beautiful poem on the death of a corncrake: 'A Voice of Summer'

"A brilliant press." - Ian McMillan "You'll never see a dud from Longbarrow." - Charlie Connelly Current publications longbarrowpress.com/current-publ...

Love this. Longbarrow Press, keeping it real. Inventory open.substack.com/pub/longbarr...

You have your language too, an eerie medley of clicks and hoots and trills, location-notes and love calls, whistles and grunts... www.ronnowpoetry.com/contents/kun...

I wrote this song at the start of the year and we're releasing it next week! ✨