This was a great event in a lovely venue. Home-made cakes and bicycles repaired! (That’s one for any Jennings fans out there.) Thanks to Mary, and Brian, and everyone who came along.

"Those places are so resonant, they speak of the past, but that inevitably makes you think of the future..." @helentookey.bsky.social and @martinheslop.bsky.social on their new text/audio collaboration 'To the End of the Land'. Full interview here: longbarrowpress.substack.com/p/on-the-air

For those of you in Liverpool, this is in stock at the fantastic @deadinkbooks.bsky.social on Smithdown Rd, along with all kinds of intriguing books you won’t find in other bookshops… so get down there and check it out!

Published today! Text and sound work by me and Martin Heslop, derived from a residency at the Elizabeth Bishop House in Nova Scotia, beautifully produced by Longbarrow Press.

Here’s the text of one of the pieces from To the End of the Land, by Martin Heslop and me, out next week from Longbarrow Press longbarrowpress.com/featured-poem/

"It’s as though you’re able to stand outside the present and see yourself as a kind of ghost..." @helentookey.bsky.social and @martinheslop.bsky.social on their new text/audio collaboration 'To the End of the Land'. Full interview here: longbarrowpress.substack.com/p/on-the-air

So pleased to have this work coming out with the fantastic @longbarrowpress.bsky.social!

Really looking forward to this event at @deadinkbooks.bsky.social Smithdown Rd on 24th - Jake will be reading from his fantastic new book and we’ll be chatting about it:

Oops, pressed post too soon. Thanks to the AHRC for supporting this project. It started from thinking about Lowry’s stories in Hear Us O Lord from Heaven Thy Dwelling Place, which refer to the Isle of Man and have an overriding concern for the natural world.

Thanks to

The Mersey, rippling across itself like a kind of static

The Mersey this morning. (The tiny thing in the middle is a channel marker buoy.)

In possibly the most Viz-like thing I’ve ever done, I have just used jam-jar labels to organise the airing cupboard. (People of a certain vintage might recognise the duvet cover at the bottom, an artefact from c. 1987).

Ran into my former BSL teacher yesterday and was chuffed to remember enough to have a decent conversation. I’ve only managed Level 1 so far but I’m still pretty proud of that. And it’s a fascinating language to learn.

I can highly recommend The Blue Hour by Angelina D’Roza. I’m halfway through, reading it slowly to savour the language and imagery. It’s melancholy, but at the same time rich and vivid. Like a gorgeous and sad film.

This, from my @rilch-ljmu.bsky.social colleague Jake Morris-Campbell, will be excellent:

Gregory Kearns has been making these excellent and very in-depth podcast interviews with poets about all things poetry - search The Poems We Made Along The Way

Husband goes to the dentist, comes back with this little lot, from Oxfam (apparently they’d only arrived yesterday). Got no excuse now, have I…

So there’s Bobby Gillespie in the Guardian the other day saying he really likes Cliff Richard’s ‘We Don’t Talk Any More’, and there’s me at our MA Christmas social yesterday putting on a YouTube 70s’ party mix and the FIRST tune up is ‘We Don’t Talk Any More’. Spooky.

This looks good…

If this doesn’t persuade you to follow this account, nothing will.

Here’s the Research Institute for Literature and Cultural History at LJMU - we run events and seminars in Liverpool and we’ll be posting here about anything we’re up to.

Wholesome and Slightly Unlikely Facts Discovered from the Guardian, no. 1 in a possibly occasional series: Joan Armatrading is a big fan of the Beano.

Beautiful books from @longbarrowpress.bsky.social, carefully packaged with a handwritten note as always. Indie publishing at its best.

Really sorry to read that Terry Griffiths has died. One of my snooker faves and by all accounts a thoroughly decent bloke. Tickled to learn that he won the world championship the first time he was in it, much to his own surprise.

I had NO idea, until it came up on an episode of Star Trek: Voyager, that Americans pronounce the word ‘buoy’ as ‘booey’. I am charmed.

Absolutely delighted to hear they’re making a film about the fabulous Fifth Marquess of Anglesey, who blew the entire family fortune on amateur theatricals and outrageous outfits. We’ve got a picture of him on the sideboard because why would you not.

@drlucyfaire.bsky.social hooray, here we both are!

Always good when a new issue of the Long Poem magazine arrives. I highly recommend it if you’re into, like, long poems.

Yes, this. As an example, I’m grateful to John Greening @greeningpoet.bsky.social whose collection The Silence led me to the music of Sibelius- I didn’t know it at all before but it’s beautiful.

Harvest from the very small crabapple tree that we planted in our very small garden in the spring. Don’t think we’ll be going into production any time soon but it was fun anyway.

‘Expect light rain in the next hour’ says my phone, cheerily. It’s been raining, not especially lightly, ever since I got up. Get with the programme, man.

Reading Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy for the first time. Kind of like Dickens on acid. (I’m enjoying it.)

We’ve got some mirrors on the walls of our yard and a great tit has suddenly started pecking or tapping endlessly at them, presumably because it thinks it’s another bird. Will it stop eventually, or do we need to take the mirrors down? (As well as the noise, I’m worried we’re upsetting the bird).

Has anyone seen Threatening Music Notation on here? I used to love that account. Along with @nocontexttrek1.bsky.social which I’m delighted to find again!

A great collection from a great poetry press…

Hello Bluesky. Here’s a picture of the fabulous Day of the Dead altar we made @thebluecoat.bsky.social to celebrate Malcolm Lowry