before there was Selima Hill, there was Stevie Smith. some fun contents pages here

concrete proof that poetry is a disruptive force for good? i will be spending the rest of the day feeling incredibly smug lithub.com/can-adversar...

a revelation in St Mary’s Church, Whitby

briefly logging back on to share this brilliant article by Eliza Clark on the argument surrounding masculinity and contemporary commercial fiction. god she’s great www.vogue.co.uk/article/vani...

every weekend hundreds of people who’ve never left their houses before are unleashed upon York city centre to give ‘society’ a go

⭐A CHOICE OF 4 WORKSHOPS How to Write a Synopsis with Joe Sedgwick ✍️ Marketing Yourself as a Writer w/ @callieuntitled.bsky.social 📚 Poetics of the Haunted w/ @shevchenkoknight.bsky.social 👻 Writing Intimacy & Relationships with Rozie Kelly ❤️

on a separate note i’ve been getting really into Brian Eno, which i’ve heard can only mean good things

if you missed my poetics of the haunted workshop, fear not, i’ll be running it again in-person for National Creative Writing Industry Day alongside a whole host of amazing events @commapress.bsky.social - get involved here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-nation...

haven’t really posted on here in a while because it feels like shouting into the void BUT it feels important enough to say that i’m now a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Hull which has been a big dream for years now. probably the only thing worth void posting

choose your fighter

i have a few fun things coming up this autumn - including workshops! - so prepare yourselves for a thread 🧵

a dear pal sent me this old article by Žižek on poetry and the torture house of language. it is extremely compelling so i’m having to share here for those who haven’t already come across it www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...

reading a collection of Helene Cixous’s essays and she essentially pulls this move every time (which i love)

devastated to report that i finally started watching Girls because everyone in my life says i’m ‘such a Hannah’ and i wanted to find out what that means….and now i know…..

sooo interesting to watch this interview of Agnès Varda and Susan Sontag and see how Jack Kroll interrupts Sontag when she is talking about being interrupted, only to mansplain Citizen Kane. 1969. has anything changed at all lmao youtu.be/XTO61r_UjU4?...

recently came across interview footage of Bob Geldof in the 80s and it has completely rocked my world. i had no idea that man was so handsome and eloquent….almost enough so to forgive those atrocious christmas songs…..

working on a poem for a friend, which means i get to return to some of my ‘essential’ reading — sharing here as a lil treat for everyone else. in order, Sophie Robinson, Frank O’Hara, Anne Carson 🪨

forgot Larry David’s name and referred to him as ‘Curb’

a startling, original and thrilling new voice. — @rebeccatamas.bsky.social This is a brilliant debut. — Caleb Klaces An intimate & astonishing debut which asks us to pay close attention to what it really means to be alive. — @shevchenkoknight.bsky.social www.brokensleepbooks.com/product-page...

thrilled to share that i’m now a winner of the Somerset Maugham Award for Food for the Dead! it’s an incredible list of authors and i feel honoured to be joining that legacy. huge thank you to the judges, @societyofauthors.bsky.social, my friends, family and love for making it an evening to remember

📖 @johamya.bsky.social for The Hypocrite 📖 Ashani Lewis for Winter Animals (Dialogue Books) 📖 @jaseokundaye.bsky.social for Revolutionary Acts: Love & Brotherhood in Black Gay Britain (@faber.bsky.social) 📖 @shevchenkoknight.bsky.social for Food for the Dead (Jonathan Cape, Vintage)

Next up are the Somerset Maugham Awards, awarded for published works of fiction, non-fiction or poetry by writers under 30, to enable them to enrich their work by gaining experience of foreign countries 🧵 #SoAwards

Maya Caspari, Becca Drake, and Janine Bradbury all delivering phenomenal performances tonight at Bluebird Bakery in York. very lucky to call these poets our own 💙

just took my driving theory test (and passed!) but i met a girly at the test centre clearly hungover as all hell and she hit me with the

as summer approaches i am once again calling out to the void for novel recommendations! i’m a particularly big fan of Olga Ravn, Tove Ditlevsen, Olga Tokarczuk, and Ottessa Moshfegh… pls help me find more deliciously good books

Bruce Springsteen tonight in Liverpool welcoming onstage a ‘local lad’ Paul McCartney — yes i cried ❤️‍🩹

went for dinner and there was this face from a mural reflected in my friend’s cutlery but i didn’t realise that was what was happening at first and got scared that it was josie packard

ultimate compliment: someone told me my outfit was ‘very French’

Food for the Dead has been shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize 2025 — i’m very grateful to be included on the shortlist, and in such stellar company too, thank you to the judges ❤️ seamusheaneycentre.com/poetry-prize...

stills from a test shoot this weekend / making visual work as part of my new book-in-progress / these seem to work as a fun triptych / what does an embodied poetics look like? 💋

“‘A stupid place,’ I said,” / “‘for good-byes’” “‘I have only’” “one expression” “for my face,’ he said” / “‘I can’t smile” “I can’t cry” “I have my owl look—“ “‘Good-bye, my dear’” RIP Alice Notley 🤍

keep writing about the failures of language in different ways and then finding out Lacan already addressed my exact issues but in a much more chic and french way

i got to see Bruce Springsteen last night in Manchester — one of the most sincere performers there is, i was so surprisingly moved the entire time, keep in mind he played for THREE HOURS (!)

losing my mind over this reddit post where people seem to find it easier to believe that the characters of Dogtooth are ACTUALLY DOGS rather than the possibility that it’s a film about the extremes of abuse???

ever more interested in how the body speaks and what language can’t capture — what DOES an embodied poetics look like? — i keep turning to performance artists to answer that question / Nathan Walker puts it so well in this reflection on what we carry in the mouth www.futchpress.info/post/carryin...

A few pictures from the Oxford Brookes poetry symposium. Pictured @shevchenkoknight.bsky.social @wendypratt.bsky.social @susiecampbell.bsky.social @hannahcopley.bsky.social

seriously enjoyed my visit to Oxford Brookes today, hearing all the fascinating panels for their creative-critical symposium and getting the chance to share my PhD research. big thanks to @wendycaitlin.bsky.social for capturing me in a particularly gleeful moment

walking around campus as a phd student makes me feel like Nadine Hurley btw

getting excited to share my research on poetry, autotheory and censorship this week for Oxford Brookes’s creative-critical symposium AND to hear some of the amazing panels scheduled / it’s gearing up to be a fantastic day www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/stratifyin...

walked around an Ing yesterday which i found out is a yorkshire specific word — it means water meadow. even the swamps in yorkshire are more beautiful

i’m up with the dawn chorus listening to Fiona Apple’s Tidal and writing poems about a river / poet mode ON / we are so BACK

reading Wittgenstein today for a commission and had a scroll through his Wikipedia / found out rather weirdly that it’s the anniversary of his death today / rip to an icon

had such a lovely time reading @lyrafest.com / lots of bizarre coincidences and crossovers / a weekend of kismet in the Bristol sun 🌞

i’ve been re-watching my Twin Peaks boxset and oooh it makes me so mad that skipping the log lady’s intros is even an option…. we are silencing our beautiful women…..

travelling down to Bristol today to read alongside Ilya Kaminsky for @lyrafest.com — if you’re around, say hi! taking my copy of Autotheories ed @alexbrostoff.bsky.social to keep me in good company

i am once again stuck at home with a cold but this was just sent to me and it seriously brightened my day / thank you to Oliver @ Waterstones York for the thoughtful words and for making Food for the Dead a staff pick / i might be cured now

from Markus Werner’s The Frog in the Throat, translated by Michael Hofmann. i’ve been staring at this passage for 10 minutes. tulips.

i watched Pedro Almodóvar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown yesterday and i’m completely besotted with it! it’s such a tangible world and each character is treated with such empathy and acceptance despite all the absurdity. as real as it gets! ❤️☎️

a lovely easter weekend away in Norfolk 🚂