Poets on Film, Mon 18th August 16:45 - 17:45 Edinburgh International Book Festival Tickets: www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival...

Newcastle Contemporary Art, Thursday 24th July, 6 p.m. I'll give a talk about Turner Prize-nominated Delaine Le Bas' exhibition '+Fabricating My Own Myth– Red Threads & Silver Needles' and will read poems from Outlandish. Pay as you feel tickets here: www.visitnca.com/events/talk-...

A short film about Delaine Le Bas' +Fabricating My Own Myth – Red Threads & Silver Needles at Newcastle Contemporary Art youtu.be/KH-HnoOKCIw

Congratulations to Sharon Black, whose poem 'Baggies' has won the new @poetrysociety.bsky.social Tobias Hill Poetry Prize. 'Baggies' was chosen from all poems published in the Members’ Poems competition from 2024-2025. I selected 'Baggies' in Summer 2024 and write about it here in Poetry News.

"You tell me you are a poet. If so, our destination is the same." - @carolynforche.bsky.social

Struggling with the cognitive dissonance of witnessing genocide through a phone screen. Can't stop thinking about @carolynforche.bsky.social's poem 'The Boatman' when we read in Newcastle over ten years ago. "Leave, yes, we obey the leaflets, but go where?" www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...

June is #GRTHM Join me Sat 14th at @themerl.bsky.social for the launch of new exhibition 'The Long Road' and a day of GRT history, readings, live music, crafts & more. Free event, 11 am–4 pm ☕ I'll also be talking about my Fellowship and exciting new writing #grthistorymonth #GRTSB

Fantastic news, congratulations Jo and MERL, what a great partnership.

What a great decision! MERL continues to be amazing all around.

Great news, congratulations Jo! @joclement.co.uk

Oooh! What an exciting collaboration this is between @themerl.bsky.social & the brilliant @joclement.co.uk - whose poetry collection Outlandish, I love. So much excitement from a museum, its people, reach & stories, I need to go & have a biscuit or three.

A good question. 'Roma', 'Romany' and 'Travellers' are three distinct ethnic groups. There are more. I'm a British Gypsy. Within all the groups people will interchangeably use or reject the word as a self-identifying ethnic marker. Depends entirely on the individual and the context.

a wonderful and exciting Fellowship! congratulations, @joclement.co.uk!

We’re thrilled to announce that @joclement.co.uk is joining us as our new MERL Fellow! Jo will produce poems and videos responding to the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller materials in our collection, while enhancing the accuracy of our labels. Welcome Jo! Read on: merl.reading.ac.uk/blog/2025/04...

Amy Key wrote a brill Substack about kid's clothes recently. I always pick things like this up and say how much I want the texture, shape and general whimsy in grown-up sizes.

A new bop from the coolest bean.

Found a great piece on Simon Armitage's Gawaining in Green Letters.

Want to read stuff made by proper humans and creators to be paid a fair wedge? Write to your MP about Creative Rights and AI. This effortless template even autogenerates your MP's details: creativerightsinai.eaction.org.uk/MP Thanks to @societyofauthors.bsky.social for this campaign.

After a few hours at it, I've got my first eBook download to move into Calibre. Go Slaughterhouse Five! FYI - I am downloading eBooks I've bought so I can move my library onto another device if I decide to leave the Amazon/Kindle ecosystem.

Glad to see people stepping back from Amazon shopping, including Kindle. I often buy eBooks for research and teaching convenience because I don't want to physically own every book I consult. And not everything is available via my library. I double-buy most books in hard and digital formats.

Currently trying to download over 300 books from my Kindle because Amazon has quietly announced that after February 26th, you can no longer move the books you 'buy' across devices. Louder for people at the back! *you do not own digital content*

The new Butcher's Dog anthology of South Asian poets in the North East - THRESHOLDS - found the toastiest of welcomes in Middlesbrough Town Hall's Crypt. Thanks to everyone who came to show support. #PoetryCommunity #poems #independentpublishing #northeastculture

Northern folkies - see you in Boro for some poems? Freespill x Butcher's Dog x Borderlands present THRESHOLDS, 5.30-8 pm Tuesday, 18th February in The Crypt. I'm told it isn't as creepy as it sounds... Tickets here: www.tickettailor.com/events/borde...

Imagined item of clothing: those god awful red baseball caps but embroidered instead with the entirety of Langston Hughes' Let America Be America Again.

Still fond of how the blue bird connected us all before it got bullish. 15+ years camaraderie with friends, readers, scholars and artists to let go of. If you're leaving too, here's how to download your archive. Only takes a few days to appear. Helps to find folk.🌻 www.wikihow.com/Use-Your-Twi...

Anyone else downloaded their Tweet archive? I unzipped it and found my photos (great) but the text unhelpfully opens as HTML. The last time I downloaded (pre-Musk), it was a simple date/content Spreadsheet. Deactivating, but I would really like to keep my stuff, esp. any research.🌷Any ideas?

I've looked at this plate found in a London sewer every day since I first saw it. ( post a non-religious picture you think of as holy )

Haven't worked out how to account hop easily just yet, but Butcher's Dog is here too. @butchersdog.bsky.social ( Bluesky tagging looks a wee bit inelegant but that's likely one of the differences they had to establish between this platform & what will forever be known as 'the chaos over there' )

"If you are, as I am, a nomad, draw a border around me: make me your country." --Abdulla Pashew Tr fr Kurdish by Alana Marie Levinson-LaBrosse

Roy and I have enthusiastically selected collections together for the Poetry Book Society over the past two years, so tomorrow we'll be raising a glass to all the fantastic books we've read, selected, and reviewed. And, of course, to us - it's been a blast!

Rare reading from my first collection, Outlandish (@bloodaxebooks.bsky.social), tomorrow at Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts alongside Roy McFarlane, plus a conversation with the brilliant Tara Bergin. Preti Taneja and Alice Kate Mullen from the Poetry Book Society will introduce the evening.

Who wouldn't want to smell like a delicious hot pastry? * spritz spritz *

Oh great! Another garden to tend.