I am reading towards the end of the group launch. As soon as it is all over, I running up to bed and watching Wicked for Good with tea and crumpets…

Fifteen minutes!!! My nerves!

A sky determined to make up for yesterday’s drear & deluge.

Finished my little art book - "There are jewels of light on the bracken and lichen flecks in the forest." #minutiae

Happy New Year to all our followers! We have some brilliant issues planned for 2026. In the meantime, read our latest! More than 4,000 unique visitors have enjoyed it since we launched on 31 October. badlilies.uk

I am reading the entire “I, bird” sequence tonight - which is really just about grieving a family I will never have

I have watched a documentary about Michael Longley and can't stop thinking about his collection of eggshells and how, at times, he takes the swan's eggshell out and just holds it with both hands. I write. I, bird, write.

holding winter light

I quietly put my ear to the ground and heard summer forcing its way in and my heart beneath the earth… I knew with what weight of sweetness the summer was ripening… Agua Viva, Clarice Lispector

Fresh bone analysis makes case for earliest ‘ancestor of humankind’, but doubts remain

Eduard Kasparides 1917

Made another bockety little Jill McDonald style party puffin: no idea what for but that’s the joy of it. Absolutely stink at sewing but I hope this no pressure making for pure pleasure might improve my non-existent skills & I truly do love the mental peace of pottering away at these felt fripperies

The countdown to Keshed begins. Shouts to @regretteruane.bsky.social @heidijames.bsky.social @ortacpress.bsky.social @davidcollard.bsky.social @saloneurope.bsky.social @blackwellsmcr.bsky.social @oziasmidwinter.bsky.social @serenitybookshop.bsky.social stuhennigan.substack.com/p/countdown-...

Just got ready for this. Using a large scarf to carefully conceal my double chin.

Starting the New Year in the company of @rosamundtaylor.bsky.social’s compelling novel in verse ‘Filly’ from @bansheepress.bsky.social 🤩

Thanks @carcanet.bsky.social – delighted about this and very grateful to the Anglo-Hellenic league, @jhcreerw.bsky.social @sofkazinovieff.bsky.social & the judges of the #Runciman Award.

This is one of next year’s poetry highlights:

Re the Kinsella

On edge because of family situation, trying desperately to finish essay for Monday. Have already read these but bought my own copies to annotate for next term -

In a combination of prose and free-form poems, I, bird destabilises reality, conjuring aspects of David Lynch and Marina Abramović. This is a collection for our times - 'genocide is being perpetrated in a foreign land ... Now is the time for the 'Screaming Tree' ('The White Room'). - Amanda Bell

I loved The Night Manager

My fave 2025 airport bookstore moment. I'm convinced some English major employee had shelved them together

As I always say, if you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much fucking space, so I’m swashbuckling & swaggering into the new year with all the thrusting, thrill a minute explosive energy I intend to bring to every scintillating second of 2026. By which I mean, I’ve ordered a new bin

Birding (2025) by Rose Ruane (@regretteruane.bsky.social) One of the last audiobooks I listened to this year, mostly while spending hours walking around Turin trying to find vegan panettone (a far harder task than in 2024). I failed, but every minute was worth it to finish this wonderful novel.

In a half-hearted attempt to counteract this, I occasionally spritz myself with perfume

I’ve gone feral - I am living in a state of total unkempt wildness

'Tangier Bay at Night.' During his time in Tangier, John Lavery painted many nocturnes which for the most part are subtle transitions of grey and blue, adopting the vocabulary of Whistler, an artist he greatly respected. This is from 1913.

❤️❤️❤️

I realise that this is, undoubtedly, the worst time of the year to hold a launch. Everybody I know is away on holidays, for example. Hoping to hold an in person launch when @poetryireland.bsky.social reopens its doors later in the year.

Good #UKbirding start to the year at Filey Brigg before moving on to the Lower Derwent Valley. C.60 species. Dipped on the WT eagle but otherwise a good haul, including black redstart (UK lifer), corn buntings, GN divers, purple sandpipers, spotted redshank, tundra bean geese, and whooper swans.

⚡️👇🏻

We have Dane Holt teaching us Stephen Sexton, Padraig Regan and Susannah Dickey next term…. Looking forward to the challenge (though will not write my essay on them) The other class had Stephen O’Neill teaching them Milkman by Anna Burns which would have been more my thing.

💖

1st of the year, and it's #B&W for today's #BirdOfTheDay theme. Here's an Ae'o meditating on solitude. :) Happy New Year, everyone!

that was beautiful Hilda Morley

Who are the Palestine Action hunger strikers? https://aje.io/u20ygz

So much of any year is flammable Naomi Shihab Nye, "Burning the Old Year" #everynightapoem

A poem from Dennis O’Driscoll, born OTD in 1954. Dennis once told me he would have liked to track down all remaining copies of his first book and bury them in a landfill.

HNY from the Kingdom of Kent 🙂🌳

I realise that this is, undoubtedly, the worst time of the year to hold a launch. Everybody I know is away on holidays, for example. Hoping to hold an in person launch when @poetryireland.bsky.social reopens its doors later in the year.

Had the worst Christmas ever, seriously am not lying, can’t wait this crazy year to end and take only the beautiful bits into 2025+1, like this poem, quantum physics, and love. Ciao 2025. See you all on the other side.

A blessing for you all on the first day of the new year. By poet Thomas A Clark.

Forgive the self-indulgence, I simply speak plainly, and ruminate in the open. Incidentally, this year, I had the least autistic shutdowns and meltdowns as an adult (ever in fact). Goes to show that protecting your peace works (I have got better at it) – Japanese quiet and respect/order helps too.

In 2025, I visited Japan for the first time, left Florence, and moved to Tokyo, joining Tōdai; published a chapter on the philosophy of love, my first edited book, and a dialogue with Quentin Skinner. Transforming intellectually; forthcoming in multiple subfields. Despite hard times, I am grateful.

A so long old year melancholy poem by Italian Salvatore Quasimodo The rain is already with us Again a year is burned, without lament, without a cry upraised to win us - suddenly - a day.

This year ending & the next beginning is like a hellish horrible nuisance neighbour moving out & not knowing whether the new one will be another brutish bastard or a total sweetheart

@irishwriterscentre.bsky.social @poetryireland.bsky.social @booksireland.bsky.social

These are tender, lyrical poems. Ní Neachtain has a unique way of seeing the world - a mesmerising way of showing it to us. A gifted and welcome voice. — Martina Dalton (who is one my favourite people and one of the most talented writers of my acquaintance 💖💖💖💖)