Little Griefs the mini-tour continues with a gig at the brand spanking new Poetry Pharmacy in York! Featuring @kathryngray.bsky.social @matthewpaulson.bsky.social and @katymilkman.bsky.social Hope to see anyone northwards there 🙏 @poetrypharmacy.bsky.social
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/little-gri...
For this #WorldPoetryDay why not read our latest issue, 'Wildfires'? You won't regret it! badlilies.uk/issue-twenty...
For this #WorldPoetryDay why not read our latest issue, 'Wildfires'? You won't regret it! badlilies.uk/issue-twenty...
London book launch for Little Griefs! Next month in Covent Garden. Free but ticketed: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/little-gri...
Things we don't do: announce our shortlisted poems for @forwardprizes.bsky.social It feels somewhat...un-Bad-Lilies. All our blooms are fabulous, after all. We have shortlisted and God speed to all of them. Here's to some success for our selected poets!
We've finished spotlighting the poets in our new issue! Read the whole thing, 'Wildfires', here badlilies.uk/issue-twenty-three
Always an exciting new issue from the Lilies!
We've finished spotlighting the poets in our new issue! Read the whole thing, 'Wildfires', here badlilies.uk/issue-twenty-three
A Cure for Wellness When I met with the stern neurologist first to be examined then wired up then told to walk a line as straight as I could towards a window fogged by light When I used the words it taught me when I tried to say what the body felt I was told what I'd always thought to be the culprit of my disposition What I'd thought was a cue to hog or otherwise a choice to smash the chair to bits or stand on it to speak
Two poems by @timliardet.bsky.social badlilies.uk/tim-liardet-2
from Scavenger: 8/06/25 Squinting through the trees, early evening, I spot a strange creature with a lump bobbing on its rump. My brain adjusting to what my eyes message, I realise the odd vision is of a magpie picking ticks off a muntjac fawn. Entranced by this mutualistic relationship, I watch, not moving, until the magpie flies off the meal-ticket grazing its way towards the undergrowth. Cattle egrets, oxpeckers, jackdaws, crows and magpies reap the rewards of scavenging or scratching an itch.
Two poems by @lisadmkelly.bsky.social badlilies.uk/lisa-kelly-2
A Cure for Wellness When I met with the stern neurologist first to be examined then wired up then told to walk a line as straight as I could towards a window fogged by light When I used the words it taught me when I tried to say what the body felt I was told what I'd always thought to be the culprit of my disposition What I'd thought was a cue to hog or otherwise a choice to smash the chair to bits or stand on it to speak
Two poems by @timliardet.bsky.social badlilies.uk/tim-liardet-2
from Scavenger: 8/06/25 Squinting through the trees, early evening, I spot a strange creature with a lump bobbing on its rump. My brain adjusting to what my eyes message, I realise the odd vision is of a magpie picking ticks off a muntjac fawn. Entranced by this mutualistic relationship, I watch, not moving, until the magpie flies off the meal-ticket grazing its way towards the undergrowth. Cattle egrets, oxpeckers, jackdaws, crows and magpies reap the rewards of scavenging or scratching an itch.
Two poems by @lisadmkelly.bsky.social badlilies.uk/lisa-kelly-2
High Aspect Ratio Line fall releasing light-boned folk into the air, first solo flight, uncertain yet of pitch and yaw: turn left and right, attempt an elementary circle at giddy heights. Waiting for the break lend weight to flight; wheel and bank and, at a glance, map movement on the ground below.
'High Aspect Ratio' by Dominic James badlilies.uk/dominic-james
High Aspect Ratio Line fall releasing light-boned folk into the air, first solo flight, uncertain yet of pitch and yaw: turn left and right, attempt an elementary circle at giddy heights. Waiting for the break lend weight to flight; wheel and bank and, at a glance, map movement on the ground below.
'High Aspect Ratio' by Dominic James badlilies.uk/dominic-james
Turner's Bedroom, Hotel Europe, Venice, 1840 Turner, hero of one hundred fist fights with light, he alters the sky by using his eye as a jeweller's hammer introduces us to part of a bridge hidden for centuries behind Venice's back pours out fineries of smoke-brightened vapour a stretch of lagoon is stippled-alive by washes of wheeling headstrong colour he makes every cloud and rainbow his servant the waterway gleams like lionskin or the nispero's cousin, the apple's sister
'Turner’s Bedroom, Hotel Europe, Venice, 1840' by Penelope Shuttle badlilies.uk/penelope-shuttle-3
Les hasards heureux de l'escarpolette (The Swing) after Jean-Honoré Fragonard They've all broken in. The floating girl in her blancmange of petticoats, who kicks off her shoe like a ravenous convict tossing away a sucked-clean bone. The one who grips the ropes of the swing as if losing control of his chariot. And the hatless little priest for whom an angel just blazed into view. They've all broken in to the nuage d'orage in a flying machine.
'Les hasards heureux de l’escarpolette (The Swing)' by @shotscarecrow.bsky.social badlilies.uk/jon-stone-1
The Demon-Barman's Song And here's a drink and there's a drink and there's a bottle, aye, and I've distilled a brew for you to please you till you die. There's whisky like a dragon's mouth and beer that's like a bed. There's rum as warm as sugar cane. There's wine that's velvet-red. I've any flavour story here, escape routes by the score - it may look like a glass to you, but it can be a door.
Read 'The Demon-Barman's Song' by Ramona Herdman badlilies.uk/ramona-herdman-2
Les hasards heureux de l'escarpolette (The Swing) after Jean-Honoré Fragonard They've all broken in. The floating girl in her blancmange of petticoats, who kicks off her shoe like a ravenous convict tossing away a sucked-clean bone. The one who grips the ropes of the swing as if losing control of his chariot. And the hatless little priest for whom an angel just blazed into view. They've all broken in to the nuage d'orage in a flying machine.
'Les hasards heureux de l’escarpolette (The Swing)' by @shotscarecrow.bsky.social badlilies.uk/jon-stone-1
The Demon-Barman's Song And here's a drink and there's a drink and there's a bottle, aye, and I've distilled a brew for you to please you till you die. There's whisky like a dragon's mouth and beer that's like a bed. There's rum as warm as sugar cane. There's wine that's velvet-red. I've any flavour story here, escape routes by the score - it may look like a glass to you, but it can be a door.
Read 'The Demon-Barman's Song' by Ramona Herdman badlilies.uk/ramona-herdman-2
Their House Their house is a ship in the wind and the wind chimes chime all night like people waiting to get in, like people waiting in the walls, though these rooms have been emptied now for months and the bamboo grows between paving stones and grape vines tangle the chimes. A poet would say all wood wants to grow again. A gardener, only your grape vine needs pruning and if I was an architect I would build boats, because their house is a ship in the wind and it floats on something wider and deeper than water.
Two poems by @jwikeley.bsky.social badlilies.uk/jeremy-wikeley-1
A Winter Inventory One light left on in the smallest of hours. A figure behind frosted glass, reckoning up the comings and goings. The dark outside is growing crystals. Longer you look, more you see: a stunted cactus on the windowsill, metronome of gutter drips, broken sycamore embossed on sky. Beyond the garden, over our fence, the local school, abandoned, has run wild:
Three poems by Michael Symmons Roberts badlilies.uk/michael-symmons-roberts
Their House Their house is a ship in the wind and the wind chimes chime all night like people waiting to get in, like people waiting in the walls, though these rooms have been emptied now for months and the bamboo grows between paving stones and grape vines tangle the chimes. A poet would say all wood wants to grow again. A gardener, only your grape vine needs pruning and if I was an architect I would build boats, because their house is a ship in the wind and it floats on something wider and deeper than water.
Two poems by @jwikeley.bsky.social badlilies.uk/jeremy-wikeley-1
A Winter Inventory One light left on in the smallest of hours. A figure behind frosted glass, reckoning up the comings and goings. The dark outside is growing crystals. Longer you look, more you see: a stunted cactus on the windowsill, metronome of gutter drips, broken sycamore embossed on sky. Beyond the garden, over our fence, the local school, abandoned, has run wild:
Three poems by Michael Symmons Roberts badlilies.uk/michael-symmons-roberts
Random Forest It was the summer of suicides. Long shadows cast over the lawn. Heat gripped us. A death ray. Drove us crazy. Until we could no Longer help ourselves. Or each Other. When the time came. It came often. Without warning. Sparing only the weakest of us. Those who had less will to live. Decision trees danced in the distance. Ever present. Just out of reach. We dreamt of being caught In their branches. Enjoying picnics In their shade. Scuffed shoes and Muddy knees. Leaves in our hair. We dreamt of choices. Of paths Untaken. Roads untraveled. Possibilities dangled like future Tenses. Tempting us with certainties. Like Milgram's dial. Then winter Pulled up its cold white sheet.
'Random Forest' by @jpseabright.bsky.social badlilies.uk/jp-seabright
Mountain Top Our heads were almost poking the clouds when we reached the mountain top. Tempted, we were, to peek into heaven — startle God a little. The dews slept in tranquil on the chest of leaves, we sat amidst lush greenery, & within touching
'Mountain Top' by Abu Ibrahim badlilies.uk/abu-ibrahim
Have you read our new issue, 'Wildfires', yet? If not, now is your chance! badlilies.uk/issue-twenty-three
Random Forest It was the summer of suicides. Long shadows cast over the lawn. Heat gripped us. A death ray. Drove us crazy. Until we could no Longer help ourselves. Or each Other. When the time came. It came often. Without warning. Sparing only the weakest of us. Those who had less will to live. Decision trees danced in the distance. Ever present. Just out of reach. We dreamt of being caught In their branches. Enjoying picnics In their shade. Scuffed shoes and Muddy knees. Leaves in our hair. We dreamt of choices. Of paths Untaken. Roads untraveled. Possibilities dangled like future Tenses. Tempting us with certainties. Like Milgram's dial. Then winter Pulled up its cold white sheet.
'Random Forest' by @jpseabright.bsky.social badlilies.uk/jp-seabright
Mountain Top Our heads were almost poking the clouds when we reached the mountain top. Tempted, we were, to peek into heaven — startle God a little. The dews slept in tranquil on the chest of leaves, we sat amidst lush greenery, & within touching
'Mountain Top' by Abu Ibrahim badlilies.uk/abu-ibrahim
