Overjoyed to share that I have a new poem in @sageciggs.bsky.social! Huge thanks to the editors for selecting my work! 💜🖤 Read the full poem here:
sagecigarettes.com/on-hearing-b...

Overjoyed to share that I have a new poem in @sageciggs.bsky.social! Huge thanks to the editors for selecting my work! 💜🖤 Read the full poem here:
sagecigarettes.com/on-hearing-b...

Not every return is easy. Some are necessary.
#PoemsAbout is one of those.
Be in the room.
#PoemsAbout #OpenMic #Return

Before A Modest Flock Of Endangered Monks Something hypnotising about these cowled-dodos plainly singing, using a key only they were given: I felt their prey. Julian Cason

Hullo @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social and to fab 18 word #fragmentsfriday
#poetry

Hello @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social and @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social Here's my #micropoem for #fragmentsfriday

Grateful to have a new poem published in @stonecirclereview.bsky.social ❄️

stonecirclereview.com/winter-on/

Introducing the first group of #Wave3 poets who will take it further:

@bethosmond.bsky.social @danieldugganwriter.bsky.social @vespertine4.bsky.social @dbodepudi.bsky.social @fionaswriting.bsky.social

This is a serious line-up.

#TheWhiskeyTree #Wave3

An honourable mention this week on #fragmentsfriday for @helenlaycock.bsky.social
who was the judge’s fourth favourite poem. 🥂

Thanks to @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social ‘s older sister Emma for choosing this week 🙏

Always interesting to see how “cosmic” gets interpreted.

If it sparks something in you, follow it through.

We’re currently open for #Firmament #Slimline — poems that sit with scale, silence, and everything that resists easy language.

No rush. Just depth.

Thank you so much, @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social! I’m genuinely surprised and really honoured. This means a lot❤️

Call for Submissions: Poetry That Reaches Beyond - The Broken Spine Submissions Open Throughout April 2026 | Publication Later That Year

We’re not looking for description.
We’re looking for inquiry.
#Firmament #Slimline #PoemsAbout #PoetsOfBluesky

Hello @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social and @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social Here's my #micropoem for #fragmentsfriday

Call for Submissions: Poetry That Reaches Beyond - The Broken Spine Submissions Open Throughout April 2026 | Publication Later That Year

This one sits apart.
#Firmament isn’t leaving the world — it’s asking what frames it.
Bring us work with scale, control, and intent.
#Slimline #PoemsAbout #PoetsOfBluesky

A night sky filled with stars stretches above a dark mountain range. The foreground is in deep shadow, with silhouettes of trees and parked caravans faintly visible. A soft glow from a small building sits low in the scene. The Broken Spine logo, shaped like a black fountain pen nib, appears in the top left. "@thebrokenspine.co.uk" is written in white at the top right. Bold white text at the bottom reads: "Read Repost Reply #POEMSABOUT #EDGEOFKNOWING".

#PoemsAbout #EdgeOfKnowing starts Friday. Write the moment before understanding slips. Where meaning thins. Where certainty doesn’t hold. Draft now. Share from Friday. Tag your post. Use Alt Text.

Welcome To The Wombwell Rainbow Ekphrastic Challenge 2026 featuring 16 creatives responding to 3 artworks a day, over 30 days. Artworkers are Phil Hyde, Francis H Powell and Molly Ovenden. Day Seven o... GPH7 Dairy Icecream MO7 FHP7 WHEN YOU SAIL AMONGST SHARKS   Your senses sharpen. You find yourself looking for shadows, darkening every grey.   You fear the red and everything it gives aw…

thewombwellrainbow.com/2026/04/07/w...

Revisiting my two poetry collections from @animalheartpress.bsky.social and @icefloepress.bsky.social! Still so thankful they believed in these poems! 🩷🩵🩵

A black-and-white photograph of seabirds flying above a calm sea. Gentle waves roll toward the shore beneath a pale sky. In the centre of the image, handwritten-style text reads “#LIFTTOTHESKY,” with “@thebrokenspine.co.uk” beneath it. The Broken Spine fountain pen logo appears in the top right corner.

#LiftToTheSky is a reminder that reading is relational.
Lift the work that moved you, not the work that flatters you.

Welcome To The Wombwell Rainbow Ekphrastic Challenge 2026 featuring 16 creatives responding to 3 artworks a day, over 30 days. Artworkers are Phil Hyde, Francis H Powell and Molly Ovenden. Day Six of ... FHP6 AND WE DANCEDI can feel now the flow of our stepsas our feet patterned the floor.My soul still singsfor the music that lifted us,had us young again, the whole night aheadand us in one another’…

thewombwellrainbow.com/2026/04/06/w...

Revisiting my two poetry collections from @animalheartpress.bsky.social and @icefloepress.bsky.social! Still so thankful they believed in these poems! 🩷🩵🩵

Call for Submissions: Poetry That Reaches Beyond - The Broken Spine Submissions Open Throughout April 2026 | Publication Later That Year

Submissions are open.
#Firmament is looking for poetry that reaches beyond the immediate — into scale, silence, and the unknown.
This is not escape. It’s perspective.
#Slimline #PoemsAbout #PoetsOfBluesky

True Realty I would distraught and violence at your absence, be all of the capables: non, in, and un but not hysteria for a never ever arrival, life was gruntled then dokey and hokey-ly intact. Yet should you dying, die, or death I too am disappearance, we both must both comprehension of that. Words sometimes need benting, re-rawing, to conduct the true power of facts. Julian Cason

Hullo @tomsnarsky.bsky.social and to #smallpoemsunday #poetry
Thanks for hosting Tom, have a great Easter’

Call for Submissions: Poetry That Reaches Beyond - The Broken Spine Submissions Open Throughout April 2026 | Publication Later That Year

What happens to the self at cosmic scale?
#Firmament wants poems that ask difficult questions — and don’t rush the answer.
#Slimline #PoemsAbout #PoetsOfBluesky

2nd place on #fragmentsfriday Dorian Nightingale 🥈

Who also happens to the author of our book of the month! #poetry #writing

1st place on #fragmentsfriday Ryan Hooper’s ‘What slips’ 🥇 🏆

‘the wintered marble rolls away from arthritic fire’ ❄️ 🔥

Wow!

Black-and-white graphic of a vintage typewriter seen from above. Torn paper strips sit in the typewriter reading “£1200 RAISED” and “WIN CASH” in bold lettering. Below, the hashtags “#TheBrokenSpineAward” and “#ByPoetsForPoets” are printed. The overall style is gritty, high-contrast, and zine-like.

Our prize matters as much as any other poetry prize.
Which is to say: it doesn’t.
But it was built honestly and together — and that’s enough.
#TheBrokenSpineAward #ByPoetsForPoets #PoemsAbout #LiftToTheSky

Voyager The fingertip we cut and threw; that last look back, pale blue dot: our single shared suspended tear. Julian Cason

Hullo @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social for #fragmentsfriday 18 word challenge.

Need some fresh reading for the spring? Check out Regine Ebner's 'Mountains that See in the Dark', set in Arizona.

www.blackboughpoetry.com/regine-ebner-s-collection

#poetry #writing #books

Hi @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social👋 Here's my poem for #fragmentsfriday

On the Hanger

Home: an empty hanger
until he’s here—
an amber cardigan,
every pearl button fastened.

Simply Dylan at The Bijou: Keeping the Flame Alive Without Playing Dress-Up - The Broken Spine There’s a particular kind of alchemy required to approach the catalogue of Bob Dylan without either genuflecting into museum-piece reverence or collapsing

thebrokenspine.co.uk/2026/04/02/s...

Made in Mexborough A hidden river runs through their earth words, a horse whinnying, snorting visions bolt after them, it starts more or less solid word chemicals – bubbling, fuming, multi-col oured, becoming clearer on the page, pits and potteries subside into the flow, bulls and crows hulk and gnaw as river shifts in their veins that bend to write what they know.

Word clay spins on the goddess watered wheel of their insights as their hands shape the day. Hard, dull, high quality, steams words between softer, brighter ones work their way. Massingham, Hughes, Eley, Beal and Parks craft Don and Dearned liquid turned, mined, image graft. Paul Brookes

In delirium that this poem is featured on the Doncaster heritage site alongside such talent: