Almost everything we argue about is a substitute for the thing we should be arguing about: the immense wealth & power of an oligarchic class, which captures governments, ruins lives and wrecks the living planet.
This class redirects our rage at scapegoats. To resist its lies is to resist its power.
Sublime. Started my day with this, and it’s unlikely to be bettered. 🙏
The @nationaltrust.org.uk only rarely ask their members to take political action, but when they do, it’s seismic.
Please take the NT’s action, email your MP demanding the Government protect 30% of the UK for nature by 2030: campaigns.nationaltrust.org.uk/page/186395/...
bsky.app/profile/nati...
Our latest anthology has the most beautifully relevant and hard hitting poetry today ✊💎
www.amazon.co.uk/Poems-Protes...
Screenshot of a bird sighting: Common Swift Apus apus Location Portland, Dorset Seen today 09:42 one flew in off the sea at the Bill mid-morning
It begins
Congratulations Lesley! 👏
Of The Empire We will be known as a culture that feared death and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity for the few and cared little for the penury of the many. We will be known as a culture that taught and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke little if at all about the quality of life for people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a commodity. And they will say that this structure was held together politically, which it was, and they will say also that our politics was no more than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of the heart, and that the heart, in those days, was small, and hard, and full of meanness. - Mary Oliver
God this poem is haunting me again.
"A spectral picture, composed of shadows; a phantom picture, a picture which did not last for long and, therefore, struck his imagination far more powerfully than would have done a motionless picture hung for him to look at all day long."
- Marcel Proust, JEAN SANTEIUL
A podcast I didn’t know about so a lot of catching up to do. Thanks for the heads up John.
If you listen to poetry podcasts, there is a new in-depth interview with me by @gregorykearns.bsky.social out today on The Poems We Made Along The Way. I talk about queer joy, neurodivergence and the techniques I used to begin poems in Crowd Voltage. (Available on most podcast platforms.)
The Obligation to be Happy, a poem by Linda Pastan.
“my old suspicion that health
and love are brief irrelevancies,”
On the burden of having to pretend, Linda Pastan. In a world led by charlatans cheered on by the gullible the notion of compulsory happiness has never been more tiresome.
#poetry #WritingCommunity
I like these two . Thank you to Sarah Dixon for today's #FoxOfTheDay
Come to Manchester Central Library to meet Stairwell Books at the 2026 Northern Publishers' Fair!
📍 Manchester Central Library
📅 25th April 2026, 11am - 3.30pm
🎟️ Book now at fly-on-the-wall-press.eventcube.io
#northerncreatives #northernpublishersfair #publishing
This is superb - and pushes further up the list another of the poets whose work I still need to read more of.
We'll be among the 60+ poetry publishers at Free Verse on Saturday 25 April (Knightsbridge, London): hope to see you there.
Mirror Image, a poem by Louise Glück.
Sometimes Louise Glück’s poetry hits you like a punch in the stomach, only it stays with you longer.
#poetry #WritingCommunity
A neurologist once made med students write down 3 things: somebody they love, something they look forward to, a skill they're proud of. Randomly she then tore up some of the bits of paper. That, she said, is what neurological diseases do. In a year of loss and cancellation, I think of this so much.
I've just extended the deadline for Mental Health Poetry to 30th May! Lots going on right now :)
roughdiamondpoetry.com/submissions/
A landscape photograph of the Scottish mountain Slioch, from the shores of Loch Maree, with autumnal trees and a Scots pine in the foreground.
"And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,"
W.B. Yeats
#poetry #landscapephotography
Given over 21,000 entries I'm grateful and still staggered in equal measure to be among the poets longlisted in the @poetrysociety.org.uk National Poetry Competition.
Congratulations to all and thanks to the organisers and judges for shining a light on poets we may otherwise miss. #poetrycommunity
Fantastic news Paul, well deserved. Congratulations!
"Poetry is words in their least lucrative order."
(Recalled by Earle Birney)
Beautifully described, and wood anemones have got to be one of the cheeriest of spring flowers!
This is sublime. Awoke with this poem and it might already be the best part of the entire day.
Poem by Billy Collins entitled Introduction to Poetry.
Billy Collins - Introduction To Poetry
#poetry #writingcommunity
Happy #WorldPoetryDay
Let's celebrate together, use the LOVEPOETRY code at the Nine Arches checkout for 25% off #poetry books when you spend £15+
What's missing from your shelves?
ninearchespress.com/shop #ReadMorePoetry
In a world that seems more lost than ever this is a stunning poem. 🙏
“And, while death claims all things at the end,
There were such precious times between,”
Black and white photograph of deserted beach, the wind creating patterns on the sand.
“The tragedy is not that we are alone, but that we cannot be. At times I would give anything in the world to no longer be connected by anything to this universe of men.”
—Albert Camus
#writingcommunity
Fabulous, this reminds me of Hopper!