We’re delighted to welcome back our #EcoSonnetChain editor, #LindaFrance, to conclude the opening quartet of our #ArtSonnetChain.
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2026/04/04/a...
Lots of further info on this episode of #PoetryWorthHearing, including texts etc from other participants, available here:
www.poetryworthhearing.biz/post/poetry-...
#EcoSonnetChain #NewBootsAndPantisocracies #WhalebackCityPress
@azjackson.bsky.social
Kathleen McPhilemy’s excellent podcast, ‘Poetry Worth Hearing’, featuring the launch of our #EcoSonnetChain, is now up on Spotify, Audible, and YouTube, introduced by #LindaFrance and featuring readings from almost all participants:
open.spotify.com/episode/1FeZ...
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies
Dear Pals, This is your friendly neighbourhood ‘Too Late to Make a Difference!’ reminder that tonight, at 7.30pm, we are launching the #EcoSonnetChain with #LindaFrance and a host of (well, several) contributors:
facebook.com/events/s/eco...
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies (1/2) @azjackson.bsky.social
So if you haven’t told him (Andy) you’re interested in coming along, drop him a notice now so he knows! Or just shout into a sock and hang that from nearby twig - that’ll probably work too.
#EcoSonnetChain #NewBootsAndPantisocracies
(3/3)
We expect you’re feeling the same way, having marked off the days in your #EcoSonnetChain Launch Advent Calendar, and can’t wait to get notice of that Zoom link from Good Editor @azjackson.bsky.social sent direct from his wintry fastness in, uh, Perthshire.
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies (2/3)
Folks, we’re at that exciting moment in the calendar where it’s #EcoSonnetChain Launch Eve! The organisers & poets can hardly sleep for thinking of all the audience members who will turn up tomorrow to hear us launch that jolly old pamphlet, edited by Linda France & myself.
(1/3)
Get your link to the #EcoSonnetChain launch!
We tried sending by bobolink (but they flew away); we approached the wraith of Link Wray (he wouldn’t say); we even left the link on Lincoln Cathedral (in a mystery play).
In the end we thought: just ask folks to just ask @azjackson.bsky.social!
Poems were posted online every fortnight; poets included Anne-Marie Balzer, Jemma Borg, @janeburn.bsky.social, Tishani Doshi, Steve Ely, @sophieherx.bsky.social, Glyn Maxwell, @helenmort.bsky.social, Emma Must, @calebparkinpoet.bsky.social, Jacob Polley, & @jsaphra.bsky.social
#EcoSonnetChain (2/3)
On Valentine’s Day #LindaFrance began our #EcoSonnetChain for which 14 poets each wrote a sonnet linked by last & 1st lines.
She said, ‘Our chain aims to embody the Amazonian ethic of mutirão – collective action based on the understanding everything is connected to everything else.’
(1/3)
#LindaFrance:
‘Our chain has a cinematic quality – each individual sonnet a scene, directed by another eye. In the looking, the poets help us see more clearly, stay more present and alert ourselves.’
#EcoSonnetChain (2/2)
#LindaFrance:
‘If offering careful attention is a gesture of love – a prayer, according to Simone Weil, and the original source of the sonnet form – these poets have all gazed intensely at a challenging subject most of us would prefer to look away from.’
#EcoSonnetChain
Here’s #LindaFrance’s generous and thought-provoking post on the #EcoSonnetChain on her Substack. As she says:
‘Our chain has a cinematic quality – each individual sonnet a scene, directed by another eye.’
open.substack.com/pub/lindafra...
As the old mnemonic goes, ESCDAC (Every Sonnet Chain Deserves A Crown), and the Eco Chain has acquired an excellent example thanks to the brilliance of its co-editor, #LindaFrance. Read it here:
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/08/28/e...
#EcoSonnetChain 15/14
Many thanks to the poets who took part in the #EcoSonnetChain:
#LindaFrance, #EmmaMust, @calebparkinpoet.bsky.social, #AnnSophieBalzer, @janeburn.bsky.social, #TishaniDoshi, #JemmaBorg, @jsaphra.bsky.social, #JacobPolley, @sophieherx.bsky.social, @helenmort.bsky.social, #SteveEly, & #GlynMaxwell.
…its entirety, her splendid 1st sonnet, posted on #ValentinesDay, set the tone:
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/02/14/e...
From then on, we posted new sonnets fortnightly for 7 months, featuring a baker’s dozen of poets.
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies #EcoSonnetChain #LindaFrance (2/3)
Now that it’s complete, we’d like to thank #LindaFrance for everything she’s done to make the #EcoSonnetChain such a success - it’s our best one yet, and that’s entirely down to her selection and editing nous.
If you’d like to check it out in…
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies (1/3)
…let’s just hope we’re not quite there yet, if ‘there’ is this vision from Westminster Bridge:
And on Westminster Bridge his brimming sobs
reveal the Earth has pretty much fuck-all
to show more fair, ne’er saw he, never felt
a calm so deep, he’d better find his folks…
#EcoSonnetChain (2/2)
We completed the #EcoSonnetChain with #GlynMaxwell’s masterful post-apocalyptic fantasia which takes us from 28 Days Later to Catch-22 in less than 14 lines via Python and David ‘all-time low’ Bowie…
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies (1/2)
Very pleased to announce that the final sonnet in our #EcoSonnetChain is by a certain #GlynMaxwell, and it certainly ends the chain with wit, style and… well, see for yourself how/if we escaped our certain fate:
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/08/14/e...
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies
Here’s an essay from eco-sonneteer, #JemmaBorg, which argues:
‘Poetry can get past all the kinds of barriers we set up within and between ourselves and between us and what we’ve historically called nature – that which we are embedded in.’
poetsfortheplanet.org.uk/what-do-we-m...
#EcoSonnetChain
Yes, these projects are closely involved with each other, but no, we did not pre-arrange this - sometimes, when you’ve been waiting for a ghazal for long enough, two just happen to come along at the same time.
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies #EcoSonnetChain #GhostFurnitureCatalogue
‘Ghazal Week’ continues in the mandorla formed by the Venn diagram containing #TheGhostFurnitureCatalogue (where, on Monday, we posted the ‘Table Football Ghazal’ by @azjackson.bsky.social) and #NewBootsAndPantisocracies (where, yesterday, we posted this as Sonnet 13 in the #EcoSonnetChain).
It’s Lucky 13 in the #EcoSonnetChain and it appears to be some bloke banging on about his holidays. It was all going so well, too…
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/07/31/e...
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies (13/14)
…Remember…
the greenfinch in the midland hawthorn
The ichneumons of Rafah,
a Species of Least Concern, their bitten-off faces and choked-off trichonomosis
screams. Garefowl hiding in the attic, wrens stitched into the lining of my coat…
#EcoSonnetChain #NewBootsAndPantisocracies (2/2)
#SteveEly’s eco sonnet is to sonnets what the megashark is to sharks - meaning it’s bigger, better, and more exciting than many sonnets, rather than it eats other sonnets. Or sharks. In fact it’s pretty pro-sharks & the other creatures it names, it’s us it takes against…
#EcoSonnetChain (1/2)
This week’s #EcoSonnetChain post is by #SteveEly and it is a big, beautiful and (appropriately) terrifying thing:
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/07/17/e...
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies
The volta in #HelenMort’s sonnet seems to subtly undermine the authority of all our would-be steersmen:
Outside, water outstrips the watermark.
The tigers line up with the quivering deer
and at the helm, a man who thinks he’s spared
stands in each parable and steers the ship.
#EcoSonnetChain
Our eleventh poem in the #EcoSonnetChain is by #HelenMort and deploys the motif of the Ark to powerful effect - the last few lines in particular take a moving, unpredictable turn:
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/07/03/e...
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies
“…Our Wandsworth teacher told us
how to tell ‘the black bib male sparrer’
from ‘the laidee one’, in her once common, now rare
south London chant... She’d yell from out
her Clapham grave to hear of sparrers in decline.
‘Parrakeets! You what?’”
@sophieherx.bsky.social #EcoSonnetChain (4/4)
