Sometimes you read a poem on a particular day & it says something different than it would have you read it yesterday I'm going to let this poem by Mícheál McCann speak for how I'm feeling today It's more articulate & less libellous than words I might choose #poetry #poemoftheday #JasonArday

Another incredible night at Pub Poetry Portrush Thank you Ronan Hasson for being our Spotlight Poet Thank you poets it was a privilege to hear you share your words Thank you Tanya for opening up the beautiful Arcadia - no better place on a summer evening to share our poems #poetry #openmic

Today has 2 notable anniversaries – the end of WW2 and partition in India This poem seems to speak to both events. The end of something that is the beginning of something new that will eventually lead to the end of something ‘Someone listens and nods with unsevered head’ #poetry #poemoftheday

Today is World Organ Donation Day When our daughter was 13 months old she had a heart transplant You think you've lost everything, then a stranger in the midst their grief gives the most precious of gifts A kindness that has touched us every day for 22 years #poetry #poemoftheday #thegiftoflife

Today is National Vinyl Record Day When I got my 1st job every Friday I went to Makin’ Tracks and bought a new LP. Flicking through the rack was a tactile experience It felt like you'd bought something substantial, not just the music – but the art work, the sleeve notes. #poetry #poemoftheday

Day #11 #SealeyChallenge From Kae Tempest’s ‘Divisible By Itself & One’ It's perhaps more lyrical & self reflective than the other poems in the collection But it still has his trademark cadence & vulnerability ‘the more I try to fill the void the bigger it will get’ #poetry #poemoftheday

Absolutely buzzing (and a little bit shocked) about this Delighted to be shortlisted for the Scots Prize in The Wigtown Poetry Competition. Well done & best wishes to all the shortlisted poets in this & the other categories too #poetry #amwriting #Leid

Sometimes, even when advice is obvious, a reminder can be useful This poem by the Punk-Father of Poetry – John Cooper Clarke – is from his collection The Luckiest Guy Alive and is from a series of haiku ‘6 Haiku In No Particular Order’ #poetry #poemoftheday #SealeyChallenge #relax

Finally got to #fleadhcheoil   So proud of #Belfast showing the world the best of us, the vibe in town was special   Here Heaney contrasts his lived communal experience of music to a more commercial urban rendering   I wish he could have seen Belfast today   #poetry #poemoftheday #seamusheaneysunday

Today is International Cat Day 🐈 A little light verse from Stevie Smith that deserves attention even if only for rhyming hydrangea with ranger. Also, including a photo of my cat who claimed he was not hunting birds (please don’t ask his name) #poetry #poemoftheday #caturday

Today is the anniversary of the conviction & sentencing to transportation of Tolpuddle Martyrs, 6 agricultural labourers from Dorset In their memory I'm sharing this poem, later a song, written in 1871 by Eugène Pottier after the Paris Commune was crushed by the French army #poetry #poemoftheday

Today is the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima   One of my poems. Ferebee was the bombardier on the Enola Gay   Before joining the USAF he hoped to be a baseball player   I've read his public statements about the bombing, but public words & private thoughts can differ   #poetry #poemoftheday

I have decided to have a go at the #SealeyChallenge for the 1st time I will share the full list at the end of the month, but will share a teasing poem or two as we go along This is from Helen Mort’s new collection ‘Stepmother’. The love the pace & rhythm & rhyme in this poem #poetry #poemoftheday

It can be interesting to look at a poem with the benefit of hindsight This was written shortly after Britian entered WW1 Compare this to the tone of later poems of Owen & Sassoon Sharing today in memory of my great uncle Robert, among the 1st volunteers and never came home #poetry #poemoftheday

Today is the 90th anniversary of the execution of Roger Casement What is less well known about Casement is that he was an occasional poet. Sharing, not because it's a great poem, but to acknowlede the colonial strategy of language erasure Treasure language, every voice #poetry #poemoftheday

On the 1st day of Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann there is no better Heaney poem to share than this It's inspired by the story of a Blasket musician who heard a strange, unearthly melody from the sea & started to play along on his fiddle #poetry #poemoftheday #seamusheaneysunday #fleadhcheoil #belfast

Have just spent yesterday & today editing & redrafting a ‘wheen’ of Ulster Scots poems. That time of year when all the deadlines come at once This phrase best captures how I am feeling just now ‘The affener ye tramp on a coo-clap the bigger it gets’ #amwriting #editing #poetry #UlsterScots #Leid

Today is World Wide Web Day Lived half of my life with it & half without it. Life is easier but not always better Certainly without it we would not have this poem by Brian Bilston. The footnote explains how the poem was created Shakespeare sitting alongside Love Actually #poetry #poemoftheday

An ekphrastic poem by Sharon Olds as haunting as the image that inspired it A century later famine caused by politics, and sometimes as a deliberate weapon, is still a reality for many That final heartbreaking image though - comparing fertility with famine, life with death #poetry #poemoftheday

Today is #InternationalDayOfFriendship No better poem to share today than this The Prophet is one of my favourite books. It, and this poem, is filled with beautiful words & wisdom in equal measure. ‘in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed’ #poetry #poemoftheday

More #Odyssey Homer’s version of 'killing of the suitors' represents Odysseus's need for justice & the restoration of order Longley's poem differs, shifting focus from heroic avengers to blood thirsty killers The poem is an allegory for atrocities of the Shankill Butchers #poetry #poemoftheday

Today is the anniversary of 2005 IRA Ceasefire The Michael Longley poem below was written in 1994 The Trojan ceasefire, like the Irish, was a cessation rather than an end. Both wars claimed lives afterwards. 21 years later, we are still struggling to find reconciliation #poetry #poemoftheday

This short poem captures love in its most fragile and instinctive form, exploring its persistence beneath consciousness A whispered confession between sleep and waking becomes a metaphor for nature’s renewal, grass and flowers emerging despite the harshness of winter #poetry #poemoftheday

A recalled childhood conversation reflecting on the emotional impact of memory The Tremor, not Tarzan’s, is produced by memory returning Is there a colonial aspect to this poem too? Heaney framing the hero of childhood memory as a morally dubious figure? #poetry #poemoftheday #seamusheaneysunday

Today is World Drowning Prevention Day Read this poem slowly, there’s a lot in it Check on those you care about to make sure they aren’t drowning, suffering is often hidden behind ordinary gestures If you are drowning shouting out is better than waving #poetry #poemoftheday #ItsOkayToNotBeOkay

From Jericho Brown’s collection 'The New Testament' Two things worth noting that are unsettling The poem is presented as an elegy but doesn’t feel like a traditional elegy The 2nd person perspective moves us from reader to witness, to participant. #poetry #poemoftheday

Amy would have been 42 today On her anniversary - a poem by Patti Smith that later became lyrics to her song She stays away from sensationalism and sentimentality, this feels more like a lament It asks why we want our artists to be symbols before we allow them to be people   #poetry #poemoftheday

I am incredibly proud to graduate with an MA in Creative Writing from @manmetuni.bsky.social Special thanks to Jean Sprackland, kimmoorepoet.bsky.social & Andrew McMillan for the best 2 years To mark the day an extract from The Stirling Stanzas by Seamus Heaney #poetry #poemoftheday #McrMetProud

From @angelagraham.bsky.social remarkable collection ‘Exposure’ – photopoetics with the photos deliberately left out It explores the unspoken trauma of war Just as the omitted photos speak through Angela's poems the soldier says more about trauma in silence than with words #poetry #poemoftheday

On the anniversary of the moon landing a juxtaposition of a child's innocence & wonder with a critical adult recognising more troubling implications of the event. The title links exploration & conquest, whether humans can encounter something new without trying to possess it. #poetry #poemoftheday