That one of the oldest songs in the English language is a complaint about the weather will surprise nobody: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirie_i... www.youtube.com/results...
Mirie it is while sumer ilast - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Ian Duhig
@ianduhig.bsky.social
'An Arbitrary Light Bulb' the Poetry Book Society Winter 2024 Choice: "some of the most moving, restrained, memorable and technically adroit poetry of our times" --- TLS, 3/25
cf "Can you explain all the gaps in your damn poetry, Oppen?"
The Arrival of the Jarrow Marchers in London, Viewed from an Interior, by Thomas Cantrell Dugdale, 1880-1952 (Museum of the Home).
St Margaret of Antioch protected herself from the dragon in her cell by telling it ghost stories. It found these so frightening that she had to lend it a security blanket to help it fend off panic attacks.
'And thus it came to pass that this angel editor was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone . . .'
Woman walks into a Hull hairdresser and asks for a perm. Certainly, he replies: 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?' #NationalPoetryDay
Was told someone bought the book because of this review, which is the best response we can ever hope for 💛 ya, literary community
Independent Lit@independentlit.bsky.social · 2w agoOur latest review is out! Matthew Rice’s poetry collection, plastic (@fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social 2026), radically unites poetry and low-paid labour. ‘In a space of demanding physical labour like the factory floor, poetry is, in fact, a forbidden substance, stimulating the imagination.’
Friends, come and talk to me about Irish poetry in Aberdeen and we can catch up over a single malt or two. www.abdn.ac.uk/riiss/news-e...
Call for Papers: Alas Yes: Irish Poetry After Heaney, 20-21 February 2027
abdn.ac.uk
This Is Just To Say I have eaten the poems that were in your typewriter and which you were probably saving for National Poetry Day Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so bold #NationalPoetryDay
Itō Jakuchū's 'Frog' of 1790 for me is the iconic image of numbed uncomfortable bafflement at the predicament of existence in the coming modern world, much as Munch's 'Scream' expressed it through horror.
Virginia Woolf said of him, 'Here comes Tom Eliot in his four piece suit." Could this waistcoat be from that suit?
John Hughes@johnmelhughes.bsky.social · last wk.The Vest Land would be an absolutely atrocious pun...
What do you call the huge grey poet in the middle of the room being ignored by everybody? TS Elephant #HappyBirthdayTSEliot
One of the many gems of Dublin folklore about Yeats, recorded by Richard Ellmann in 1946.
John Wayne followed by a set worker defrosting his horse for a scene in The Alamo, 1959. Photo: Dennis Stock
Delighted to see Matt Rice on this in good company with Maighread Medbh and Tishani Doshi, Daniel Brenchi-Sluman and one I can't read www.englishpen.org/posts/news/p...
PEN Heaney Prize 2026 shortlist - English PEN
English PEN announces the six shortlisted titles for the PEN Heaney Prize 2026.
englishpen.org
“I saw that my witticism was unperceived and quietly replaced it in the treasury of my mind.” ― Flann O'Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds
Dannie Abse #botd once told me he went to do a reading where the MC introduced as Dannie's surname as 'Abbs', presumably after an analogy with the poet Peter Abbs. Dannie gently confided to the MC that his surname was actually pronounced 'Abbsy'. 'Oh, grand' said the MC: 'You can call me Jonesy!'
My favourite is that "average" comes from an Arabic word meaning "lost goods", and had been used by sailors to describe the practice of fairly sharing storm losses for ages before mathematicians thought that's a useful calculation
Grateful for an extremely thoughtful and perceptive analysis of Singletary (shearsmanbooks.bsky.social), by Mandy Pannett, in the latest issue of Tears in the Fence tearsinthefence.bsky.social
On a bus with a TV screen showing me what's going on outside my bus window. it's like being in a less-exciting version of Don Paterson's poem 'Postmodern'.
