@iambapoet.com I’m very excited to be an iamb poet! And in wonderful company in wave 23. Thank you @markantonyowen.com for bringing me into the family!

The end of @estelleprice.bsky.social’s sonnet suddenly shifts scale to convey the emotional impact of clearing a house: It’s only when I stand in the empty, confused bungalow that I tissue the memories, packing them tight, like faulty chromosomes, inside my little finger. #GhostFurnitureCatalogue

I’m so pleased to have a poem on the National Poetry Society Longlist! It’s my 3rd time on the Longlist which means getting down to the last 100 or so poems from 21,000. I’m happy to be amongst poets I respect and excited to read the winning poems and shortlist! #poetrysociety

What is it about an arched doorway? Maybe the suggestion of something more, a calling to look up, to feel small, to feel possible? All these from #Cordoba

‘A few books I’ve just read sail by like schooners on the way to the Bermuda Triangle, where they will disappear without trace.’ from Start of a Late Autumn Novel, by Tomas Tranströmer. If only it were possible to make those ships and their cargo come home when they’re needed 😳😳

Oh the dangers of Google Translate which has persuaded a Spanish museum that this rather lovely 2/3rd century carriage ornament is in fact a ‘car auction’ 😳😂

In a Cordoba side street the pencils and books of the poet Antonio Gala are displayed. He wrote this city was - always missed/ his thirst/his childhood. After two days I already love this place. Córdoba’s white pathways and red arches keep bringing me to thresholds. So many footsteps echo here.

At my first ever poetry workshop we were asked to write a version of Lorca’s Song of the Rider (Cordoba). Mine was synonym-stuffed and inedible. I’ve happily lost it. Today I’m in Cordoba - perhaps it’s time to try another. Maybe call it ‘Song of the Passenger’ as I got here on the train?

Real Alcazar in Seville has a poets’ garden and a poets’ courtyard. The courtyard looks a little grim but is a peaceful space. It’s named for Romero Murube, JOAQUÍN, a friend of Lorca. Here’s a line of his, ‘The only sadness of mirrors is not having a voice.’

I’m so pleased to have a poem in this Broken Spine anthology themed around the ‘city at night’! It’s out in April #brokenspine #glow #cityatnight

Is the Pompidou Centre beautiful? I think so. But I’m not sure why? Is it the red underneath the stairwell or the half-moon passageways? Or perhaps the chance to see people strolling on balconies? Or just the sense of something delicate yet mighty, crafted from steel and as balanced as a flamingo.

‘Two truths approach each other. One comes from inside, the/other from outside,/and where they meet we have a chance to catch sight of ourselves.’ Tomas Tranströmer from Preludes in The Half-Finished Heaven, Selected Poems. I’m waiting for that meeting at Plymouth Station. No sign of it yet 😂

Some days I’d rather be an otter or a penguin but preferably an otter or a penguin in the wild. These two live behind mesh in Cornwall. I wonder what they’re thinking.

My commended poem from the 2024 Ver Poets Competition

Something about wood that makes me want to shrink, climb into the gaps and be cradled by the heartwood. Even if it is dark. Three images of David Nash wood sculpture at MOMA Machynlleth

So much sadness and death this January - not actually inside our house but certainly in the garden. And added to it Michael Longley’s death announced today - a poet of music, place and great dignity www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Michael Longley: Acclaimed NI poet dies at 85 - BBC News

Belfast-born poet Michael Longley dies aged 85, his family says.

bbc.co.uk

Love this poster in the loo at Felin Uchaf on Pen Llyn!

I’m so pleased to have a commended poem in the Verve Festival Poetry Competition judged by Hannah Lowe. My poem is called ‘Words’. Hoping to learn some new ones in 2025! Congratulations to all who were brave enough to enter www.vervepoetryfestival.com/post/verve-p...

VERVE Poetry Competition 2025: Winners, Commended Poets, 11-17 Category Selected Poets

Poetry has the power to move, transform, and connect us. This year’s VERVE Poetry Competition brought together voices that explored the art and essence of poetry itself. Centered on the theme of Poets and Poetry and judged by the brilliant Hannah Lowe, the competition drew a dazzling range of entries—each a unique testament to how poetry speaks to, and through, us. We’re thrilled to unveil the winners, commended poets, and long list from a pool of incredible talent! All poems listed here will be

vervepoetryfestival.com

Lines of poetry tripping each other up in my head after the T. S. Eliot awards tonight. All wonderful but I think Carl Phillips gets my vote (if I had one) but I also loved Gustav Parker Hibbett’s high jump poems. I wish all the poets could win.

Fitting today to think of the ‘blue remembered hills’ of the past but perhaps also to be more realistic than Houseman and acknowledge that the past and the future hold both gold and dust? And what difference would it make to this poem from A Shropshire Lad, if the hills were green?!

My first BlueSky post. This poem excites and confuses me. It’s fragmentary, personal, musical. The line breaks so well done. It challenges me to go out and make Christmas Eve ‘be a day’ even if the days before held ‘distant somethings sliding by’ even if they were ‘angry’. I’m off to find a bakery!