Clare Proctor

@munozpoems.bsky.social can you help me with this poem hunt please? It was in your workshop that I heard this poem, but Philip Gross himself can’t think what it is…

Can anyone help me find the poem ‘To Sandra’ by Phillip Gross please? Got ‘cat’s whiskers’ thinking it might be in there but it’s not…

Enjoying discovering Alex Dimitrov

Monday Alex Dimitrov

For this most Monday of Mondays, a Monday poem 🖤

'Doesn't it bother you sometimes
what living is, what the day has turned into?
So many screens and meetings
and things to be late for.'

Can anyone help me find the poem ‘To Sandra’ by Phillip Gross please? Got ‘cat’s whiskers’ thinking it might be in there but it’s not…

londongrip.co.uk/2026/01/lond... Thank you so much @pamthompson240.bsky.social for your kind, detailed and perceptive reading of Lilith.

The gift

Sometimes the recompense arrives
so far ahead of what you’ll give
that you will fail to recognise
the reciprocity, the love

that circles in the universe:
this life a grace advanced, its knack
to meet requital with its cause –
the offering up, the giving back.

Kona Macphee

That face. I know it well.

OPEN CALL!

REMIX OUR WORKS!

Guidelines: buff.ly/W6Q0BoP

DEADLINE Jan 31st.

#poetry #poetrycommunity #collage #art #artistscommunity #artists #writers #writingcommunity #indielit #indiemag #litmag #indiepublishing

JAMES MERRILL CHRISTMAS TREE From loes torn hamin Had been fed, looked after, kept still, Meant, I knew— of course I knew - That it would be only a matter of weeks, That there was nothing more to do. Warmly they took me in, made much of me, The point from the start was to keep my spirits up. I could assent to that. For honestly, It did help to be wound in jewels, to send Their colors flashing forth from vents in the deep Fragrant sables that cloaked me head to foot. Over me then they wove a spell of shining — Purple and silver chains, eavesdripping tinsel, Amulets, milagros: software of silver, A heart, a little girl, a Model T Two staring eyes. Then angels, trumpets, BUD and BEA (The children's names) in clownlike capitals, Somewhere a music box whose tiny song Played and replayed I ended before long By loving. And in shadow behind me, a primitive IV To keep the show going. Yes, yes, what lay ahead Was clear: the stripping, the cold street, my chemicals Plowed back into the Earth for lives to come — No doubt a blessing, a harvest, but one that doesn't bear, Now or ever, dwelling upon. To have grown so thin. Needles and bone. The little boy's hands meeting About my spine. The mother's voice: Holding up wonderfully! No dread. No bitterness. The end beginning. Today's Dusk room aglow For the last time With candlelight. Faces love-lit, Gifts underfoot. Still to be so poised, so Receptive. Still to recall, to praise.

James Merril’s poem “Christmas Tree,” written while he was dying of AIDS. 1995.

e(i 8: Collage wants YOU to remix our archive!

Let's make a crazy quilt!

See Guidelines for details: buff.ly/W6Q0BoP

#poetry #poetrycommunity #indielit #indiemag #litmag #writingcommunity #artistcommunity #art #collage

Brigid sitting on a highland cow, framed by an arch of books and birch trees. Over her head pages of the written word are floating, accompanied by a poem by Nikita Gill. The leaves in the trees also resemble book pages.

#FolktaleWeek prompt #4: Book

Brigid was the Celtic goddess of poetry & wisdom. Christian monks later made Brigid the Saint of poets. It seemed only fitting I should quote an Irish poet here: the divinely talented @nikitagill.bsky.social

@FolktaleWeek
#FolktaleWeek2025
#FolktaleweekBook

Thank you!

Billy Collins

The top of a carrot peaking through soil.

"I have left my body many times. Once I misplaced myself
inside my mother’s voice. She was peeling a carrot with
a small knife, the blade so thin it sang against the curling
skin."

Contributor and poetry reader @andhow.bsky.social has a new poem in @diodeeditions.bsky.social ❤️: buff.ly/yTTHHpD

can't wait to read your poems. Send me your bangers, both quiet and noisy!

As a child By Vidyan Ravinthiran because my voice was not the right voice and could not be understood I stood before the mirror — a murky glassen word this mouth can’t shape right to this day — and was made to watch my teeth and lips being imprecise. So this is why I come across a Southron and not from Yorkshire, or Sri Lankan; but I’ll complain no more about this clarified and potent tongue for when the moustached gent at US Customs asked me in his hapless twang are you a terrorist, my borrowed posh it sure abashed that poor colonial; and it was of course what my child-face perceived or could not in the glass which made of me a scrutineer of sound, a listener for and into every glitch in the aathma, the script, the avid void of English.

Congratulations to Vidyan Ravinthiran, who has jointly won (with Karen Solie) the Forward Prize for Best Collection with Avidyā (Bloodaxe). Its brilliant final poem, "as a child", describes how an early speech impediment led him to be "a scrutineer of sound" with a love of "the avid void of English"

At least - Forward Arts Foundation it is said/ that they died/ in their sleep/ one might imagine/ a peaceful state/ at least/ at least/ the...

forwardartsfoundation.org/poem/at-least/

For a Student Who Used AI to Write a Paper Now I let it fall back in the grasses. I hear you. I know this life is hard now. I know your days are precious on this earth. But what are you trying to be free of? The living? The miraculous task of it? Love is for the ones who love the work. —Joseph Fasano

For a Student Who Used AI to Write a Paper