Sarah O'Connor

The image is a collage poem sitting on a background of pink & purple. It incorporates a broken up Barbie doll, the phrases "Broken armies", "Judy also thinks back" and "the herring gulls throng". On top of this sits the Loose FM logo of a large pair of cartoon eyes and in orange boxes the text : Line // Breaks 8pm // Tuesday 24th March 2026. Poets talking poetry live on Loose.fm

Mostly very excited & only marginally terrified to host this new poetry radio show on #LooseFM with @galiamelon.bsky.social & #AnnaKibbey. Join us at #LineBreaks for some excellent readings from @karanchambers.bsky.social @oliverinthenorth.bsky.social @zosiasamosia.bsky.social 🎙️📻💙📚 #booksky #poetry

My friends at Poetry at Leeds University have opened the Brotherton Prize up for submissions; it's open to anyone in the world over the age of 18 who hasn't yet published a full collection of poems. Full deets &c here: poetry.leeds.ac.uk/brotherton-p...

I didn't realise I needed to read this article today but I did 🙏❤️

I’ll never forget the horror of the Covid wards | The Observer

observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

I read this cover to cover today and it is just as beautiful, present & moving as I thought from Natalie's reading. Full of life and language and craft ❤️📚💙

Tonight I heard Natalie read from this & it was wonderful. Really looking forward to reading the whole book ❤️🙌

Sonnet for Perimenopause – Victoria Spires Sonnet for Perimenopause . . Victoria Spires is published in Berlin Lit & The London Magazine. She has been commended/shortlisted in: Ledbury, TPW Prize, Aesthetica Arts, Artemesia Arts, Plough…

Sonnet for Perimenopause – Victoria Spires @victoriaspires.bsky.social

atriumpoetry.com/2025/10/03/s...

A reminder of what can happen when politicians are led by policy not popularity 🙏🙌

this is an extraordinary canary in the coal mine

Go on, stick yer name on.

I love London so much. So much.

Did you know that London has the lowest level of ethnic violence of any city of comparable size in the world?

Multiculturalism has in fact worked here. They just don’t want it to be true because we happen to have a Muslim mayor.

When I left India, Ireland welcomed me in. I won’t let bigotry destroy the country we love | Cauvery Madhavan People from the Indian community, and others, are facing violence that was once unthinkable. We must not give in to the racists, says novelist Cauvery Madhavan

Please read this timely and excellent opinion piece by our @irishpen.bsky.social Board member @cauverymadhavan.bsky.social Cauvery Madhavan.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

So utterly sick of politicians saying the most unfathomably cruel things because they want to be treated like a celebrity with controversial opinions and not a public servant, which is what they are elected to be.

So my final stack for #TheSealeyChallenge I got to 23 rather than 31 but given the number of collections & a few languages scattered through I'm more than happy. Some excellent writers discovered & the realisation there are loads of pockets of time in my day for #MorePoems #SealeyChallenge #Booksky

The cover of An Arbitrary Light Bulb by Ian Duhig

One last collection... book 23 for the #Sealeychallenge. Not 31 but definitely more than I would have thought possible in one month!

On Balance by Sinead Morrissey from Carcanet Press. The cover shows a range of prizes - Poetry Book Society choice, Costa shortlist & Winner of the 2017 Forward Prize

Book 22 of the #SealeyChallenge was a random selection that caught my eye in the library yesterday. Really excellent, absorbing poetry, I need to read more of her work! 💙📚

"Could the rain-carried pain be my banshee's caoineadh,
soothing my homesickness in its own morbid way?"

#TodaysPoem #poetry
I can't reach the greengage and my tomatoes are blight-ridden. by Sarah O’Connor (@sarahocwrites.bsky.social‬) (2024 @anthro-poetry.bsky.social) tinyurl.com/yc64ha8h

My favourite book of 2024 now available as audio 📚🎧🙌❤️

Cane Corn & Gully by Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa. The black cover has swirled sections of purple labanotation

Book 21 of the #SealeyChallenge & I'm very ready for some fiction next week! So thank god for this burst of kinetic poetic electricity. A wonderful book and it has left me eager to see her perform her work to better understand the live-ness of it

The Quakers are doing exactly what all public services are legally allowed to do even if the EHRC wants to pretend they're not: say gender-based toilets are inclusive and for anyone bothered by that as a matter of belief, there are stand-alone cubicles that they are very free to use. 1/

@lesfugitivespress.bsky.social + poetry 🤩 = Colour me excited 🤗

Advanced capitalism has exhausted us. We can only see the “labour” in “labour of love”. Instead of a lessening of burdens, we’re being offered a tool to remove that labour. But this labour is synonymous with the love. This work is the work of being alive. Don’t settle for outsourcing your life.

The blue & red cover of En l'absence du capitaine by Cécile Coulon from Le Castor Astral

Book 20 for the #SealeyChallenge and I'm clearly getting quicker reading French! This collection didn't hold me as much as some of her earlier work unfortunately but I do love the physical size/shape of these poche editions 💙📚

The cover of fil/Uh by Gemma Jackson has a black abstract line drawing on a white cover

Book 19 of the #SealeyChallenge is this snack-size pamphlet from Salo press. One of the more experimental works I've read and one I will need to digest & re-read next month

The cover of The Coin by Caleb Parkin from Broken Sleep Books

Another pamphlet for book 18 of the #SealeyChallenge and this one is a lovely exploration of the role of matriarchs in a family without getting overly sentimental

"People do not want the messy, uncomfortable truth that disabled people know—that we are all only one infection or accident away from disability. That disability is not a choice, but a natural variation of existence."

Every single word.

Why do editors keep getting taken in? Because they want to.

MIGRANTS AREN'T THE PROBLEM INEQUALITY IS Green Party Promoted by Chris Williams on behalf of The Green Party, both at PO Box 78066, London SE16 9GQ

Migrants didn't cut council funding. Migrants didn't cut NHS funding. Migrants didn't close youth centres. Migrants didn't sell off council houses. Migrants aren't filling our rivers with sewage.

Farage and co. will tell you to point the finger at migrants.

Don't fall for it.

The 2024 Ayamati Pamphlet winner - And I will make of you a vowel sound by Morag Anderson. The cover is a deep inky blue with an image of a young woman in a short white dress sinking under water, head thrown back over her shoulder

Book 17 of the #SealeyChallenge and this one though short is like a rich deep drink of language. Really original use of imagery that you must read slowly to absorb 💙📚

The Butterfly House by Kathryn Bevis. A pale woman looks sadly towards the butterfly landing on her outstretched finger as her hair melts into a kaleidoscopic image of more butterflies, a house and human organs

Book 16 of the #SealeyChallenge holds a power and a sadness within some incredibly well crafted poems. Glad this was one I read at home when I could sit with it & not out & about

The bright blue & red book cover of The Terrible by Daniel Sluman from nine arches press.

Book 15 of the #SealeyChallenge is this explosion of poetry. Sharp, energetic and unblinking this book dares you to look pain in the face and sit with it. Absolutely wonderful 💙📚