Sophie Herxheimer

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Out today on zimzalla: Colour / Grammar by Greg Thomas, a set of colour-coded eco-poetry postcards, in a mandarin orange box. Each box contains two copies of each card: one to keep, one to send. The reverse of each card has a space for an address, a message and a stamp. More at zimzalla.co.uk

the law of passage

when you stop the boats
you stop the nurses*

* Overseas nurses down by 93%, overseas care workers by 97%.

8.III.26

New Boots for Irascible Caravaggio, and other poems. Sometimes poetry has a communality about it that I really like.

open.substack.com/pub/sophiehe...

Art Sonnet Chain, 1: Sophie Herxheimer Sophie Herxheimer is an artist and poet from south London. Her work has been shown at Tate Modern, The Museum of Liverpool, and along the sea-front at Margate. Her collections include Velkom to Ink…

It’s sonnet 1 of the #ArtSonnetChain and it’s a witty and polemic cut-up by editor @sophieherx.bsky.social of Gombrich’s Story of Art:

newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2026/02/21/a...

#NewBootsAndPantisocracies

The latest sonnet chain has begun: it’s a) our 4th and b) an #ArtSonnetChain, edited by @sophieherx.bsky.social & Nancy Campbell.

And the first line to be carried, last line of sonnet 1 to 1st line of sonnet 2, is by Sophie:

‘The trouble with beauty is its ugliness…’

#NewBootsAndPantisocracies

We're thrilled to be teaming up with Borough Road Gallery at LSBU on our newest Young Poets Network writing challenge, all about colour!

We can't wait to read your colourful poems! Head to bit.ly/YPNColourChallenge for prompts from poet & visual artist Sophie Herxheimer. Deadline 12 April.

A half eaten chocolate cake decorated with mimosa flowers

Are you one, or do you know any, young poets?
ypn.poetrysociety.org.uk/workshop/col...

The #ArtSonnetChain editors are longtime #NewBootsAndPantisocracies co-conspirator, previous chain contributor & cover artist @sophieherx.bsky.social, and the wonderful poet/artist of the idea of Northness (& Greenlandic), #NancyCampbell.

Pure joy at Compton Verney helping @sophieherx.bsky.social and her crew of creative families make these fabulous beings. A beacon of light in a gloomy landscape, and too good not to be shared.

Amazing 👏👏👏❤️

William Blake: from ‘Jerusalem the Emanation of the Giant of Albion’ What are those golden builders doing? where was the burying-placeOf soft Ethinthus? near Tyburns fatal Tree? Is thatMild Zions hills most ancient promontory; near mournfulEver weeping Paddington? i…

Following up on our Monday post, here’s #WilliamBlake in the #GhostFurnitureCatalogue, with a transcription and, instead of a biog, a true & splendid account by co-editor @sophieherx.bsky.social of a visitation by WB over cake (coffee & walnut):

ghostfurniturecatalogue.wordpress.com/2025/12/02/w...

Made up that titles by poets Eilish Martin, Sam Furlong & Susanna Galbraith (designer Julian Manev / visual matter @sophieherx.bsky.social) will be featured at this year's Dublin Art Book Fair, 04–14 December at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios!

#DABF25 #ACNISupported #NationalLottery #ThanksToYou

After some time out of print, zimzalla has a new batch of INDEX by @sophieherx.bsky.social (a deck of prophetic poem cards in a luxury red and gold box) back on sale. More at zimzalla.co.uk/060-sophie-h...

Poems were posted online every fortnight; poets included Anne-Marie Balzer, Jemma Borg, @janeburn.bsky.social, Tishani Doshi, Steve Ely, @sophieherx.bsky.social, Glyn Maxwell, @helenmort.bsky.social, Emma Must, @calebparkinpoet.bsky.social, Jacob Polley, & @jsaphra.bsky.social

#EcoSonnetChain (2/3)

Photos of Sophie Herxheimer, Katie Griffiths and Matthew Paul.

Very much looking forward to reading poems alongside @sophieherx.bsky.social and talking to Katie Griffiths at Riverside Barn Arts Centre, Manor Road, Walton-on-Thames this coming Wednesday evening, 26th November, 8pm.

Tom Jenks: from ‘Mum & Dad’ ‘Exciting opportunities make me tired’ Dad complains,‘like board games, opera, or the countryside.’Dad just wants to drink Tizer and remember things,like when the nuns learned to roller skateor the…

Very pleased to have a poem up at Ghost Furniture Catalogue, from my Mum & Dad sequence. Thanks to Bill Herbert and @sophieherx.bsky.social

ghostfurniturecatalogue.wordpress.com/2025/10/27/t...

You are so kind & thoughtful AND a wonderful poet and artist Evalyn. Hope things are good with you. Here’s a classic for National Poetry Day

Happy Monday ✨ I am pleased to announce the publication of my article 'London Blakeans' in vol. 89 of 'Publishing History'! Thank you to all who contributed ❤️❤️
www.proquest.com/scholarly-jo...

Many thanks to the poets who took part in the #EcoSonnetChain:

#LindaFrance, #EmmaMust, @calebparkinpoet.bsky.social, #AnnSophieBalzer, @janeburn.bsky.social, #TishaniDoshi, #JemmaBorg, @jsaphra.bsky.social, #JacobPolley, @sophieherx.bsky.social, @helenmort.bsky.social, #SteveEly, & #GlynMaxwell.

“…Our Wandsworth teacher told us
how to tell ‘the black bib male sparrer’
from ‘the laidee one’, in her once common, now rare
south London chant... She’d yell from out
her Clapham grave to hear of sparrers in decline.
‘Parrakeets! You what?’”

@sophieherx.bsky.social #EcoSonnetChain (4/4)

Sophie’s sonnet, #10 in the sequence, brings together the toll of species loss and the parallel threat to social cohesion posed by gentrification by posing the interesting question: what do we mean by ‘common’?

#EcoSonnetChain #NewBootsAndPantisocracies @sophieherx.bsky.social

(3/4)

Except this week, it’s the final poem of Phase 1 of our Thursday posts (by Claudia Court), and the sonnet happens to be by GFC co-editor and New Boots protest calligrapher, @sophieherx.bsky.social.

So it feels like everything is pivoting at once. (No, we didn’t plan this. Are you kidding?)

(2/4)

Eco Sonnet #10 – Sophie Herxheimer It’s bad because we don’t know what will happen.The bush is singing and it shakes with sparrows.Say a sparrowhawk hurls in and decimatesthe flock. Those that live chirp on. Are their shrieksrelief …

Our tenth eco sonnet just alighted on a nearby branch and it’s by @sophieherx.bsky.social. What’s common and what’s no longer so? Birds and language and identity - each under seemingly equal threat:

newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/06/19/e...

#EcoSonnetChain #NewBootsAndPantisocracies

Launch of Boater - A Life on England’s Waterways Join award-winning poet Jo Bell for the launch of her debut memoir at the Poetry Pharmacy, Oxford Street

Persons of London! I'll be in town soon to launch my memoir Boater - first at the Poetry Pharmacy inside LUSH on Oxford Street (Weds 20 June) and then in Word on the Water near King's X (Weds 2 July, 3-7pm) Both free - and for the Poetry Pharmacy you need to book via the link below. Please come!

Thanks Anne, very glad you enjoyed it. Looks like you made a fab erasure.

Erasure poem based on a photocopy of a book about Victor Hugo, including black graphite illustration of Hugo and of me!

Thanks to @sophieherx.bsky.social for a great workshop @royalacademyarts.bsky.social this evening. Erasure poetry FTW.

Care in the Chaos: A Filmmaker's Creative Journey (Sarah Gavron) Podcast Episode · Art & Other People · 26/03/2025 · 44m

Where do the essential human tasks of caring for each other and making art meet?
Dan Schifrin & I discuss how these processes do & don’t dovetail in our new podcast series #artandotherpeople

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a...

‘Painting for my Dad’ by Noah Davis. Shows the back view of an older Black man in jeans and t shirt looking from a rocky chasm into the cosmos.

I got round to writing a substack post - looking at paint as a way in & out of the news, and a visit to the Noah Davis exhibition at the Barbican Centre yesterday.

substack.com/@sophieherxh...

Truthfully, my autobiography as a writer (and not only as a writer) looks like this: A crow settles on the tip of the thinnest twig, though the seat is neither comfortable nor safe, and the swinging itself is a mere trick to keep balance. It is scared. Pretends to be a lighter bird. I am a creature that is heavy, awkward, hard of seeing, hard of hearing, hard of speaking. This creature wants to appear nimble and weightless to itself and to others. It pretends that it knows well how to live and write smoothly, without any effort. And yet, all the time, it is learning life and writing. It is scared of its own awkwardness, scared that others might notice. To talk about oneself and one's own writing is to talk about imperfection. I will remain this heavy bird.

The Polish poet Krystyna Miłobędska (1932-2025) died last week. She was an important poet, her work experimental, scrupulous, spare, but also deeply enjoyable. Here’s part of her script for a rare public reading, tr. by Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese & published by me in @mptmagazine.bsky.social in 2013

Thank you for bringing her to my attention, a lovely piece. Fly well, heavy bird. #KrystynaMilobedska