Really looking forward to talking all things poetry and class related with these dons at this year’s Re-Enchant festival on 12th May.

I’ll also be leading a workshop a little earlier if anyone fancies it.

TOMORROW 👀

Anthony’s busy getting our bits together for the The Poetry Society Free Verse Poetry Book Fair at St Columba’s, SW1X 0BD — 11.30am onwards, free entry — we’ll have plenty of poetry to browse and buy.

Looking forward to seeing some of you there

We've extended the deadline for applications for the spring term Out-Spoken Academy. Tutors for the main course are Jack Underwood, naa adukwɛi & myself. The mini course will be led by John McCullough 🏳️‍🌈 & Fran Lock. All online.

More details here outspokenldn.com/academy

Congrats to the very brilliant Fady Joudah!

A good time to let you guys know several prominent reviewers pitched Fady’s book to a number of mainstream newspapers and journals…each one came back with thanks but no thanks…wonder why????

This Is England…

It sounds so wild to be saying this in 2024 but if a state isn’t allowed to exist then its people are not supposed to exist; if a people don’t exist then violence & genocide become not only inevitable but justifiable.

It’s terra nullius. It’s empire. It’s pure colonialism.

A very happy publication day to Azad Ashim Sharma for this total gem of a collection. I hope it reaches readers far and wide.

📢It's publication day for BOILED OWLS by Azad Ashim Sharma ! 🦉

'Boiled Owls is lyrical, essayistic, plaintive, and achieved...The world it conjures is phantasmagorical and looks just like this one.’ — Peter Gizzi

>> outspokenldn.com/shop/owls

We said it from the start; it was never about Hamas or hostages or October 7th - it was always about oil and gas reserves, luxury hotels, illegal settlements and colonial expansionism…

‘The poem’s end is to endure’

This brilliant short essay by Aditi Machado is vital reading for anyone interested in how poems ‘end’.

The pamphlet’s called The End and is published by UGLY DUCKLING PRESSE

uglyducklingpresse.org/publications/t…

This from Lindsey Hilsum publishes in Sept and features poems from warsan shire, Mosab Abu Toha, Nick Makoha, Joy Harjo, Fiona Benson, Patrick Kavanagh, W.H.Auden, James Fenton and more.

Very keen to give it a proper read.

Nice to come back home after a long trip to find this write up from Roger Robinson in the 2024 Royal Society of Literature Review.

Israel did this. America did this. Britain did this. Germany did this.

In the past hour an Israeli drone fired a missile into a group of children in a playground. 11 children have been killed with more injured.

Hani Mahmoud reporting.

A child.

I’m a massive fan of Andrzej Tichý. His previous book Wretchedness took storytelling to a whole new place. His forthcoming collection of short stories, out in June, sees him again working quick casual prose & meaty subjects to dig deep into the lives of ordinary people.

Assyrian Orthodox Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was stabbed in Sydney during mass in a hate-related attack.

Here is the anti-Zionist bishop talking about his recent trip Gaza and meeting a little Palestinian girl.

BREAKING: UN SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTONIO GUTERRES OFFICIAL STATEMENT

“Diplomatic premises have immunity and Israel violated this principle by attacking the Iranian consulate.”

…while at the same time playing their part in enabling Israeli warplanes and drones to murder over 40,000 Palestinians.