Food, friends, fevered days of pandemic... Fittingly, I devoured S偉强 's 'sikfan glaschu' Verve Poetry Press in the warm garden of my local pub. Many languages, much kindness! Hard to give the flavour - here are a few (duck) feathers from this book. Do taste it yourself!

The lines Darwish recites in the clip below have been translated by Lena Jayyusi and Christopher Middleton. You can also see some of this poem in Arabic, inscribed by the artist Mona Saudi around the figures in her drawing.

NEW TODAY! Another piece from this year's StAnza Poetry festival, this time profiling Glasgow-based poet & food-lover S偉强 who explains that 'Food is just another form of language' Read it in full along with all of our FREE content right here - wp.me/p3nrhP-7cN

One of the most direct ways to help those in Gaza is to donate an esim. It helps them stay connected to each other and the world, at a time when the whole world seems to want to cut them off entirely. Many thanks to Mirna El Helbawi for setting up
gazaesims.com!

The new national security law targets foreign entities in HK. The vague laws empower the government to arbitrarily label anyone as a 'foreign agent.' Journalists are targeted as 'state secret' can be almost anything.
Civil society further collapsed.

bbc.co.uk/news/world-asi…

We're having a launch! In fact - we're having two, back-to-back!

We'll be at Edinburgh's Typewronger Books on the 13th of March, and The Alchemy Experiment in Glasgow on the 14th. Each are free, unticketed, from 7pm, and feature readings from the new issue. Don't miss it!

umm...note to CNN...a 'chaotic incident' is college kids storming a basketball court, not a massacre at a food line...

We're delighted to announce our next guest reader: Sara Mostafa!

Sara is an Egyptian writer and poet who recently acquired her MLitt from the University of Glasgow. She is an avid reader and poetry performer. Open-mic nights are her favourite place to be.

Chuffed to have two poems in this new anthology on masculinity from Broken Sleep Books alongside Aaron Kent Stuart McPherson Ian Duhig FRSL Andrew McMillan Caleb Parkin S偉强 Kit Ingram Martyn Crucefix buy it here: brokensleepbooks.com/product-page/m…

With poetry from: Refaat Al-Areer, Fady Joudah, Hiba Abu Nada, Olivia Elias, Samer Abu Hawwash, Maya Murry, Ahlam Bsharat, Basman Aldirawi, Ghassan Zaqtan

Today we announce the launch of Poems for Palestine: Recent poems by nine Palestinian poets & actions you can take to stop genocide now. Please read and share as widely as you please!

publishersforpalestine.org/2024/02/13/poe…

This all sounds so sinister:

'The intention... is not to prevent individuals from expressing their political views, but to support artists and organisations with tools to ensure that this is done in a such a way that it does not result in unintended consequences'

😵😵😵

I'm really excited for this - my first Gutter as Poetry Reviews Editor 💚

#AccidentalPartridge

I’m absolutely thrilled that my review of Yu Miri’s “The End of August” is appearing in this month’s issue of Mekong Review Thank you very much to the kind folks at The Mekong Review, my wonderful editor, and the loving guidance of the ESEA creative community🖤

“We don’t die we just” Happy Gboyega day. Miss you every day.

'Masculinity' is a beautiful anthology by Broken Sleep Books and I feel deeply moved to have a poem featured in it inspired by 關羽Guan Yu (it's mostly about facial hair tbh) - if you can then please do support all the writers involved 💚

Look Here:
brokensleepbooks.com/product-page/m…

The programme for this year's StAnza Poetry Festival is incredible, including -
Jason Allen-Paisant
S偉强
Kathleen Jamie
Daljit Nagra FRSL
I Am Loud Productions
Glasgow Zine Library
Anthony Joseph
Marjorie Lotfi
& a precious 🍉Poets from P@lest!ne event hosted by Anthony Anaxagorou

Get your tickets now!

I'll be featured in this on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds today, celebrating a Burns Supper alongside the always lovely Julie Lin 🥰🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿💚

Listen here: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00…

The Creators' Rights Alliance alliance have published the new Freelance Day Rate Guide, which helps UK freelancers work out how much they should charge based on comparable employed staff salaries.

www2.societyofauthors.org/2024/01/16/cre…