Clare Best

Submissions are now open for issue nine. The theme is Trespass: rights and wrongs; encroachment and colonisation; faults and forgiveness. Please see the website (link in bio) for information and guidelines. Window closes August 31st. 🕊 xx

#home

Gorgeous miniature binding by Gabrielle Fox of my poem ‘The bookbinder’ - what a gift!
#finebookbinding #miniaturebooks

buzz buzz 💚

A description of John Glenday's latest North Sea Poets Substack against a green background.

New post on #Substack from @johnglenday.bsky.social

Robert Frost's Eyebrows – John Glenday on words, syllables and cadence.

#NorthSeaPoets #PoetryCommunity

Competition – Win copies of new book ‘Bowie Land – Walking In The Footsteps of David’ by Peter Carpenter From Beckenham to Berlin, Peter Carpenter’s captivating tribute to David Bowie takes the reader on a mesmerising meander through the places that played a significant role in the music icon&#8…

Competition - Win copies of new book 'Bowie Land - Walking In The Footsteps of David' by Peter Carpenter.

little brushes of larch 💚

North Sea Poets is shaping up to be a vital new collaborative poetry project. Writing on their #Substack at northseapoets.substack.com is superb.

How could it not be when NSP is written/run by Kathleen Jamie, Niall Campbell, Don Paterson, Karen Solie, John Glenday, Lisa Brockwell, Lesley Harrison.

My next book, INTO BEING: will be published by MUP in October and I can now share the cover - it is part memoir, part teaching manual for those of you who love writing. It is one of the only books in the UK to focus on the craft of #memoir. Pre-order manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526179258/

Ten Longbarrow hardbacks, arranged diagonally, spines facing outwards.

Special offer from Longbarrow Press: any 3 hardbacks for £32. Includes collections by Steve Ely, Angelina D'Roza, Rob Hindle, Peter Riley, Nancy Gaffield, Mark Goodwin, Matthew Clegg, Fay Musselwhite, 'The Footing' anthology, and more

longbarrowpress.com/current-publ...

Yesterday made a ⚡️ trip to Lewes to hear Neil Gower talk for LewesLitSoc about a life’s work with graphic art, books, maps, + his own writing.

So moving to see Neil’s art for ‘The Missing List’ among the images projected. I love what he created & I’m so happy to have his painting on my study wall.

I’m reading Mountainish atm and loving it 🙏🏻

My review of Robert Hamberger’s latest collection – for The Friday Poem

open.substack.com/pub/thefrida...

Tomorrow!

Wishing you a happy mid February, with the help of the five-year-olds of Keswick.

kimmoore30.substack.com/p/love-and-o...

Good to meet you here Sarah. I’ll be posting more of this kind of thing (and on my research) over @cbestphd.bsky.social

Yes, a 3D poem!

Love continues. Poem by Robert Hershon (1936-2021) originally published in Poetry Northwest, Autumn 2000.

To Use Their Language Is to Endorse Their Lies Every crisis is in part a storytelling crisis, and the current one here in the US is also a language crisis. How we use the language and how we listen for lies that are in single words and phrases as ...

A single word can be a lie. For example, journalists are still calling what Musk and his child army have been doing an operation in pursuit of government efficiency.... www.meditationsinanemergency.com/to-use-their...

this is my mother’s cloth tape measure, and the embroidered felt case (complete with tiny button and button loop!) that she made as a schoolgirl in the mid-1930s… a wonderful small reminder of an age of handmade detail in everyday objects – bringing so much pleasure still 😌

IT IS A COUP This is what should be on every front page in 150 point banner headlines. All I have is this Substack but I lay it beneath your feet and pray to a higher power that I'm wrong.

This is what should be on every front page right now. What's happening in the US right now is an illegal power grab by a private citizen. IT'S A COUP.

It's a digital coup. It's Musk who's leading it. The consequences are terrifying. And it's coming for us next.
1/

open.substack.com/pub/broligar...

New! Fully funded writer residencies Working class and/or 60+ - Bridport Prize

The Bridport Prize is offering two fully funded writer residencies in Dorset for writers from The Midlands and/or The North West of the UK who are working class and/or 60+

From Sunday 22 to Friday 27 June 2025. Writers must be available for the whole period.

Details in link.

Please share :)

Things feel quite grim in the world. Poetry, as with much else, is battered by the elements: the doers struggle against the odds, while our thinkers are befuddled. But you know what? Bad Lilies returns later this month and we start typesetting TOMORROW. 😎

🙏🏻 - just seen this! so lovely to see you and grand to read in Lewes again 😌

Pinks #27: A Noise Like a Publisher When poets write blurbs

Since everybody seems to be talking about blurb culture in publishing this week, I wrote about a few memorable poetry blurbs someflowerssoon.substack.com/p/pinks-27-a...

I had the sweetest dream last night. I was driving on the LIE and there was Donald Trump in a red jumpsuit, picking up trash beside the highway.

Delighted to be one of the judges for The London Library's Emerging Writers Programme; masterclasses, networking peer support and year's membership to the library. Give it a go. More deets: www.londonlibrary.co.uk/about-us/ll-...

Delicious variety & new collaborations celebrating poetry.

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