That cottage, where my pagan air
And discordant fingering were rooted, was gone from sight,
Beyond hope of excavation.
Edward Rowe reads Jack Clemo’s “Private Pompeii” in a new poem film.
www.brinkerhoffpoetry.org/poems/privat...
That cottage, where my pagan air
And discordant fingering were rooted, was gone from sight,
Beyond hope of excavation.
Edward Rowe reads Jack Clemo’s “Private Pompeii” in a new poem film.
www.brinkerhoffpoetry.org/poems/privat...
"Why are you nocturnal
How many cathedrals have you entered
Has cruelty ever saved you"
Happy birthday to Eduardo C. Corral!
"Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone..."
W. H. Auden was born #OnThisDay in 1907. Here, actor Simon Callow performs Auden's famed poem "Funeral Blues."
"Why had I been so forlorn, when there was so much
just beyond, leaning into life? Even the cart
pushed against a concrete island, the forgotten melon
in its basket like a lost green sun."
Happy birthday to Rick Barot!
https://www.brinkerhoffpoetry.org/poems/a-poem-as-long-as-california
A piece from the "Japanese Death Poems: Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death".
18.02.2026 19:02 — 👍 16 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0
"How astonishing it is that language can almost mean,
and frightening that it does not quite. "
Jack Gilbert was born on this day in 1925.
Here, Elizabeth Marvel performs his poem "The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart."
https://www.brinkerhoffpoetry.org/poems/the-forgotten-dialect-of-the-heart
How do I journey on the way,
When what I seek (my weary travel’s end)
Doth teach that ease and that repose to say,
“Thus far the miles are measur’d from thy friend.”
"Just lychees bought in the market,
Thirty rupees per kilogram.
Stalks mottled red tied up with string,
Flesh the color of pigeon wings—
Sweet simmering."
Meena Alexander was born on this day in 1951.
"Wherever the world spins us,
home remains the island that
remains in us."
Happy birthday, Richard Blanco!
https://www.brinkerhoffpoetry.org/poems/island-body
"A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind."
Sabrena Osei-Tutu performs Anne Sexton's "Her Kind" in a new poem film created in collaboration with Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).
"Every day without him
is too long;
she’s waiting
with the tired cows at the gate."
Happy birthday to Jane Clarke!
https://www.brinkerhoffpoetry.org/poems/after
"No sun this morning, but the promise of a tilt
and so men on the radio talk about things we can’t see."
Ayesha Ostler performs Jess Traynor's poem "Midwinter" in a 2025 poetry film created in collaboration with Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). With thanks to Bloodaxe Books.
What matters yon unheeding throng?
They cannot feel my spirit’s spell,
Since life is sweet and love is long,
I sing my song, and all is well.
Paul Laurence Dunbar died #OnThisDay in 1906.
What are you carrying? For the sake of what? through such hard wind and light. — And you look out to me, and you say, “Only the same as everyone; your breath, your words, move with mine, under and over this glass; we who were born and lived on the living earth.”
Jean Valentine
05.02.2026 19:45 — 👍 36 🔁 13 💬 0 📌 0
FAREWELL TO THE MUSES. My typewriter has been writing crookedly For a very considerable time. It is so hard to write in metre and in rime With a typewriter that writes crookedly. Lines should look clean and decent to the eye, And mine have ceased to do so. And so that is why I am ceasing to be a poet. . . . Because my typewriter writes so exacerbatingly, So distressingly crookedly.
.
From 'Wheels' magazine (1917)
—Aldous Huxley
#ForgottenPoets #poetry #booksky
From Lucille Clifton's book, How to Carry Water: bit.ly/howtocarrywater
#poem #books #writing
"I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief."
Friedli Walton performs Wendell Berry's "The Peace of Wild Things" in a new poem film created with Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).
Conduit Club members may attend in person, while the general public can register to watch this special event hosted with @writersmosaic.bsky.social via livestream.
04.02.2026 20:10 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
On Feb. 10, join us at the Conduit Club for an evening of poetry & film, featuring performances by Anthony Anaxagorou & Marjorie Lotfi, a screening of four films of their poems, and a discussion between the poets and filmmakers Savannah Acquah & Rob Akin.
04.02.2026 20:10 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
"No excuses when a poem
burgeons, nascent, budding on the cusp
of your lips, terrace of your tongue."
@allisonpoet.bsky.social, "Extraction"
www.brinkerhoffpoetry.org/poems/extrac...
"they were flimsy
as our resistance to the crimes committed
—again, again—in our name"
From "In California During the Gulf War" by Denise Levertov.
www.brinkerhoffpoetry.org/poems/in-cal...
"I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother."
Langston Hughes was born on this day in 1901.
Watch Obioma Ugoala perform Hughes' iconic poem "I, Too" in this film made in 2025 with The Irish Cultural Centre.
"This place
is hellbound in a handcart. Cat, you mark
her words."
Paddy Cunningham performs Carol Ann Duffy's poem "Mrs Skinner, North Street" in a new poem film created with Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).
https://www.brinkerhoffpoetry.org/poems/mrs-skinner-north-street
"I wonder if I intended to be the punctum,
the little rip in the surface
where my eye might snag."
From "Salt Island" by Padraig Regan, published in Some Integrity (Carcanet Press).
https://www.brinkerhoffpoetry.org/poems/salt-island
"This, I understand: the instinct to cling,
at any cost, to the place you are rooted
"
Marjorie Lotfi performs her poem "The Hebridean Crab Apple" in a 2025 film created with WritersMosaic.
https://www.brinkerhoffpoetry.org/poems/the-hebridean-crab-apple
Mary Oliver 🩷
27.01.2026 05:45 — 👍 591 🔁 107 💬 14 📌 3
The last lines of this wreck me in the best of ways.
From Kim Addonizio's book, Tell Me: bit.ly/tellmeBK
#poetry #books #writing
"I am always hungry
& wanting to have
sex. This is a fact.
"
Alfie Lockwood performs Cuthwulf Eileen Myles' "Peanut Butter" in a new poem film created with Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).
https://www.brinkerhoffpoetry.org/poems/peanut-butter
In a strait, some things are useful.
Others, true, she turns to ash.
naviyuk, "Nunataq"
https://www.brinkerhoffpoetry.org/poems/nunataq
THE RIVER AGAIN AND AGAIN If I could show you how repetition helps us to understand the truth. If we stayed with each other long enough to see the seasons return, to see the young animals and the opening of peonies and summer heat. Then we could make sense of the hawk’s calm or the deer all lowering their heads again and continuing to eat. And we would know each other sometimes with a love that touches indifference.
or the deer all lowering their heads
Linda Gregg
