GrimalkinGerry

Sweeping Away the Last Clutter of 2025 I've just been sorting through my mess of admin, how I keep track of submissions, what poems I've written, where they've been published. Thi...

New post on the blog: my 2025 writing stats. thistlewren.blogspot.com/2026/02/swee... #thistlewren #poetryblogger #poetrybloggingnetwork

Kári, that's my gut reaction too, but mainly for that sense of craft, the writer's connection to language. If you want to improve a translation, speak to the users of the language, learn its idiosyncrasies, don't hand it over to someone who doesn't live it or love it.

AI Trigger Warning A member of my writing group asked last night what we would think about them bringing a story that AI had translated for them. I have to adm...

New post on the Thistle Wren blog: AI Trigger Warning. #aidebate #poetryblogger #poetrybloggingnetwork #thistlewren thistlewren.blogspot.com/2026/01/ai-t...

Poetry Blog Digest 2026, Week 1 A personal selection of posts from the Poetry Blogging Network and beyond.

The first poetry blog digest of 2026 with @lauragraceweldon.bsky.social @kristybowen.bsky.social @grimalkingerry.bsky.social @matthewepaul.bsky.social @kerstenak.bsky.social @shawnalemay.bsky.social @robmclennan.bsky.social @pearlpoet.bsky.social
1/3 www.vianegativa.us/2026/01/poet...

Scottish Book Tour 2025 Every summer when I go to Scotland to work, I order an obscene amount of books from a small independent bookseller in the Scottish Borders. ...

New post on the blog: Scottish Book Tour 2025. #thistlewren #poetryblogger #poetrybloggingnetwork
thistlewren.blogspot.com/2026/01/scot...

I'm excited to share and be a part of the 2025 Helsinki Writers Group Anthology. Check it out. #helsinkiwritersgroup

www.helsinkiwriters.com/anthology/?f...

Poetry Blog Digest 2025, Week 31 A personal selection of posts from the Poetry Blogging Network and beyond.

Reading poetry to pigs, yellow stretchy man, the canon of spiteful literature, & other curiosities w/ @webbish6.bsky.social @lesleymwheeler.bsky.social @kristybowen.bsky.social @grimalkingerry.bsky.social @robinhoughton.bsky.social @rebeccaloudon.bsky.social 3/3 www.vianegativa.us/2025/08/poet...

A Summer Ending Today is the last day of my holidays and I'm still in my jammies, writing with tea, playing solitaire until my head quiets. I'm blessed with...

New post on the blog: A Summer Ending. thistlewren.blogspot.com/2025/07/a-su... #thistlewren #poetryblogger #poetrybloggingnetwork

Thanks @davebonta.bsky.social for collecting these blogs and sharing them. Honoured to be a part of it.

The Blank Page Less than a month left of my summer holidays and I've been thinking about the blank page . . . I don't fear it, I fill it with nonsense most...

New post on the blog: thistlewren.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-... #thistlewren #poetryblogger #poetrybloggingnetwork

Thanks for sharing @davebonta.bsky.social

Midsummer It's midsummer, when Finnish people turns away from the cities and towards the water and the forest, relax and be themselves. As much as I d...

New post on my Thistle Wren blog: Midsummer. #thistlewren #poetryblogger #poetrybloggingnetwork

thistlewren.blogspot.com/2025/06/mids...

Went onto the porch today to write - sometimes I write by peeling paint off my old picnic table. The sharpened blade of the scraper catching on any loose thoughts, revealing beneath the raw, true colours. Any unwanted thoughts are stripped away and blown off by the wind.

Poetry Blog Digest 2025, Week 23 A personal selection of posts from the Poetry Blogging Network and beyond.

The task of silence, skies of spit & more w/ @thepoetslizard.bsky.social @lesleymwheeler.bsky.social @andotheritems.bsky.social @jillpearlman.bsky.social @kristybowen.bsky.social @grimalkingerry.bsky.social @roguestrands.bsky.social @timlovewriter.bsky.social 3/3
www.vianegativa.us/2025/06/poet...

Lazy Days When No One is Watching A week into full summer and the kids have been sleeping in late, having stayed up too late again. Menopause has gifted me with mornings, so ...

New post on the Thistle Wren blog: thistlewren.blogspot.com/2025/06/lazy...
#thistlewren #poetryblogger #poetrybloggingnetwork

Expressing Big Emotions The day outside is beautiful, but I'm stuck inside with a pollen allergy that has moved to my chest. It is a struggle to breathe, to even pu...

New post on my Thistle Wren blog.
thistlewren.blogspot.com/2025/06/expr... #thistlewren #poetryblogger #poetrybloggingnetwork

Poetry Blog Digest 2025, Week 20 A personal selection of posts from the Poetry Blogging Network and beyond.

Poets in "the crosshairs of the present"
@webbish6.bsky.social @thepoetslizard.bsky.social @kristybowen.bsky.social @grimalkingerry.bsky.social @oyoguhito.bsky.social @matriches.bsky.social
www.vianegativa.us/2025/05/poet...

A Collector of Scrap and Details Summer is officially here, though we still are really only in spring in terms of where the weather and plant growth is. My tulips are just b...

New post on my Thistle Wren blog thistlewren.blogspot.com/2025/05/a-co...
#poetryblogger #thistlewren #poetrybloggingnetwork

#glopowrimo Last Day and I've managed to do all but one day. Feels like something I want to continue.

Day 30
Bittersweet

He's leaving and breathless
she spins face up in the current of the room.
Clothed in the synonyms for how she must feel,
she has lost the original.
Each night becomes a map.

Day 29 #glopowrimo

zibladone

I have not yet outgrown you
I write you punk love notes in the margins
scream and slash the paper

I place my hope in pomegranate seeds
but they are more bite than juice
and bleed on the page

Day 28 #glopowrimo

tell me every sorrow

tell me about the hole in your fleece
and your homework on birch trees.
Then laugh how the teacher stood in the woods
and just gazed up happily.
The same trees are making me sneeze.

New post on the blog thistlewren.blogspot.com/2025/04/agin... #thistlewren #poetryblogger #poetrybloggingnetwork

Day 27 #glopowrimo

A blessed day

the exhausted field and I stop
torn over by plough and the lack
that I always carry with me

still grateful for a milk-kissed morning
the mist cooried down
the wind is edible peat-infused
and the hill low-ridged enough to dip a toe

Day 26 #glopowrimo - I do wonder who people will relate to Billie these days (it’s Holliday for me)

in the unruly hour
in the arms of night
I am drowning in blues
that ache of wanting and wanting more
and that voice petal black
is the rain 
and Billie’s sadness
she knew

Day 26 #glopowrimo
grace is not required

my midlife crisis needs a midwife
as much as a birth
to find a way through the cravings
and softening skull
a hand to hold when facing
the feverish heights of hormones
and the slow fall to decay

aging is involuntary

Day 24 #glopowrimo

I stalk the heron

the bird is not an omen

starving for my questions

feeding on my promises

but a reflection

of what

of who is hidden

in the nettles and dried stalks

Day 23 #glopowrimo I missed yesterday but inspired by a Finnish song today

joesta järveen
Tuonelan Koivut, Kotiteollisuus

I thought the song said love flowed
from the river to the lake

so finnish so enclosed
far from the pull of the tide
just a collection of emotions hemmed in

but it was tears

Day 21 #glopowrimo

the poetry of who I was

the past filed away in boxes

old photos with a gold wash

friends and stories still kent over the decades

faces I want to forget

hard copies blurred and real

can I edit them out

The Poetry of Who I am Now Easter weekend and we got 5 days off school for it. I love the luxury of waking up and thinking, 'not tomorrow' especially when the rain is ...

New post on the blog. The Poetry of Who I Am Now. thistlewren.blogspot.com/2025/04/the-...
#thistlewren #amwriting #poetryblogger #poetrybloggingnetwork

Day 20 #glopowrimo - the format just does not work for this online.

myself in the abstract
the rain pelting down this is content
I am torn from the page of the unmade bed this is arrival
a husk of the moon longing