Joshua Blackman

Thanks to @newstatesman.com for publishing my sardonic state-of-the-nation poem. It’s out today from all reputable and (some disreputable) newsagents.

Finally, we revisited this poem by @jjblackman.bsky.social, from our sold-out June / July 2024 issue.

For more poems like this, and to avoid missing out a sold-out issue, you can save nearly 20% on the cost of 6 issues by subscribing to The London Magazine: thelondonmagazine.org/product/clas...

Back from Paris where I had the pleasure of witnessing a Renoir unfold in real time.

Three poems by James Tate on his birthday.

Lying in bed pre-parkrun I can’t help but think of Jesus in his final hours.

Listening to Pink Moon on vinyl I heard what I thought was the snickering of crickets. ‘Isn’t it nice they kept that in?’ I thought. Turns out it’s a real-life cranefly bumping idiotically against my window.

Marrying in church because I hold God in higher esteem than Chichester District Council.

Welcome, new arrivals. Here’s a poem which featured in the June/July issue of The London Magazine.

How many paid entries to poetry competitions before it counts as a gambling addiction?

Pankaj Mishra · The Shoah after Gaza Memories of Jewish suffering at the hands of Nazis are the foundation on which most descriptions of extreme ideology and...

The most clear-eyed and cogent piece of writing on Gaza that exists. If I could project it onto the moon or into people's dreams I would: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Found an ancient 50 pence piece in my washing machine filter, so I guess I’m a mudlark now.

Peter Capaldi says posh actors are smooth, confident and tedious The Doctor Who and Thick of It actor laments the lack of support for emerging talent from working-class backgrounds

“I went [to Art school] because the government of the day paid for me to go and I didn’t have to pay them back” - Peter Capaldi. Things really were better in the past and we now seem to have become a society that only exists to serve the needs of the rich www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

Almost wrote a concrete poem about snow but caught myself and instead wrote about sleet.

Patricia Lockwood · The Secret Life: On the poet Molly Brodak Stolen clothes. Getaway cars, police sirens. It’s so much WORK to have a secret life. But work is what Molly Brodak...

I wrote about my memories of Molly Brodak t.co/bwxtWUMydJ

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For #smallpoemsunday, this by Kristín Ómarsdottír (translated by Vala Thorodds):

Going to solve the XL Bully crisis by breeding the XS Bully, a dog with the exact proportions and violent temperament of the XL but it’s the size of a human thumb

I've received word that this poem I wrote will be appearing on a Brighton bus. I don't know which bus or which route, but if you get on a bus in Brighton between now and the end of February, you may well see it.

Watched ‘The Remains of the Day’ to set me straight for the year. No prevaricating from me milord. Let’s carpe that diem.

A quiet snow covered street viewed in monochrome from above with a street lamp, a lone messenger on a bike, a couple exuding bonhomie, and a solitary figure in the middle distance

Lászlo Moholy-Nagy, 7 a.m., New Year's Morning, c. 1930

Two poems by James Tate, a poet I can’t stop discovering.

Crudely drawn bat with man-like face. Oddly sad, as though remembering debt.

Happy new year from this doleful bat etched on a wood burner on West Dean estate.

Difficult and Bad — TL/TH

A brilliant essay by Rachael Allen on class, publishing and the mythical reader for Too Little/To Hard. It expresses the life-long alienation of being a working class writer & editor, but also speaks of our joyful & innovative legacies tlth.co.uk/difficultand...

This is really excellent, thanks for sharing it.

Antagonist Flash fiction

Taking a tentative foray into the world of flash fiction. I've written a new piece here. Free to read, free to subscribe. open.substack.com/pub/cemetery...

City I dislike: London
City I begrudgingly respect: Berlin
City I think is overrated: Rome
City I think is underrated: Prague
City I like: Bologna
City I love: Paris
City I dream of living in: Naples

Not sure I’ve seen a film as imaginative or ambitious as ‘The Boy and the Heron’. It was like the first time I read ‘The Third Policeman’. Dizzyingly creative.

In the humiliating position of having to buy my own socks and shower gel after Christmas.

A poem of mine that was published in the Summer 2022 issue of The Poetry Review:

James Merrill’s “Christmas Tree,” written when he was dying of AIDS.

Out in town yesterday and everyone I know was there, even the minor characters, of which, I too, am one. Merry Christmas everybody x