Andrew Neilson

Matthew Paul reviews 'Summers Are Other' by Andrew Neilson (Rack Press, 2025) The Friday Poem on 12th December 2025

Actual review here: thefridaypoem.substack.com/p/matthew-pa...

Unashamed self-promotion, thanks to a wonderful review from Matthew Paul. There's still time to order from Rack Press as stocking filler! rackpress.blogspot.com?m=1

Matthew Paul reviews 'Summers Are Other' by Andrew Neilson (Rack Press, 2025) The Friday Poem on 12th December 2025

Matthew Paul reviews 'Summers Are Other' by Andrew Neilson (Rack Press, 2025)
open.substack.com/pub/thefrida...

Issues — Bad Lilies Issues of Bad Lilies, a digital poetry journal.

Amazing to me, but @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social and I began @badlilies.bsky.social five years ago this coming spring. Five years! A lockdown project of optimism in a sad time. The world continues to disappoint. Bad Lilies keeps going. Explore our archive: www.badlilies.uk/issues

RIP Tom Stoppard. Here's Housman on Horace ('The Invention of Love')

I was the other poet in the Len Pennie row: here’s my story Sarah Doyle’s poem Laika won high praise but when she queried similarities to it with the poem Good Girl she was caught up in a storm of accusation, denial and online vitriol

Moving and honourable piece by Sarah Doyle. www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/...

It is tremendous.

I don't do this so much these days but a poem for a Sunday. Leaves by Derek Mahon, from this beautiful book.

Anybody who had a vision to bring American levels of political, cultural and social polarisation to Britain - whether their motive was clicks or cash, ideology, boredom or anything else - would make it their top strategic priority to abolish the BBC, or to damage and diminish it at the very least

Captain Haddock in Monte Carlo Christ on a Penny Farthing, it’s been a week. Yes, since the last post (perhaps the song choice of words on a day like today, but hey ho…), but it’s been a week. And I felt like t…

Captain Haddock In Monte Carlo...

A post about context driven by an excellent poem by @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social

matriches76.wordpress.com/2025/11/09/c...

BBC director general Tim Davie and News CEO Deborah Turness resign over Trump documentary edit Deborah Turness, the CEO of news, says “mistakes have been made”.

Bad day for the Beeb but hitting rock bottom is the start of the climb. www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cd...

That is why they couldn't escape once discovered. 'Twas the treacle on the floor.

Graeme Richardson — Bad Lilies Three poems by Graeme Richardson

I love all the @badlilies.bsky.social babies (so to speak!) equally but this sequence by @ravoon.bsky.social is worthy of some attention ahead of his collection coming out next year badlilies.uk/graeme-richardson-1

Busy week, and month! I turned 50 in the month, launched a debut poetry pamphlet last week (see pic, notice the trainers doing all the hard work) and put out a fantastic new Bad Lilies issue with Kathryn Gray! Frankly, I'm now knackered.

Issue Twenty-Two: Ghost Ship

Proofs to contributors are being prepared...our cracking new issue is out for Halloween in a week's time 👀👻⚓️ badlilies.uk

First featured in @badlilies.bsky.social , of course.

We’re very sorry to hear that Prunella Scales has passed away aged 93. Prunella was a longstanding supporter of the Howard League, and we shall miss her terribly. Our thoughts are with her family.

We’ve a beautiful new @badlilies.bsky.social landing on Halloween! Expect poems that will stay with you at this time of the thin veil between worlds.

White text against a black background, reading: "If there had been 16 self-inflicted deaths in three years in any other state facility, there would be a national outcry and calls for a public inquiry. What is being done to keep people safe?" This quotation is from Andrea Coomber KC (Hon.), Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform.

The appalling report on Leeds prison, published today by HM Inspectorate of Prisons, highlights how chronic overcrowding in our prison system puts lives at risk.

Read our response: https://howardleague.org/news/leeds-prison-report-reveals-the-tragic-consequences-of-chronic-overcrowding/

People (some people) complain about the commercialisation of literary publishing (a commercial venture) as if it were something new. I worked for a literary publisher more than 25 years ago and the first book launch of theirs I attended was for Mr Motivator (nice guy).

Good man. I get that (I'm Scottish!)

A good response! Still though, I don't think anyone needs to be described as 'slavering', etc. And yes, the match is now being leveraged horribly. FWIW, Shabana Mahmood has not covered herself with glory in the run-up.

Also seems rather unfair on the Aston Villa fans...unless...but surely not.

Do you mean 'Jewish humans', Luke? Just checking for clarity.

The poet's joke Does it matter if we don't get it?

Today I’ve written about a poem by Michael Longley and the questions it raises about obscurity, in-jokes and what makes a poem work.

Michael Longley described the Virgil line here, a sly reference to Seamus Heaney (post-Nobel), as "a learned leg-pull". But I think the poem as a whole is more than that...deadly serious, even. One of his marvellous unfolding single sentences too.

Autumn, Suffolk.

It also tells us that lyric poetry is as ancient and beautiful as the hills, the lakes, the forests. Across the whole world and for a long time. The next time someone with several degrees tells you they are 'anti' or 'post'-lyric...show them Du Fu.

Addendum: 'ten thousand' is basically the Tang Chinese version of saying 'infinity', it crops up a lot in Du Fu and elsewhere. I love this. The sophistication and modernity of these 10th century lyrics blows my mind.