Matt Gilbert

Poetry of Departures Muldoon, Allnutt, Kunial and the art of the soft landing

open.substack.com/pub/jwikeley...

Ooh, witty, wise and observant post on poetic endings [insert clanking symbol/unexpected rhyming couplet or unearned abstract profundity here…]

Chalk streams are finally mentioned in the National Planning Policy Framework - but it’s not enough. They must be formally classed as irreplaceable habitats for stronger protection from damaging development.

Speak up: use our quick e-action template here 👇 https://ow.ly/7tpS50YiKSH

'My friends, both white,
turn pink to see me point,
but he is keen to speak.'

- from 'Country Marks'

My poem, recently published in 'FROM HERE TO THERE', is a true story of a cab ride years ago. Hope you enjoy reading it. 🌿

Agent sues over book about Andrew MB being dropped by US publisher.

Meanwhile, in further tone-deaf, entitled arsehole grasper news…

When a novelist starts writing poetry

A short poem by Matt Gilbert Revenant Legion   The mad parade shambles out from fetid rooms, each lurching step an obdurate attempt to reverse our progress.

Hello @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social Here’s one for #fragmentsfriday

SHARE AWAY!!! Announcing a new project - a platform each Friday.

#FRAGMENTSFRIDAY’ - 18 words or less
- a startling, inventive poem.

Tag in #fragmentsfriday and @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social & share one startling fragment of your own poetry.

No A.I. generated poetry!

In Our Time - John Keats - BBC Sounds How one of the great Romantic poets produced so much in his brilliant but short life.

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

It's an excellent piece. The answer to how the likes of Ridley thrive is very simple.

He's an Eton educated Oxford graduate who is also a hereditary peer. He may be exceptionally stupid, but that is enough in this country to cover you in armour plating and propel you onwards in your career.

As someone who knows this part of the world very well, whose husband gleefully came and showed me the first picture, taken by a hockey friend on Social Media on Sunday night, having the backstory on this is very satisfying. It’s a tale that will probably end up in a poem as well…

Abandon shipment: how an Amazon van got marooned on the UK’s ‘most dangerous path’ Driver reportedly checked with base and was told to continue when GPS directed van on to Essex mudflats

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

A man pushed me in the street, he wanted to teach me a lesson. Is that OK now? | Lucy Pasha-Robinson Many women reading this will have experienced something similar: a warning that sharing public space isn’t a man’s job, it’s a woman’s, says Lucy Pasha-Robinson, a Guardian assistant Opinion editor

A man pushed me in the street, he wanted to teach me a lesson. Is that OK now? | Lucy Pasha-Robinson

Looks like @petefowlerart.bsky.social has been at work making an installation.

YouTube video by Avie Sheck Mom & I Cover Creep By Radiohead (she is a classical Indian singer 🕉️)

This duet cover of Radiohead's "Creep", between a son and his Shastriya Sangeet classically trained mother, is the mash-up I didn't know how much I needed in my life. Totally spontaneous sobbing may have taken place.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZoH...

The Book Bag: Mædwe by Corinna Board Welcome back to The Book Bag. I hope you’ve had a poetic week. This week has been a fairly busy one. I celebrated my birthday on Wednesday and despite the dreary weather had an amazing time. Did I buy a few books? Yes. Did I enjoy a delicious dinner at Lollo Rosso? Yes. Because of the rain, we postponed visiting Howick Hall Snowdrop walk until yesterday where for the first time in what seems like forever we had sunshine! A great Valentine's Day gift! I was also able to chill, listen to some Coltrane and Davis, and play some sax.

This week we walk across the sea of green as Corinna Board takes us through 'Mædwe'. An exquisite collection published by Salo Press. A book everyone should be reading in 2026.

Plus all the news, opps, and of course the playlist.

Settle in and read my full thoughts.

Poem about a protest - entitled Harvest

Apropos of something - first published last month here - morningstaronline.co.uk/article/harv...

A poem by Matt Gilbert - The Political Wing of the Weather

Trump has just got rid of US anti population measures - see story below. This poem of mine, The Political Wing of the Weather, first appeared in The Lake, November 2023. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Apocalypse no: how almost everything we thought we knew about the Maya is wrong For many years the prevailing debate about the Maya centred upon why their civilisation collapsed. Now, many scholars are asking: how did the Maya survive?

www.theguardian.com/news/2026/fe...

Post a banger that isn’t in English…

youtu.be/OanOkaXRvoM?...

Front cover of Clare Pollard’s ‘Lives of the Female Poets’, featuring a framed portrait of Henrietta Maria Hill by Angelica Kauffman in a social media post format.

All the hype surrounding the forthcoming Wuthering Heights film leaving you cold? Dive into @poetclare.bsky.social’s brilliant series of prose poems about Emily Brontë in ‘Lives of the Female Poets’ instead! @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social 😍

Reform UK threatens to cut funding for Welsh university after debating society bans party from campus

want to go to Bangor University' said nobody ever. Especially if Bangor University is stripped of government funding and student loan facilities by @reformparty_uk Is that "in line with your values,' poppets?

This is pretty menacing.

Sarah Pochin wrote to Bangor's university student run debating society requesting that she attend to "answer questions from students."

When they said "no" Reform rolled all it's tanks onto the lawns and said they'll cut funding to the entire university if they win.

Projects | Acropolis Journal

PUBLISHED TODAY: @acropolisjournal.bsky.social first project 'Time as Falling Atoms', in which I have three poems and a hybrid poetry/art piece.

I need to thank @louisemather.bsky.social for taking such gentle care with my work and being so supportive in the process <3

The sky, briefly, breathes blue. The gulls who fly at dawn from Gloucester to Cheltenham sweep over, so eagerly that I can barely catch them. The local pigeons, low & loud, take off... And each view is crossed by the wires which join us all! A very good morning!

YouTube video by Robert Wyatt - Topic At Last I Am Free

Tomorrow we release the final episode of Backlisted for the foreseeable future.* After ten years, it's a very odd feeling. I am looking forward to spending more time with my books and fewer times on social media.

* Boats against the current, we beat on via Patreon.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmQK...

Thank you. Far too many Backlisted inspired discoveries & re-considerations to list. Not least in old ‘what else have we been reading’ chats. Before Backlisted, I hadn’t read A Month in the Country because I didn’t like the cover of the film tie-in edition I had. That nudge alone would be enough. 🙌

‘As autumn furled the
summer’s blistered sails,
fine glass of holy gold,
the bottled song of nightingales.’

James McConachie, from
‘Consolamentum’. @jamesmcconachie1.bsky.social

www.blackboughpoetry.com/consolamentu...

Drowning in Denial – Byline Times Digital / Print Edition As Nigel Farage’s party scraps climate schemes around the country, Nafeez Ahmed reports on new data that shows flood risk surging across the 10 councils it leads

🟨 Print Edition — Drowning in Denial

As Nigel Farage’s party scraps climate schemes around the country, Nafeez Ahmed reports on new data that shows flood risk surging across the 10 councils it leads

🔗 https://subscribe.bylinetimes.com/edition/82/drowning-in-denial/

Next Friday! #fragmentsfriday #poetry #poetic #micropoem #prompts #writingprompts

‘The toad winked an eye
into the side of his head,
unrolled his tongue
and snatchgulped slippery
the lozenge of a slug.’ 🐸

@racheldeering.bsky.social from ‘In the Shadow of Gods’.

www.blackboughpoetry.com/rachel-deering

Great to see a steady flow of poems finding their way to our submissions inbox. You've til midnight Sunday night if you've something you'd like us to look at...