Martin Smith

2 kittens

Cleanse your timeline with a cat pic. The black and white kitten is Oreo. The Turkish van mid yawn is Elsa. Pause for a moment. You don’t need to keep scrolling right now. You can put the phone down. You can just be in the room you’re in for a while.

Take This With You... (August update) L’appel du vide

Over the last month my ‘Take This With You & Leave It Somewhere Else’ #poetry #zines have crossed the ocean from the UK to Portland, Maine and popped up in Wales, Glossop, Manchester and at a Drake concert. To find out what role Lou Ferrigno played in all this click the thing.

I reckon about a hundred bots have followed me in the last 24 hours. Anyone else getting this too?

What’s triggered me suddenly getting so many new followers? Have I been put in a new starter pack or something?

Well done Zine 15, the first one of these things to cross a sea. I wonder where you’ll turn up next. Subscribe to my (free) Substack for occasional updates on where these things get to.

A map tracking a zine from England to Portland, Maine.

A zine stuck on the sign of the Scottish Poetry Library.

A zine on a train in Manchester, England.

I’ll get around to posting a full update soon on where my #poetry #zines have been found this month to my Substack page (link in bio) but I’m particularly excited today to wake up to the news that a zine I left on a train to Manchester in early July has just shown up in Portland, Maine.

2 kittens sat in a cat bed.

Hello Bluesky. Stop the doom scroll for a second and enjoy this photo of my kittens Elsa and Oreo. Have a good day.

Zine Project (Week 6) The zines have made it to London

More from my ongoing poetry zine experiment on the attached link. The zines have made it to London and are starting to gather other people's artwork as they travel.

Poetry zine experiment - Week 5 Dispatches from the mile radius around my house

Hello Bluesky. Here's another update on my current experiment, where I write poetry zines, leave them in public for other people to pass along, then map the zines' travels.

Someone had uploaded the full thing on YouTube. 3 likes, no comments. He comes out to applause then there’s a short silence and he says “Hello”. The crowd bursts into uproarious laughter. I wonder what he did with his face.

A zine on top of a Phil Cool vinyl

I just perched a #poetry #zine on top of a signed Phil Cool vinyl, as you do. Phil Cool was a comedian from Chorley whose main thing was that he would pull faces. I looked online to see if I could find this album. I was curious how he translated such a visual act to an audio only medium…

Zine experiment - Week 4 Mapping where the zines have been.

I’m leaving poetry zines in random places to be found by strangers. They each contain instructions to the finder to take the zine with them and leave it somewhere else. In the linked post I start to map out where the zines have been so far.

A poem by Dirk Bogarde

A photo of Dirk Bogarde doing an awkward thing with one of his legs

Another photo of Dirk Bogarde doing an awkward thing with one of this legs

Yet another photo of Dirk Bogarde doing an awkward thing with one of his legs

I put them next to a memoir of the actor Dirk Bogarde, who I then Googled to try to find interesting facts to end this post with. I found out 2 things about the guy. 1) He wrote some really good poems. 2) He couldn’t figure out what to do with one of his legs in photographs

A poetry zine

A poetry zine left on a charity book stand

The inside cover of the Rubaiyat

A week or so ago I found a book of poetry called The Rubaiyat on the charity stand at Tesco. I’ve now replaced The Rubaiyat with my own Rubaiyat, except Rubaiyat means quatrain and none of the poems in my zine are quatrains, but still. I put some more poems where there used to be poems

A zine on a train

Another zine on a train

My #poetry #zines are on the move! I’ll figure out a way to map their movements then post more here and on the Substack in my bio. Thanks to anyone who’s messaged to tell me where you found one/left one. The pics are the latest zines, left on my morning/evening commutes into/out of sunny Manchester.

Take This With You & Leave It Somewhere Else - Week 3 The other day I had to run some errands, so I quickly made a shiny new zine to take with me.

New post on my Substack about the 3rd week of my #poetry #zine experiment, and about these poems I found while I was out leaving poems for someone to find.

My reflection in a shiny poetry zine

A shiny poetry zine left next to some ornamental skulls

TAKE THIS WITH YOU & LEAVE IT SOMEWHERE ELSE! Hot off the presses and coming soon to the empty space by the crystal skulls. It’s been hard to get out and about this week so I’ve grabbed the chance to make a shiny new #poetry #zine and leave it next to some ornamental skeletons.

Zine Project: Week 2 A serviceable metaphor about bus seats

I’ve posted another update about my ongoing #poetry #zine experiment. I put loads more of these things out over the last week and am having a lot of fun writing and making them. Click the thing to find out more and as a bonus you'll receive a reasonably serviceable metaphor about bus seats.

A zine next to a millennium falcon model

A zine next to a millennium falcon model

If you’re out browsing for Millennium Falcons today you might stumble across one of my poetry zines. If you do, take it with you and leave it somewhere else. #poetry #zine

A zine on a train seat

A close up of a zine on a train seat

The patterns are so random on trains & buses because it’s supposed to distract your eye from stains or vandalism, like you’ll be so thrown by the overall chaos of the complicated patterns that you just won’t be able to notice any details. Anyway I’ve thrown another #poetry #zine out into the world

A zine stuck between the seat and wall of a train

I lodged this zine between the seat and the wall of the train. The photo is rubbish because it was really busy and I was sat across from someone. I was trying to be stealthy but my flash went off. #zine #poetry

A Frank Sidebottom statue holding a zine

A close up of the hand of a Frank Sidebottom statue holding a zine

I’ve scattered many zines around today. I’ve been on a bit of a spree. Frank here appears to have found one already.

#zine #poems #zinester #foundpoetry

A zine left on the bus

It continues. Left on the bus. I tried to do another crown bind here but the card was too thick so I had to do an 8 page fold instead and it’s made me want to vary the binding/folding up. I saw a great thread bound book the other day that I loved so I might give that a go. #zines #poetry

Zine experiment- Week 1 The story so far

I've posted an update on my Substack about how my #poetry #zine experiment is going so far, for anyone interested in that sort of thing. open.substack.com/pub/martinsm...

A zine stuffed into a magazine rack at a cafe

Take This With You & Leave It Somewhere Else: stuffed in the magazine rack at a cafe near you. #poetry #zine #zinemaking

A zine stuck to a bus window.

The experiment continues. Take This With You & Leave It Somewhere Else: stuck to a bus window near you! #poetry #zine

5 homemade poetry zines called “Take This With You & Leave It Somewhere Else”

I’m going to quietly drop a load more of my poetry zines in random public places this afternoon. No two have the exact same poems. They only exist in these physical zines. Hopefully somebody who finds one plays along. #poetry #zine

Brian Wilson died I was working in HMV in Bolton when I first noticed the fascists.

I wrote this and didn’t know where to put it, so it can live on my Substack. Its about Brian Wilson, ish, sort of. open.substack.com/pub/martinsm...

A zine called TAKE THIS WITH YOU AND LEAVE IT SOMEWHERE ELSE, left on a table at a Starbucks.

The experiment continues. Another of these zines is now out in the wild. #poetry #zine

A poetry zine called Take this with you and leave it somewhere else, on a bookshop shelf next to Dante’s Inferno.

I’m scattering poetry zines around with instructions to whoever finds them to take them away, leave them somewhere else and tag me telling me where they left them. Today I snuck the first zine out into the wild. I felt a bit like a spy with the lowest stakes mission possible. #poetry #espionage