Philippa Bowe

Love them - and what a great source of inspiration, cocking a snoot literature! 😆💫

A day late with my #LiftToTheSky - some Mondays are impossible days! Just reading these beauties from poet Regina Avendaño, spare and surreal and so rich. 💫
@thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk

www.onlypoems.net/poets/regina...

Just saw your messageon Scrib - big congrats Angie, so pleased for you! 🎉😘

thanks Rachel! 🙏

pink circle with red writing saying BFFA and a green outer circle with white writing saying Bath Flash Fiction Oct 2025 Last Minute Club

Got my piece in to the @bathflashaward.bsky.social with a whole two hours to spare!! 😆✨

Love your angel cake art and what it symbolises! 😁🥰

Thanks Rachel - and that's a great summary! 🙏

Love it! Lived near Brussels when I was little and the mannequin did make us laugh...💫

Such a strong sense of horror and powerlessness, so much beautiful language - think my favourite line is 'ribs click shut'. 💫

Karen I love the sound of it so so much - and am bummed I can't make the launch tonight. I'm sure it'll be wonderful Fingers crossed that I'm free for the next event!! 💜

What a stunner! Love how you train the spotlight on the violence directed at women with these details, so brutal. 💫

So powerful and skillful Merril - love how you only hit us with the generals at the end. 💫

Wow, congratulations Merril, that's wonderful!! 🎉

So hard to read, so important to write. 🙏

I'm very lucky to still have both my parents so haven't had that experience. But how wonderful that your relationship with him means he is still sorely missed!

Oh I just love this John, it feels wonderfully breathless, we race through it, savouring all those concrete details building a picture of something far from concrete and sort of sinister, there's so much here! 💫

A beautiful tribute, what I find most striking about it is how it feels drenched in love! 💫

a man is typing on a keyboard with the word dedication written on it Alt: a man is typing on a keyboard with the word dedication written on it

Up at five - bloody hell, that's true dedication!! 🙌

Nina I'm so sorry that's your experience. This woman isn't meant to be me or anyone specific, more like an embodiment of women made to feel physically inadequate by the beauty diktats weighing us down. I guess the happy home is pointing to the hollowness of the obsession with physical perfection.

Thanks Merril! The narrator isn't me, mind you - more of an every woman I think... 🙏

Life in all its messines, yes! Thanks John. 🙏

Thanks Debra! 🙏

Thanks Alan - yes, there's always the need for reminders that humanity is messy and sweaty and that's okay! 😆🙏

#NotJustPretty: A Manifesto for Women Who Refuse to Be Flattened - The Broken Spine Their Breasts Aren’t Perky Enough

Tomorrow! #NotJustPretty is not for show.
It’s for change.
Join the revolution in poetry.
🗓 Oct 4 | 8pm GMT
🎤 Open mic + showcase
thebrokenspine.co.uk...
@karenpgonzalez.bsky.social
#PoemsAbout

Poem on a purple and orange background: The mannequin in the shop window spoke to me this morning as I walked past, help me! she said so I stopped and looked into her eyes that aren’t eyes and thought, without eyes can we have a soul? And asked her, how? but she said nothing, perfect head tilted, perfect body streamlined, long elegant fingers reaching for two baby mannequins, a perfect family in a perfectly accessorised world, and I felt the fat on my arms tug, body hair wild to escape, belly roll reaching heartily for trouser waistband, sweat rolling faster and faster in glee from my armpits, I shifted on my feet and my mind bounced away and home, my messy crowded full of snarling teens and dirty dishes home, my human heart-filled home stained with love and laughter, and I was washed in sadness for her and before I turned away I think I saw a tear glint on the mannequin’s flawless cheek.

Last minute piece for #PoemsAbout and the #Mannequin prompt - will read and comment on others tomorrow! Big thanks to @thebrokenspine.co.uk and @alanparrywriter.co.uk

I know - little bastards! We've got a fresh crop of strawberries at the mo' - gorgeous Indian summer sun - but they ALWAYS get to them first!

Thanks @mattkendrick.bsky.social - I've looked at slugs differently ever since I wrote this! 😅

poems From the book: Piedra en :U: (:U: Stone). España: Editorial Candaya, 2016 Sarajevo prisoner of the fear of what will come (like it came before) how might the mutilated recover serenity? how …

A #LiftToTheSky for Venuzuelan poet María Auxiliadora Álvarez and her gorgeous work. 💫
@thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk

mariaauxiliadoraalvarez.com/poems/

A red, headless female mannequin torso stands against a moody blue and pink gradient background. In the top left corner is The Broken Spine logo, shaped like a black fountain pen nib with white text. The website @thebrokenspine.co.uk appears in white at the top right. At the bottom right, bold white text reads: "Read Repost Reply #POEMSABOUT #MANNEQUIN"

Thanks for last week’s fire on #PoemsAbout. Next up: #Mannequin. Hollow icon. Plastic ideals. Wait until Friday to post on the new theme for maximum traction. Always use Alt Text with images. Tag #PoemsAbout or we won’t see it. Let’s crack the shell of the spectacle.

Image of a dust cloud in a desert ovelaid with the words of a poem: Never Again You admire the dragonfly zigzagging with grace In a sky of feathery grey clouds But then you see The dragonfly is a helicopter Clouds the billowing of bomb drops You wave to the flock of birds winging Racing from setting sun to rising sun But then you remember The birds are fighter planes Streaking closer to twilight battlefields You warm to those two words The pact promise guarantee of lessons learned But now you realise They are no more than empty vessels contents spilled Vanished soaked into desert dust like old blood

Very hard to respond to this week's #PoemsAbout prompt, #NeverAgain. Very hard to put words to the horror. Thanks to @thebrokenspine.co.uk and @alanparrywriter.co.uk for pushing us week in week out with so many challenging prompts. 🙏💜