Elizabeth Osmond

The Thin Skin Whilst your fingers skate on the thin skin of a new day your veins echo above a hollowness of bones that subside with age. Poison slips through sinkhole riches weathering the bone scaffold of the poorest till their veins collapse and authority cordons off the danger.

For #PoemsAbout #UnderTheSkin
@thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk

Now in stock and available for pre-order, ‘grown girl’ by Eleni Brooks @elenibrooks.bsky.social, winner of the V. Press Prize for Poetry 2025-26 – a chapbook of poetry that is very raw and very hopeful.
vpresspoetry.blogspot.com/p/grown-girl...

#poemsabout #undertheskin

My ten year old daughter asks me why she doesn’t have a skincare routine

For #poemsabout #undertheskin
Thanks @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk

YouTube video by Centrum Foundation Kim Addonizio: I can't stop loving you John Keats

Between night shifts and enjoying the In Our Time radio episode today on John Keats- a medic poet ❤️

m.youtube.com/watch?v=WVUC...

Booked and looking forward to it!

Cool, me too!

Thank you for reading and sharing today's poem - Grandpa’s Bomb by @rachaelclyne.bsky.social

How to Triumph Like a Girl BY ADA LIMÓN I like the lady horses best, how they make it all look easy, like running 40 miles per hour is as fun as taking a nap, or grass. I like their lady horse swagger, after winning. Ears up, girls, ears up! But mainly, let's be honest, I like that they're ladies. As if this big dangerous animal is also a part of me, that somewhere inside the delicate skin of my body, there pumps an 8-pound female horse heart, giant with power, heavy with blood. Don't you want to believe it? Don't you want to lift my shirt and see the huge beating genius machine that thinks, no, it knows, it's going to come in first.

Chinese New Year of the Fire Horse commences today. Here's a 🔥horse poem, How to Triumph like a Girl, by Ada Limon. www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/149814...

An orange background with the Poetry Society logo in black at the bottom. Text in black reads "Today in a horse landscape horses steam in the lee of thorn hedges on soaking fields. Horses waltz on iron poles in dank fairgrounds. A girl in jodphurs on Sand Bay leads her pony over and over jumps made of driftwood and traffic cones. 'The Horse Landscape', Helen Dunmore, runner-up in the 1985 National Poetry Competition

Kung Hei Fat Choi! Happy Lunar New Year! In celebration of the year of the horse, here are two horsey poems...

Helen Dunmore's ‘The Horse Landscape’ was runner up in the 1985 National Poetry Competition poems.poetrysociety.org.uk/poems/the-horse-landscape/

A little bit of Jesse Jackson...

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.

Rebecca Goss — Bad Lilies A poem by Rebecca Goss

www.badlilies.uk/rebecca-goss-1

Jonathan Edwards — Bad Lilies Two poems by Jonathan Edwards

www.badlilies.uk/jonathan-edw...
Love these poems- remember hearing Jonathan read them at Lyra last year

Issue twenty-three — Bad Lilies

OUT NOW. Issue twenty-three: 'Wildfires' badlilies.uk/issue-twenty-three

Greatly looking forward to my session on Monday and have some striking lesser known poems and poets planned.

Sharing this poem Teenage Boys, which is in the latest issue of The Marrow, alongside some absolute corkers

www.themarrowpoetry.com/issue-six/te...

Excited to share the striking cover of PAIN SONGS by Daniel Sluman. Lyrical, confessional poems exploring the experience of chronic pain & disability, fertility & pregnancy, the ways the body & the world interact & intersect.
Ready to pre-order now, out in May.
ninearchespress.com/publications...

The Birds - Bedside Reading I love it when a guest approaches me and says, "please, can I talk about this book?" especially when it's a book that I've never, ever come across before. And today is one of those days. We are talkin...

Today is about “The Birds” by Tarjei Vesaas, an absolutely beautiful 1950s Norwegian novel which I loved. My life is so much better for having read it. My care of patients has been dramatically improved by having read it. Thank you to Ruth Maxey for joining me today to talk about it

Thanks!

Thankyou !

Thanks!

Thankyou Jan

Thankyou Rachel!

😂- it’s an early draft but I’m glad
You like it! X

…and safely back to invertebrates for #PoemsAbout #Mouths 😊
Thanks @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk for the prompt. Happy Friday!
#poetry #mayflies #ephemera

Lovely! 🥰

Kōtare your mouth closes around words holding them back like your lips dripping with the juice of fresh cherries in someone else’s story as tears fall saltwater marks the end where the estuary beckons the kingfisher stands sentry ready to break the bones of any traveller by river’s mouth before the ocean that will lead us through waters we cannot name

This week's #poemsabout #mouths just wasn't working, I almost gave it a swerve - until this popped into my head yesterday! Kōtare (Māori) is a watchtower around a pā (fort) but, more commonly, a kingfisher! Thanks @thebrokenspine.co.uk & @alanparrywriter.co.uk #poems #poetry

A stylised close-up shows dark, glossy lips parted around a red strawberry. The lighting highlights moisture and texture without revealing the full face. The Broken Spine fountain pen logo is placed in the top left corner, with “@thebrokenspine.co.uk” in white at the top right. Bold white text in the lower right reads: “Read Repost Reply #POEMSABOUT #MOUTHS”.

#PoemsAbout #Mouths is live.

Write the heat.
What’s tasted.
What’s withheld.
What stays on the lips after.

Post from today.
Tag #PoemsAbout #Mouths to be read and shared.
Use Alt Text.
Take care with each other.

Fantastic ! ❤️