Em Gray

I'd heard of a rare #squirrel a couple of times on local Facebook groups...and found him today - isn't he beautiful!

ah fantastic news! Congratulations - hope there was a little mossy celebratory dance 💚

thank you so much!

Thank you so much to you both for choosing UFO - and to @hollyannepoet.bsky.social for the spelling keen eye, and your patient emails 💚

UFO – Em Gray UFO . . Em Gray is a neurodivergent poet living in Brighton, UK. She has been highly commended by the Forward Prize, shortlisted for the Creative Future Writers’ Award and has won second priz…

My little UFO poem has found the perfect home with @atriumpoetry.bsky.social today - thank you so much to @clairewalkerpoetry.bsky.social for her patient checking of how-to-spell-teletubby too!

atriumpoetry.com/2025/09/30/u...

I feel there's a poem here :-)

Thank you for reading and sharing today's poem -
brassband by @niaandthepoems.bsky.social

1st October is the start of the annual #pheasant shooting season. I wrote this unpraise poem with these poor birds in mind. If you have a moment, please consider signing this @animalaid.org.uk petition to end the shooting of birds in the UK -

action.animalaid.org.uk/page/135232/...

Maggie Millner: “Is Mary Oliver Embarrassing?” A reckoning with Mary Oliver’s reputation as an unserious poet explores how her best work has been misunderstood.

'These days, the only poems that really embarrass me are the ones that refuse to wrestle in some way with their own smallness and contingency—to acknowledge that a page of poetry is not the same kind of place as a town hall or a war zone or a protest or a poll site.'

yalereview.org/article/mill...

How to Save a Dog For nearly a year, a motley crew scoured New Orleans for a shaggy white mutt named Scrim.

Such a moving read - how a small, lost dog resonates and captivates...

www.newyorker.com/news/the-wee...

Welcome!

Photo of a red fox kit who is about 2-3 months old. They have their adult coloured coat and their eyes have darkened now to a dark amber. They are sitting amongst grass with some buttercups growing, and is looking to the left and in profile. They look watchful but calm.

This year's 2 cubs I watch from my window are growing beautifully, and now have their adult coats and eye colours. What a serene looking face this little one has 🧡

We celebrate the bull, believed to have escaped from an abattoir, that ran loose in Birmingham, yet almost everyone participates in the cruel and grisly trade in body parts which keeps abattoirs in business.

obscure and relatable at the same time. May the dreams resolve.

Photo of a fluffy red fox cub. S/he is almost head on to the camera and standing, looking slightly to the side. S/he now has adult colours, although s/he still has the pale (and intense looking!) eyes of cubs, that will probably darken a bit. S/he stands on grass starred with buttercups.

Fox Villas news 🧡 - there are only two cubs this year, but they are beauties - a boy and a girl with lovely chunky legs to grow into. Here is the bolder of the two.

Wonderful!

Photo of a one day old herring gull chick sitting amongst dry moss next to cracked egg shell. Their beak is wide open, their pointed pink tongue protruding. Their feathers are fluffy and beige with dark spots like a pebble/seal pup/the egg they came from.

Welcome, little one. Here beginneth #chick (gull-let? Gullet?) season.

I so loved your poem and reading, Olga - what an unexpectedly magical and meaningful Facebook group to have discovered!

Thank you so much, Corinna, I'm really glad you enjoyed them 💚

Ah, you're welcome! I did some suspicious looking lurking near floral/green places near my flat. Thank you again so much for giving these poems such a lovely home 🧡

Photo of anthology 'To Lay Sun Into A Forest', propped on old stone wall and leaning against leaves and small blue flowers. Cover of To Lay Sun Into A Forest- Poems About Grief by Sídhe Press. On the left there is a quote : The wide-ranging community of poets chart grief across a galaxyof stars, lands, and the oceans, through the shivering leaves oftrees, to the heartbeats of loved ones, their losses are encapsulatedin words that stay with us, long after we close the book. Teresa Pilgrim, academic, creative practitioner, activist, survivor On the right, there is a swirl of a painting, red, yellow, orange, you can see the brushstrokes. On it is the title in a handwriting font.

Photo of poem by Em Gray, titled 'all of this is normal', that reads; to wait at glass for unseasonal butterflies / strange weather / tameness to seek counsel from hellebores / carry a person-faced stone to continue to omit sage / chilli / juniper despite a love for them to adopt a worn shirt as support animal to darn a requiem of socks to fear what is melting but leave the lamp on to hear from the empty kitchen devotions of tea to recur together sleep-limbed in borrowed coats / on unfamiliar benches to press call then name yourself stupid for believing loss a mastless hill / a loft / a swift / a door

Photo of poem by Em Gray, titled 'Remembrance Day for Lost Species' (after The Christmas Island Pipistrelle), that reads: You are two paragraphs. I'm sorry for the Feral of cat, the Wolf of freighted snake and how the microfiction of your body is the size of a prune's dark shrivel, stone heart. All, now, is elegy. I seek the lore of you so always everywhere you'd fly through open doors, missteer into soup but find your seed bead eyes flash-lit, eleven seconds of the last recording of your voice looping its morse as if to be understood.

Honoured to have two poems in this beautiful anthology from @sidhepress.bsky.social. All proceeds go to The Sameer Project. The physical book is available from Amazon, and the ebook is just 5.99 Euros, and can be purchased directly from Sidhe Press here: www.sidhe-press.eu/product/to-l...

Map reveals residential wood-burning hotspots in England and Wales Researchers analyse energy performance certificate data to identify areas with potentially high particle pollution

I'm really sorry, but we just need to stop doing this. Your wood-burning hygge leads directly to people's deaths - other people's and perhaps your own.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Poem by Em Gray titled 'Due to legal guidelines this will not be a march, just a still protest' that follows on from the title, and reads: as in still here, as in still for the camera, as in even so and regardless, as in not moving backwards like in that image of the stages of a species where the one at the back is at the back.

How can I make people care? Disability benefits are not prizes to be won nor luxuries we can afford to live without.

From last week:

How Can I Make People Care?

#Disability #CIADISH #NEIS
louisekenward.substack.com/p/how-can-i-...

Poetry Books for Secondary School Libraries Many secondary school libraries have a very limited selection of poetry books. We try to donate over 1000 books a year to secondary school libraries - with your help!

Wow. We are over half-way there. So grateful for the extraordinary response to this appeal from our community. Thank you.

We're starting to reach out to schools, plan boxes to send out, & get those books onto library shelves.

Please help us spread the word!
#poetry

fundrazr.com/22Wg69?ref=s...

Photo of 'Two Boys at Midnight' by Matt Barnard, that can be found with a recording in the link.

Just reading the National Poetry Competition winners' anthology - love this moment of noticing by Matt Barnard, that feels like a rites of passage. poetrysociety.org.uk/poems/two-bo...

Love this 'grotty sponge' of a heart.

This 'little goblin' is strangely comforting.

Oh no! Well, it feels an importance to reply to this as an 'I see you'.