Olivia McCannon

Anyone else having trouble with Bluesky age verification? The available methods don't work and so I can't use chat...

Want to import toxic chemicals into Britain with scant scrutiny? Labour says: go right ahead | George Monbiot Jacob Rees-Mogg’s Tory fantasy of a post-Brexit bonfire of regulations is coming true. Our bodies and ecosystems will pay the price, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

Sorry to burden you with another jaw-dropping scandal. But what the government intends to do to chemicals regulation in the UK is chilling. Its consultation was slipped out so quietly that most of us missed it. When I read it, I saw why.
This week's column:
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Building Worlds …we can live together in

I'm so grateful to Linda France for her brilliant substack article featuring The Lives of Z (in amazingly good company!) 😊🙏
lindafrance.substack.com/p/building-w...

High water bills, filthy rivers – and now drought. This is England's great artificial water crisis of 2025 | George Monbiot In its refusal to nationalise water, it’s clear the government operates in the interests of private capital and not of the country, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

“Nothing undermines climate resilience in this country as much as the private ownership of our water system, and nothing reveals the drought of political ambition like the refusal to renationalise it.”
Spot on @georgemonbiot.bsky.social 👇

"The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality."
- James Baldwin

Brilliant keynote by Rachael Allen on Poetry of (ecological) epiphany at LABRC ecopoetics conf yesterday - 'what is the power of epiphany and to whom does it belong?' Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Sylvia Legris and 'the distrust of a singular agency in poetry'.... @labrc.bsky.social

bsky.app/profile/sash...

Thank you for those beautiful words and for your presence last night ❤️ I’d like to credit Jo Morgan for his typesetting design which brings Z to life on the page and in this poster.

Name our Storms

I wrote a book about the named winds of Europe. Now the Met Office are inviting the public to name upcoming storms, made likelier by fossil-fuel-driven climate change. A campaign is underway to name the next five BigOil, BP, Equinor, Exxon, Shell. Do so here... www.metoffice.gov.uk/forms/name-o...

A graphic features a black-and-white portrait of poet Olivia McCannon. Above, the Liverpool University Press logo appears. Below, a quote from McCannon discusses her poetic inspiration for The Lives of Z. The background is light pink with dark green borders and white text.

In our latest LUP Blog post, poet Olivia McCannon offers a glimpse into her forthcoming collection The Lives of Z, playful and provocative poems asking, how ecological is English?

Find out more:
bit.ly/LivesofZblog

Soviet-era spacecraft plunges to Earth after 53 years stuck in orbit Kosmos 482 has crashed back down more than a half century since launch on failed mission to Venus A Soviet-era spacecraft plunged to Earth on Saturday, more than a half century after its failed launch to Venus. The European Union Space Surveillance and Tracking agency confirmed its uncontrolled reentry, based on analysis and no-shows of the spacecraft on subsequent orbits. The European Space Agency’s space debris office also indicated the spacecraft had reentered after it failed to appear over a German radar station. Continue reading...

Soviet-era spacecraft plunges to Earth after 53 years stuck in orbit

The birth trauma taboo Theo Clarke’s book paints a damning picture of Britain’s failing maternity services. Change cannot come soon enough.

"Giving birth in England is not safe. Half of all maternity units are rated either inadequate or requiring improvement."

🖊️ @hannahsbee.bsky.social: The birth trauma taboo

Bottom trawling is horribly destructive to coastal ocean ecosystems, and deep-sea mining will do the same to the open ocean. #OceanFilm 🌊

Powerful stuff from @sashadugdale.bsky.social In the dirty fire of the great poets / there are lines of such naturalness /
that when you have torched the source /
you too must end in wordlessness.

The book and I travelling to Liverpool for the @pavilionpoetry.bsky.social launch tonight with @munozpoems.bsky.social and Sarah Corbett! @notjustdancing.bsky.social

A copy should be on every desk, not just in the Home Office but throughout government. A bold, brave and hugely timely book 👇

An image featuring a black-and-white portrait of poet Sarah Corbett. The background is dark blue with a white border and with the white Liverpool University Press logo. Below the image is a quote from Corbett about The Ishtar Gate, reflecting on poetry’s role in exploring personal and collective experience beyond politics or historical narrative.

In our latest LUP Blog post, poet Sarah Corbett offers a glimpse into her forthcoming collection The Ishtar Gate, where the poetry of witness and memorial meets the search for connection.

Find out more:
bit.ly/TIshtarGate

The rise of end times fascism | Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor The governing ideology of the far right has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism. Our task is to build a movement strong enough to stop them

You have to read this article.
"The forces we are up against have made peace with mass death. They are treasonous to this world and its human and non-human inhabitants."
By @naomiaklein.bsky.social and @astra.bsky.social
www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

Happy publication day to Don Mee Choi, whose extraordinary National Book Award-winning work DMZ Colony is out today in the UK and Europe 💫

uk.bookshop.org/p/books/dmz-...

Black-and-white photo of poet Theresa Muñoz wearing a coat. Pink background with text about her poetry. Quote: “I have always been drawn to write poems about objects…” Logos of Liverpool University Press and a white Pavilion dome icon.

In our latest LUP Blog post, poet Theresa Muñoz offers a glimpse into her forthcoming collection Archivum, an exploration of what it means to engage with archival artefacts, and how these objects resonate with events in our lives.

Find out more here:
bit.ly/ArchivumBlog

BBC Radio 4 - Rare Earth, Set in Concrete Our civilisation is based on concrete. Can we build in a cleaner way?

Today's Rare Earth (on air at noon) is all about concrete. We associate it with solidity and reliability, but also with being the scourge of the natural world. It has a huge environmental cost, so what does the future hold? And what might a concrete-free world look like?
www.bbc.co.uk/progra...

A cloud forest from below looking up at the canopy fading into the fog and tall tree trunks covered in a multitude of moss and plants.

In this week’s newsletter, we share a conversation that explores an ongoing effort to gain legal recognition of the Los Cedros cloud forest as co-creator of a song, which if successful, will be a world first. Listen to what true creative reciprocity with the Earth can sound like. buff.ly/SKXbTG9

The deep cultural cost of British university job cuts | Letters Letters: Arts and humanities are being hit hardest by cuts in higher education, write Prof Thea Pitman and Prof Emma Cayley, and Dr Ronan McLaverty-Head and another letter writer comment on cuts at Ca...

'The deep cultural cost of British university job cuts" bit.ly/4gnDCuE

An excellent letter, in today's @theguardian.com, by the co-chairs of @artsandhums.bsky.social, a collective of subject specialist organisations representing and advocating for arts & humanities subjects in UK HE. #skystorians

Details of the Pavilion Poetry launch for this year's books... I am so excited that The Lives of Z will be part of it! @notjustdancing.bsky.social @pavilionpoetry.bsky.social

I have an essay in the estimable @emergencemagazine.bsky.social about how we harmonise our lives with nature's rhythms, even as they fall out of synchrony. It's part of a chapter in Nature's Genius, out in May! @canongate.co.uk

A striped fish "in deepening shades of orange, red, and almost black. Their long, flagged spines and sail-like fins ripple gently in the current" against a dark black depth of the sea.

Coming face to face with lionfish in the waters of the Aegean Sea, James Bridle traces the unfolding of geology, evolution, and empire that not only occasions this meeting, but binds us in relationship with this “invasive” species. Read this week’s essay, “Here Come the Lionfish.” buff.ly/4jyPQDr

The Lives of Z | Home

My new book The Lives of Z asks "how ecological is English?" Out April 2025 from Pavilion Poetry @livunipress.bsky.social liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.... @notjustdancing.bsky.social

Looking forward to this and to having my ears opened. I'm experimenting with soundscapes for the poems from my new book, The Lives of Z, out from Pavilion Poetry in April.