iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Alice Stainer @alicestainer.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Wonderful to read you came 3rd, Lesley! 🤩Huge congrats xxx

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Victoria Spires @victoriaspires.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

Another fantastic @iamb.uk lineup! 😎

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Alice Stainer @alicestainer.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Oh, OK, keep me posted!! Let's hope for one of those dates 😍xx

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Alice Stainer @alicestainer.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

I was so sorry not to be able to attend as I was away teaching. I'm really delighted it went so well and look forward to reading the collection. Also @catherineredford.bsky.social, frustrated that I can't come to your reading in Oxford tonight because I'm singing. I would have loved to have met you.

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Carcanet Press @carcanet.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

From Graeme Richardson's article on his new collection Dirt Rich, which is published this month!🏦 Read in full here: open.substack.com/pub/carcanet...

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Eoghan Daltun 🌍 @irishrainforest.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

Candlesnuff fungus, rising up like a ghostly apparition from the rainforest floor and waving its limbs. A saprotrophic species, it helps break down deadwood. It's also bioluminescent, emitting a faint green light by night.

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Michael Bazzett @mikhailbazharov.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

So delighted to have this little poem appear in @ampoetryreview.bsky.social, alongside a handful of others! Much gratitude to the editors!

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Dust Poetry @dustpoetry.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

✨COVER REVEAL✨ Here it is, the cover for Dear World, Issue 15! Featuring this stunning work by printmaker, Molly Lemon “They tried to bury us but they didn’t know we were seeds” feels so apt for this issue and we can’t wait to share its 30 new poems with you on Saturday! 🧡✨🌱

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The Emma Press @theemmapress.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

📣 NEW BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT📣 We are delighted to announce the acquisition of THE WAY THE WATER HELD ME by @catherineredford.bsky.social, a heart-wrenching debut about young widowhood THE WAY THE WATER HELD ME is available to pre-order now Publishing March 2026 ~ Pre-order here: buff.ly/i1HAi3Y

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Paul Brookes @thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

Hear me read the following poem plus two others at the launch of this wonderful Crooked Spire Press anthology in the Unitarian Church, Doncaster, this Saturday from 13.00pm onwards:

Harsh Light

Gentle light should enter these open eyes, slow. Sat on slagheap blue sky midday see flit white clouds pass shadows over pit, ply and flow girded redbrick coal washery

over bright puddles, empty slurry tanks cross concrete bunkers of unused sand, lime, gravel. Recall days ago nightshift rank veins freeze blood heat, ice encrusted hands rimed, ground concrete hurt all when I fell one snowed winter day heavy weight hauls postal bag down, I slip on an iced drift to unload post bottom of door number eight. I rag, open sprung letterbox, sharp fringed brush put letter pull out quick metal lid slams shut.

Paul Brookes

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Alice Stainer @alicestainer.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

The building in which I teach recently had to change all the lights to LED ones, which are too bright for my eyes, so I've been teaching in semi-gloom. Today an uplighter was installed, so now everyone is super-jealous of my cosily lit tutorial space 😅💡🤩

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Alice Stainer @alicestainer.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

This was such a lovely evening. Great company, varied and accomplished poetry and just the right length. Do support @paulwritespoems.bsky.social if/when he holds another session.

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The Broken Spine (SUBS OPEN) @thebrokenspine.co.uk · 09/11/2025

Mark it down: Dec 20th @ 20.00 — #PoemsAbout #OpenMic + #ChristmasParty returns! Poets, readers, friends — one final night to lift your words before the year ends. 🎤✨ www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1967176915...

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Alice Stainer @alicestainer.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

This was such a lovely surprise!Thank you to @catherineredford.bsky.social & @tarawheeler.bsky.social for this vote of confidence 🤩

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Beth Brooke @bethbpoet.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

So the UN agrees it’s genocide. Time to give this another airing. We are all complicit I fear.

Nakba

We are already deep into that night where
the unspeakable creeps out;

we sense the tapping of its spindle fingers
as it feels it way along the walls,

crawls to meet the rhythm of our hurrying feet;
we are anxious to reach the safety of home

where the lamps are lit and there are, we think,
no shadows to disquiet us.

We walk, try to keep ourselves from running,
but the monsters of our unfinished business

wait just ahead. Wraithlike, they slip in
behind us as we open the front door,

sit in our favourite chairs; their rictus smiles
greet us when we enter the sanctuary of our

living room and turn on the light.

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Alice Stainer @alicestainer.bsky.social · 18/08/2025

Ah, Paul, how nice of you. I've been absent of late because of intensive summer school teaching, but I should be around a bit more now. In fact I'm just enjoying your @inksweatandtears.co.uk poem! More on that shortly 🤩

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David Hanlon @vespertine4.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

After a year and a half of trying, I finally got an acceptance from a poetry journal I’ve been aiming for — and on my twentieth submission, they took not one, not two, but three poems! Never give up! #persistence #poetry

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Alice Stainer @alicestainer.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

Wonderful! It's true that plugging away with these things can pay dividends in the most satisfactory of ways. Well done!

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Alice Stainer @alicestainer.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

On the lighter end of my poetic output today, but I have a soft spot for this poem & am so gratified that @clairewalkerpoetry.bsky.social & @hollyannepoet.bsky.social saw something in it. Have a read & let me know what you think 🥰 #poetsofbluesky

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Bloodaxe Books @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

We're delighted that @niallpoetry.bsky.social and Vidyan Ravinthiran have been shortlisted for the @forwardprizes.bsky.social Prize for Best Collection for their third collections The Island in the Sound and #Avidyā. Many congratulations both! #ForwardPrizes www.bloodaxebooks.com/news?article...

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Alice Stainer @alicestainer.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

It's a pretty weird assumption that an academic environment precludes encountering non-poetic stimuli or points of reference. I mean, few academics ACTUALLY live in an ivory tower - they have families & participate variously in life, while meeting a lot of interesting (sometimes eccentric) people.

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Alice Stainer @alicestainer.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

Sounds like a good idea to me, Mark. I know a couple of (more elderly than you!) people who have healed long-term leg ulcers using honey. Good luck! x

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Alice Stainer @alicestainer.bsky.social · 02/07/2025

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at that! 💜

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Alice Stainer @alicestainer.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

I so enjoyed @cheltpoetfest.bsky.social reading tonight with guests the luminous @johnglenday.bsky.social & deceptively light @jonathandavidson.bsky.social. A wonderfully resonant pairing, supported by fine mic maestros. Heartfelt thanks as ever @annasaund.bsky.social & @zoebrooks.bsky.social 😍

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Rachel Burrows @rburrows.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

Can’t make it this time I’m afraid.

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Black Bough Poetry @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

JOIN US and book your free ticket NOW for Louise Machen's online launch of 'I Am Not Light' on Saturday 12th July, 6pm, with special guests. Unmissable! @louloumach.bsky.social www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/louise-mac...

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The Broken Spine (SUBS OPEN) @thebrokenspine.co.uk · 26/06/2025

Want your book visible with our platforms the week #PIL launches? Submit on the 30th. Circa 20 platforms will be watching. Be on their radar — not lost in the scroll. #PromoteIndieLit #BookRelease #PoetsOfBlueSky

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Barb Milne @barbmilne.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

‘When the teacher read out ‘Ode to a Nightingale’, I think I was sixteen then, I instantly knew I wanted to be a poet…’ the wonderful @pascalepetit.bsky.social . Samuel West reading #Keats = a brilliant half hour of #poetry #PoetryPlease www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

bbc.co.uk

Poetry Please - Pascale Petit - BBC Sounds

Roger McGough talks to French British poet Pascale Petit.

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Alice Stainer @alicestainer.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

Yesterday morning I was teaching Radcliffe's The Romance of the Forest, & as I travelled in on the bus I did a quick Gaelic lesson on Duolingo. What did I have to translate? (never had this sentence before): 'They were hidden in an ancient abbey' 😱 Spooky, eh???

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Alice Stainer @alicestainer.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

I played my creative writing students a recording of Yeats reading The Lake Isle of Innisfree this morning, & one of them said he sounded like a ghost from The Christmas Carol 🤣😍

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Alice Stainer @alicestainer.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

After reading at an outside poetry event & then waiting for the bus, I am actually COLD 🥶& it's quite delicious! ❄️⛄💙

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Alice Stainer @alicestainer.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

Have realised that even in this heat, I'm incapable of travelling about without 54 cardigans 'just in case' 🙄😂

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Rosanna McGlone @rosannamcglone.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

I really like this poem and would like to use it for a poetry class, obviously acknowledging the poet! Can someone recognise this? If so, please dm me? The Last Light It did not fall with thunder,/ but with silence #Isthisyours

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Channel Press @channelpress.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

We're open for submissions! We'll be welcoming work in all forms, in English and Irish, for Issue 13 until 30 June ✨️ Full submissions guidelines at channelmag.org/submissions/

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Black Bough Poetry @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

Next week’s host of TopTweetTuesday on Twitter - Paul Short, poet and blogger at The Book Bag @paulwritespoems.bsky.social 👉 paulwritespoems.com/category/the... #poetry #poetrycommunity #writing #poetic #poetryprompt

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Black Bough Poetry @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

Next Tuesday’s challenge on TopTweetTuesday on Twitter. There’s level 1 and 2 there. 🖊️ 💎

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Alice Stainer @alicestainer.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

Thank you x It's my birthday next week & I've asked for contributions to mentoring, so if that works out, I might be in touch 🤩

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Alice Stainer @alicestainer.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

Ah, thanks. I've been a bit down about my writing lately, but seem to be picking up again. I know these things go in ebbs & flows. Not surprised you are chuffed, a lovely accolade! 💜xxx

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Alice Stainer @alicestainer.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

😁I don't think so! I have eyes 👀🤩

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