iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Andy Williamson

The Broken Spine (SUBS OPEN) @thebrokenspine.co.uk · 27/09/2026

Next up: #Rot. Flowers rot. Houses rot. Governments rot. Love can rot beautifully if you leave it somewhere warm enough. New theme begins Friday. Don’t post early. Use Alt Text. Tag #PoemsAbout. Read. Repost. Reply.

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Andy Williamson @andywilliamson.com · 25/09/2026

Happy #PoemsAbout folks, here's my quick contribution to #DeadLetters - will check back later to read others! Thanks @thebrokenspine.co.uk #poetry #poetrycommunity

Correspondence

every day of summer
I wrote you a letter
heartbeats
hand shaking
ink staining my fingers

I still have them
at the bottom
of a box
at the back
of the attic

I look out
over the sea
and wonder
how this day would feel
if I had posted them

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Andy Williamson @andywilliamson.com · 18/09/2026

Good morning everyone, still not finding time to write much this week but did manage this draft poem for #poemsabout #strays. Will pop back later to read others! #poetry #poetrycommunity

Education

you showed no interest
or aptitude
for angles, Angles
Saxons or parallels
more the flames
licking the classroom walls
before they expelled you

forty years later
your social media
hate-filled ignorance
smoke screen across the stars
denying our rainbow reality

I imagine
a life spent running
towards where
from what
you neither know
nor care

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Reposted by Andy Williamson

The Broken Spine (SUBS OPEN) @thebrokenspine.co.uk · 17/09/2026

Tomorrow: #PoemsAbout #Strays. Who gets taken home? Who gets left outside? Who learnt they were better off there? Don’t post before Friday. Tag #PoemsAbout. Use Alt Text.

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Reposted by Andy Williamson

Prem Sikka @premnsikka.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Crypto billionaires must be stopped from undermining democracy. This is more than that. Politicians are bought by corporations and the super rich. Normal people can't compete in the auction. Must ban all political donations. Let parties be funded by modest membership fees and public money.

theguardian.com

The Guardian view on Reform UK: crypto billionaires must be stopped from undermining democracy | Editorial

Editorial: The vast sums given to Nigel Farage’s party in recent days must lead to action on political funding

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Andy Williamson @andywilliamson.com · 11/09/2026

Thanks @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk for this week's #PoemsAbout #FaultLines, here's something short and sweet... will check in on others later! #poetry

Before the divorce we ate canapés

this must be your muse
the artist asked me
sparkling wine in hand
as we small talked
the gallery opening

no, I said
this is my wife
have you met?

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Andy Williamson @andywilliamson.com · 02/09/2026

Away again this week so won’t manage this rather good prompt…

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Andy Williamson @andywilliamson.com · 02/09/2026

Finishing the final changes to a 50,000 manuscript before it heads to the editor and I head for a plane - the perfect time to share this photo... He's a forest bug (a type of shield bug)... he lives in the forest and looks like he has a shield on his back. What's not to love?

Photograph of a forest bug on a jacket. A forest bug is a species of shield bug and he's dark brown with what looks like a shield on his back.

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Andy Williamson @andywilliamson.com · 01/09/2026

The previous anthology was brilliant and this promises to be too with @paulwritespoems.bsky.social and @leiabutler.bsky.social as editors!

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Andy Williamson @andywilliamson.com · 31/08/2026

Hey Jen @jenthorne.bsky.social, thanks for the excellent #PromptCombo #Morning; had a few false starts on this one, so here goes! #poetry #poetrycommunity

Tidemarks

mussel shells crack
under your feet
the beach
stretches away
on an ebb tide

in the first
crack of dawn
as the birds
call out
I reach for you

a memory
persists

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Reposted by Andy Williamson

The Broken Spine (SUBS OPEN) @thebrokenspine.co.uk · 28/08/2026

What useless thing have you remembered for twenty years? On 20 September, The Broken Spine presents The Poetry of Cultural Debris, an online writing workshop exploring pop culture, memory & the ordinary things we can’t quite forget. Come make poems from the junk. #PoemsAbout shorturl.at/NTneI

shorturl.at

The Poetry of Cultural Debris - A Writing Workshop

Turn cultural debris into poetry: use everyday objects, pop culture and memory to generate, craft, draft and revise compelling new work.

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Andy Williamson @andywilliamson.com · 28/08/2026

Sharing a wee #poem for #PoemsAbout #EndOfSummer (which ironically has only just started up here!) - thanks @alanparrywriter.co.uk & @thebrokenspine.co.uk and everyone else for the fantastic poems! #poetry #poetrycommunity

Fall

The electricity crackled
like summer storms
on high-tension lines.

I saw only us,
a future,
that promise;

never noticed
your true name
was Autumn

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Andy Williamson @andywilliamson.com · 27/08/2026

Tha làn-ghealach an Lùnastail ag èirigh thairis air Linne Shlèite…

Photograph of the full moon rising over the Sound of Sleat, Isle of Skye

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Andy Williamson @andywilliamson.com · 25/08/2026

Taken me a day to come up with something for #PromptCombo #era (and it's still a bit tenuous 😳). Thanks @rfsmith.bsky.social for the challenge! #poems #poetrycommunity #writingcommunity

Espresso

this machine
has followed me
across continents
and around my kitchen
for more than twenty years

it is fickle
scolding the grounds
when it suits
yet sensitive and vain
it spits out morning

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Andy Williamson @andywilliamson.com · 20/08/2026

Here's a random animal picture of a Madagascan hissing cockroach I took the other day. It's a marvelous creature, grows up to 7.5cm long and (as the name suggests) it hisses (loudly). A handsome chap, don't you think?

Photograph of a Madagascan hissing cockroach climbing up a branch

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Reposted by Andy Williamson

Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

'How Place-Based Policy Could Counter Populist Discontent' Our latest essay on place and discontent is out today in @politicalquarterly.bsky.social Free to read ➡️ doi.org/10.1111/1467...

How Place-Based Policy Could Counter Populist Discontent

Gerry Stoker, Daisy Blackburn, Nick Clarke, Will Jennings

Resentment felt by people in areas that have suffered from social and economic decline is a significant driver of populist backlash—‘the revenge of the places that don't matter’. An effective place-based strategy could provide something of an antidote to populist discontent. In power, populist leaders are arch-centralisers, organising government to dance to their tune. By focusing on place, UK government can respond to people's feelings of being neglected by Westminster and give them the power and tools to tackle issues that matter to their community. Drawing on a survey conducted in England in 2025, we show that, although place-based grievance is widespread, people still express pride in place and see unfulfilled potential, while negative perceptions reflect the material condition of local areas. There is demand for state intervention, but little faith in the ability of central government to deliver. In response, a place-based strategy requires a new style of multilevel governance followed by a slower, more place-sensitive push towards devolved government.

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Reposted by Andy Williamson

Paul Brookes @thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Thankyou to @janpsolivagant.bsky.social for last week's excellent #PromptCombo My theme this week is #12Lines. The rules are below:

include one scientific term

include one domestic object

invent one new word

interrupt one sentence halfway through

allow one image that makes no logical sense but feels emotionally precise

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Andy Williamson @andywilliamson.com · 17/08/2026

Back to #PromptCombo after some time away and this wonderful prompt from @thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social - #12Lines! Here's my offering, prompted by a chance encounter with a thylacine* last week... (*other animals made extinct by humans are available) #poetry #poetrycommunity

Poem text with photograph of thylacine:

Extinction

as a way of undoing
the misery caused by mankind
thylacinus cynocephalus bakes cakes
he waits for them too rise

the kettle always on for a pot of tea
I am the grivencatcher he tells me
in a low wolf-like bass growl
a perpetual reminder of

fish drift past the open window
resist the urge to follow
the air is no longer fit to breathe
now it’s your turn, unless

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Andy Williamson @andywilliamson.com · 31/07/2026

Good morning everyone, still not much writing time but always good to write something about trains, so here's a wee draft for #PoemsAbout #LastTrain. Thanks @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk as always! #poem #poetrycommunity

Late train to Dundee

I run for a seat as
the day slides shut.
Ticket gates, the noise,
wheels feeling for grip.

A coal-black city evaporating,
tenement stone, brick, darkness,
the bridge where the city is lost.
And you.

Steel and diesel, dark fields blur.
My palm on the cold glass.
At Inverkeithing the line forks,
as the land begins to open.

Through salt-hardened towns:
Dalgety Bay, Aberdour, Burntisland.
Shuttered fronts,
sea-worn stone.

Then harbour lights, iron hush.
This river holds no shape
until the final curve,
and you.

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Andy Williamson @andywilliamson.com · 24/07/2026

Was surprised to see this included Scotland - the calendar interface is clunky with multiple calendars but otherwise very clever!

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Reposted by Andy Williamson

The Broken Spine (SUBS OPEN) @thebrokenspine.co.uk · 14/07/2026

#PoemsAbout #ExitWounds starts Friday. A slammed door. An empty chair. A scar. A city after the crowd has gone. We favour vivid imagery over explanation. Draft now. Use Alt Text.

Dark interior facing glass exit doors, with bare trees visible outside and a glowing EXIT sign above. Overlay text reads: “#PoemsAbout #ExitWounds”.

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Andy Williamson @andywilliamson.com · 16/07/2026

A bit early I know, but I'm travelling tomorrow and been rubbish at posting poems lately 😀 Here's a wee contribution for #PoemsAbout #ExitWounds I wrote in the tiny spaces of the week. Hope you like it and thanks to @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk! #poems #poetry #writingcommunity

Southwesterly gale eight

you watch water
spit
from the kettle

hissing
as it hits
the stove

a tap
dripping
into silence

salt spray on windows
darkness past colour
and you
sit
alone

the bed unmade
drinks gone cold
words
scalding
scarring

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Andy Williamson @andywilliamson.com · 15/07/2026

Apologies for the radio silence on here - no #poems, no posts! Been busy with start of school holidays and visitors. The weather this week in #Skye is magical. It wasn't last week but that was good for a moody sea and sky pic on a deserted Skye beach (I'm not telling you where!)

Moody sky and a calm sea from a very stony beach on the Isle of Skye

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Andy Williamson @andywilliamson.com · 06/07/2026

My #poem for #PromptCombo #Bestiary this week; Each-usige, a kelpie or waterhorse. Not a friend of any young girl by the side of the loch... Thanks @janpsolivagant.bsky.social ant.bsky.social for a challenging theme! #poetrycommunity #poetry

Each-uisge

you sit and watch me
from under the water
follow my movement
the way my hair
catches on sunlight
you cannot embrace

I see you
know you are there
feel the cold of the loch
a shape
waiting to ride out
across the land

I sit and watch you
you have tried this before
I did not fall
fail or falter
and will not now

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Reposted by Andy Williamson

Jen Thorne @jenthorne.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Not sure we have motels, but we do have some well dodgy Travelodges! Happy #PoemsAbout day everyone. Can't wait to read the different takes on #CheapMotels #poetry #poetrycommunity

Affordable Sanctuary

Trains scrape their metal teeth
against the night,
a few metres from my window.
I coax the air conditioner awake.
It coughs once,
then smothers every other sound.

Cold water needles my skin;
the hours for warmth
have long passed.

I don’t search the sheets.
Some truths are better left
unfound.

The kettle gets its ritual cleansing,
and the chair braces the door
like a tired sentinel.

On my floor,
soft‑eyed wanderers drift.
One lifts a can toward me,
a companionable offering
in the lift’s
flickering light.

I shake my head.

Their music thumps through the walls,
a rough lullaby braided
with train rumble
and the air con’s asthmatic wheeze.

Still,
this place cools the heat
pressing in from the city.
A pocket of noise
that isn’t the world’s noise.

I lie back,
the mattress sighing beneath me,
and slip into sleep
where dystopian skylines rise
from the hum of shabby machinery
and the thin breath
of borrowed sanctuary.

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Reposted by Andy Williamson

Merril D. Smith @merrildsmith.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Good morning! I wasn't going to write to today's #PoemsAbout #CheapMotels, but then this memory came to me. Thank you to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk I'll be back in a bit to read.

Poem:

Outsiders

In rural Pennsylvania,
the night before a college friend’s wedding
rustic version of a cheap motel
splintery eyes in pine-knotted wood,

the mattress covered in thick plastic
crackle-rustled every time we moved—

at the fire-hall reception,
the beer flowed,
her new brother-in-law
danced in a pig trough,

we didn’t spend a second night there.

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Reposted by Andy Williamson

Gavin Freeguard @gavinfreeguard.com · 03/07/2026

🚨 LAST DAY TO APPLY 🚨 More than 500 people have now applied for a ticket for the first ever @policycamp.bsky.social, taking place at UCL on Thursday 23 July Applications close TONIGHT at 11.59pm - the ballot takes place over the weekend Last chance to apply for a ticket: policycamp.org.uk

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Reposted by Andy Williamson

The Broken Spine (SUBS OPEN) @thebrokenspine.co.uk · 03/07/2026

#PoemsAbout #CheapMotels is live. Post through Thursday. We favour image-driven poems, emotional honesty, working-class grit, sharp endings, and work that avoids cliché. #TakeRisks #EndOnAnImage. Read 3+, repost, reply. Use Alt Text.

Dimly lit motel room with two single beds separated by a small table and twin lamps casting warm light. Overlay text reads: “#PoemsAbout #CheapMotels”.

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Andy Williamson @andywilliamson.com · 03/07/2026

Good morning everyone, here's my offering for #PoemsAbout #CheapMotels. Thanks as ever to @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk for the prompt! Will duck back later to read everyone else's #poems! #poetry #writingcommunity

Broke

the weekend we drove
south, hard
across the border
dust on the dashboard
cheap gas, cold beers
the radio spitting
bad news and love songs

a low bar,
half‑lit, half‑legal
above the slow, grey sea
a cheap motel in Ensenada
thin walls, neon bleed
salt in the sheets
sirens inland
dogs barking at nothing

broken glass
broken souls
broke / drunk / certain
by the time
we hit the 805
iceplant flowering
in the cracked verge

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Andy Williamson @andywilliamson.com · 29/06/2026

Here's a very quick something for #promptcombo #monument. Such a great first prompt, @jenthorne.bsky.social! Not had much time for writing (or socmed!) the last few weeks but reading about native tree seed collection (we have some of them planted here) and thought it was perfect for the prompt!

Monument

the bleak mountainside
straining to reach
holding out a hand
to find this fallen harvest
holding out for the hope
that what they find
will grow
the next generation

as the world collapses
from greed and selfish acquisitions
these tiny seeds
become a new start
journeying
to our hillside
for my son to know
when he grows old

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Reposted by Andy Williamson

Severin Carrell @severincarrell.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Some joy in a difficult world: ‘Literally growing the future’: volunteers help save Scottish rainforest by collecting 11m seeds Teams painstakingly combed endangered Atlantic habitat over several years, helping to grow 8m native trees 👇🌳🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🌲 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

theguardian.com

‘Literally growing the future’: volunteers help save Scottish rainforest by collecting 11m seeds

Teams painstakingly combed endangered Atlantic habitat over several years, helping to grow 8m native trees

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Andy Williamson @andywilliamson.com · 19/06/2026

Friday already and another challenging #PoemsAbout #OutAfterMidnight. Thanks @thebrokenspine.co.uk, hope you like my reminiscence of Manchester in the mid-80s! #poetry #writingcommunity

Bloom Street

no curfew, no plans
look around, look away
night in a rainy city
bus station shadows

sodium lights
voices crack
down steep stairs
dissolving into spaces

where we hide
in plain sight
from those people
who never understand

push open doors
they lead us
to our selves

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Andy Williamson @andywilliamson.com · 12/06/2026

Genuinely struggled to do anything with this week's #poemsabout #WrongBody, but finally came up with this! Thanks @alanparrywriter.co.uk as always for the prompt! Will look forward to reading others later! #poems #poetry

Issue

my father’s hands
that thing he did
when words failed him

I catch myself
mid-gesture

the mirror shows
his shoulders
his jaw
how loss settles
in a face

I wear this body
like a coat
left at the door
by someone
my father never knew

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Reposted by Andy Williamson

Arts Professional @artsprofessional.co.uk · 09/06/2026

Total Scottish culture spending fell by 33% between 2013 and 2025, from 1.12% of all local and national expenditure to 0.75%, according to campaign group Culture Counts’ new long view dataset on the country’s public investment in the arts.

artsprofessional.co.uk

Exclusive: Extent of cuts to Scottish arts spending laid bare by new tracker - Arts Professional

Total Scottish culture spending fell by 33% between 2013 and 2025, from 1.12% of all local and national expenditure to 0.75%, according to campaign group

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Andy Williamson @andywilliamson.com · 08/06/2026

Another fantastic #promptcombo this week - #NothingMakesSenseNowadays. Thanks for this one Paul @thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social and the chance to channel some grumpiness! #poetrycommunity

Lineage

the grandchildren of men
who died fighting nazis
raise an arm
and hiss at difference

their hatred charged
by those who prey
on ignorance
and the grievances

of the children who voted
for Margaret Thatcher
who promised them
a better world

she lied
as this new lot do
when they pretend
they’re on your side

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Andy Williamson @andywilliamson.com · 04/06/2026

Genuinely don't know if the wee man is called IrnBru, Whisky or Buckfast...

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Andy Williamson @andywilliamson.com · 01/06/2026

Another great #PromptCombo prompt this week - #MaidenVoyage from @janpsolivagant.bsky.social, thanks Jan! Here's something new to share for it! #poems #poetrycommunity

Landfall in heavy seas

sailing out of the storm
I make for landfall
in heavy seas
finding your shore lush

with green inland valleys
the fjords deepening
bottle-blue waters shimmer
beneath the keel

I lean into the wind
following the flight
of birds
drawing me closer

drawing us
together
as we become
our own safe harbour

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Reposted by Andy Williamson

Julie Anne Genter @julieannegenter.greens.org.nz · 30/05/2026

Don’t let the super rich buy (and dismantle) our democracy. Lots of small donations can make a difference! If every person who voted for me to be MP for Rongotai in 2023 gave $5 now, that would cover most of our Wellington Bays campaign costs this year. www.greens.org.nz/wlb_donate_g...

Large donations received by political parties in NZ in 2026x Act has received by far the most, followed by National, NZFirst, and Opportunity.

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Andy Williamson @andywilliamson.com · 25/05/2026

Thanks very much @dragonslayerma.bsky.social for this week's #PromptCombo #Pray - it feels like rich earth to be digging! Here's a very quickly written offering! #poetry #poems

Pray

for hope
for redemption
to save
your ravaged soul

your gods
are not mine
your gods
are corrupt

their mortal intermediaries
in it for themselves
lives of luxury
bigotry and control

small people
scared
of who we might
become

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Andy Williamson @andywilliamson.com · 22/05/2026

Still a but time-constrained this week, so here's something I wrote earlier that feels like a good fit for #PoemsAbout #BearingWitness. Thanks @alanparrywriter.co.uk for the prompt and I'll try and read others later! #Poetry #Poems #WritingCommunity

Sunday morning

a knock at the door
my father downstairs
my brother and I
peer over the banister

in the hall below
a policeman
has taken off his helmet
is telling my father

that she is dead

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