iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

Decorated my new notebook, ready to plant words in. Here’s hoping they grow into poems, to replace the ones that were stolen. 🌱🌸💜🤞

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 23/11/2025

Devastated: a thief stole my bag with my laptop, 3 years of notebooks, all my MA work, wallet, house & car keys etc. I’ve lost 5 yrs of writing (not backed up, yes I know) despite CCTV police closed the case. I’m sure these went in a bin but in case, pls keep an eye out. 🙏

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 13/07/2025

What a night at the 50th anniversary of the Cambridge Poetry Festival!

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

Creative genius middle son spent the day in London practising graffiti stencil art. It reads, ‘To the future, You’re Welcome, from us.’ Love seeing his tag signature out in the world. ❤️🙌

Graffiti that says, ‘To the future, You’re welcome, from us,’ against a backdrop of colourful spray paint.

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

Looking forward to reading at tomorrow’s Wordsworth Grasmere open mic before the brilliant Erica Hesketh reads from her debut collection ‘In the Lily room’. #GoToThePoets wordsworth.org.uk/blog/events/...

wordsworth.org.uk

'Go to the poets, they will speak to thee': Erica Hesketh - Wordsworth Grasmere

Curated and hosted by poet Kim Moore, our online contemporary poetry reading series continues throughout 2025. We will be listening...

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

It’s safe to say we smashed it at last night’s CB1 poetry reading! A phenomenal evening sharing poems workshopped in our Cambridge Seminar group with Stav Poleg. Absolutely loved reading alongside my fabulous friends. 🙌👏😘

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

Delighted to be a Spotlighted Poet this Sunday at CB1 poetry alongside my fabulous Cambridge feedback group. Come along to watch or sign up for the open mic!

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

Brilliant evening at the Magma competition Reading last night. Popped to the poetry library to read Grassroots issue first, filled with stunning poems, like this one by Lianne O Hara. 💔

A photo of a selection of poetry journals in front of the rainbow coloured stacks at the poetry library in the south bank.

A photo of Lianne O Hara’s poem ‘ helpline’

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

Hilarious evening catching up with the fabulous Laurie Bolger & Harry Baker. Haven’t laughed that much since I last saw Harry. These two ought to be available on prescription. Like a comedy-poetry pill. My HRT does a great job, but an evening with Harry & Laurie fills your poetry soul. ❤️😘🙌

Laurie and Anna grinning together behind Laurie’s book signing desk.

Laurie Bolger reading at the Cambridge Junction

Harry Baker reading at the Cambridge Junction

Laurie and Anna grinning with thumbs up behind all Laurie’s books at the book signing.

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

Wonderful to meet @pascalepetit.bsky.social this week at Cam Lit Fest. I’m still processing the brilliant discussion that followed a phenomenal set of readings from Pascale and Gwyneth. 👌🙌👏👏👏❤️

A photo of Pascale Petit in her beautiful orange embroidered shirt over a red dress, with Anna Shelton in a green dress, at Newnham College.

Pascale Petit reading from her book Beast

Pascale Petit and Gwyneth Lewis in conversation with Dame Gillian Beer.

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

Made it into the garden for the sunny Spring equinox. Began this mesmerising book by @pascalepetit.bsky.social read every snatched second this afternoon, carried it in my hand -my thumb as bookmark- during the school run. Literally couldn’t put it down. Absolutely stunning. #BrokenLegBookClub

A photo of Pascale Petit’s book ‘My Hummingbird Father’ held by Anna Shelton next to her crutch.

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BookwormVaught - Dr Anna Vaught @bookwormvaught.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

Projected Government cuts, particularly to PIP. One thing not even seen mentioned by them: it will drive up the number of unpaid carers, remove people from the workforce and place strain on resources because long-term unpaid care is intersectional with poor health and with poverty. And on PIP -

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

So close to my aim of raising £1000 in tribute to my wonderful brother-in-law Martin for his chosen charity @pancreaticcanuk.bsky.social Please donate in his memory if you can. Thank you. www.justgiving.com/page/martin-...

justgiving.com

Martin’s Legacy for Pancreatic Cancer UK

Help Anna Shelton raise money to support Pancreatic Cancer UK

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

Wow, what an evening! CB1 Poetry with the inspirational @carrieetter.bsky.social ❤️ Such a moving performance thanks Carrie! My first time reading at an Open Mic in my home town. Loved it.❤️

A photo of Carrie Etter and Anna Shelton smiling together.

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

Really looking forward to hearing the wonderful @ruthpadel.bsky.social read from her brilliant collection ‘Girl’ this evening. Us open miccers will be reading poems of girlhood too. #GoToThePoets ❤️ Book tickets here: www.trybooking.com/uk/events/la...

Go to the poets, they will speak to thee. Ruth Padel reads tonight at Wordsworth Grasmere on zoom. Book tickets here.

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

We laid him to rest next to Dad, in a grove of Birch trees. The drizzle stopped as the final poem was read and the sun came out. Yesterday I returned to larks singing a hymn above him. Goodbye Martin.❤️

The name Martin made out of spring flowers, laid on a grave, in sunshine.

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

Proud to say my pamphlet has been longlisted for the Disabled Poets Prize 2025.

My pamphlet has been longlisted in the top 12 unpublished pamphlets for the Disabled Poets Prize 2025.

Congratulations to the long and shortlisted writers for the 2025 Disabled Poets Prize.

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

Heartbroken that my wonderful brother-in-law Martin died yesterday after a 3yr battle with pancreatic cancer. We are all devastated by his loss. He was the kindest soul I knew. He was surrounded by love in his final hours.💔

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𝐀𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫... 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐦𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐫𝐭 @afterpoetry.com · 30/12/2024

For @afterpoetry.com's final #ekphrastic poem of 2024, here's @annashelton.bsky.social's 'Motherhood'. ' ... he never knew the pains she rode through as she birthed him, how she oohed and aahed and ouched inside the room where hell became a hospital ... ' afterpoetry.com/poem/dec-30-...

afterpoetry.com

Read New Ekphrastic Poem 'Motherhood by Anna Shelton exclusively in After... | Poems Inspired By Other Art

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𝐀𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫... 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐦𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐫𝐭 @afterpoetry.com · 30/12/2024

A smart poem that deals deftly but honestly with a traumatic personal experience.

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

Delighted to round off the year with my poem ‘Motherhood’ published on @afterpoetry.com tonight! Inspired by Jon Stone’s ‘Mustard’ - a variation on Terrance Hayes’ ‘A Gram Of &s’, I explore motherhood after birth trauma. #PoetsOfBlueSky www.afterpoetry.com/poem/dec-30-...

afterpoetry.com

Read New Ekphrastic Poem 'Motherhood by Anna Shelton exclusively in After... | Poems Inspired By Other Art

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

You can read my poem at 9pm tonight! A wonderful way to end a brilliant year of poetry! @afterpoetry.com #BlueSkyPoets

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 25/12/2024

What a wonderful Christmas gift to open this email today. 🎄❤️👏#GivePeatAChance Support the book of bogs here www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/give-peat-...

Thanks for supporting Give Peat A Chance: A Book of bogs. We’re delighted to tell you it was successful. Email from Crowdfunder.

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

‘Shame must change sides.’ Gisèle’s husband only got 20 yrs, for over a decade of the most horrific sexual abuse. Most of her attackers also got less than the prosecution requested. Is it any wonder most women don’t report? #shamemustchangesides Beautiful embroidery care of Victoria Villanova ❤️

A photo of Gisèle Pelicot embroidered in bright colours with yellow lines reaching out from around her face by Victoria Villanasa, with Gisèle’s words, ‘ shame must change sides’ embroidered above her head in pink and blue thread.

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

Only 14 days to go! I’m so excited! Get your ticket here! #BlueSkyPoets www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/january-wr...

Meme of Mr Bean waiting for a bus. Text says ‘Me waiting for the January writing hours to start, realising it’s only December’

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

A powerful piece about grief and the process of a parent dying by Rebecca Tiger in @leonliteraryreview.bsky.social CW: death, dying

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The Broken Spine (SUBS OPEN) @thebrokenspine.co.uk · 15/12/2024

Write a poem inspired by nature at its rawest—untamed and unfiltered. Share it with us by tagging @alanparry83.bsky.social and using #PoemsAbout #WildWind #PoetrySky #PoetryCommunity. We’ll provide personalised feedback! 📝

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

Can’t wait to read at tonight’s Open Mic before Hannah Lowe’s reading - online for Wordsworth Grasmere. #BlueskyPoets #GoToThePoets

Tonight’s event features Hannah Lowe. The open mic theme is to bring a poem that experiments with form.

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

Loved hearing the talented @jennymitchellgo.bsky.social reading poems this evening for Fire River poets. ‘Black Men Carry Flowers’ is replaying in my head, ‘their words fall out as petals’🌺 gorgeous! May more of your poems flourish Jenny! ❤️

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

Excited to read at Fire River Poets tonight before the talented Jenny Mitchell! @jennymitchellgo.bsky.social sign up to watch here fireriverpoets.org.uk/register-for...

fireriverpoets.org.uk

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 01/12/2024

Want to know why #16DaysOfActivismAgainstGenderBasedViolence is so important? Today’s talk was zoom-bombed (targeted sexual harassment) during a discussion of gender inequality in marginalised spaces. Some men just can’t stand women discussing our lived experience. Team Bear all the way.

media.tenor.com

a cartoon character with red hair covering her face

ALT: a cartoon character with red hair covering her face

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Sídhe Press @sidhepress.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

And last, but not least, our third book this year is #KeepTellingOfGaza, a book of call-and-response poems about the ongoing genocide in Gaza, written by @khawlabadwan.bsky.social & @alisonphipps.bsky.social edited by @missyerem.bsky.social .The breathtaking artwork was gifted to us

A blurb for KeepTelling Of Gaza by Khawla Badwan and Alison Phipps:
These poems are aware that in your care, they
cannot die, cannot be stolen or buried, cannot
be twisted less true. Cannot be erased. You
hold in your hands absolute proof that the
human spirit will make itself heard, even when
every bird stops singing over the scorched
earth. For the future children of Gaza, read
every devastating word. Know them, share
them, and keep them safe —until the time
comes to place them back on the traumatised
tongues of that future on the other side.
Ankh Spice, The Water Engine

The cover shows a painting by artist Imad Abu Shtayyah,
‘we will return’, also known as ‘we will rise again’- It depicts a women wearing a traditional long-sleeved dress decorated with traditional Palestinian tatreez (cross-stitching)and a white hijab, She is looking away into the distance. She is standing on the ruins of houses which are also visible on her dress and is rising from the ruins.

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Sídhe Press @sidhepress.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

using the proceeds to donate eSIMs to Gaza and to support campaigns in Gaza. Special shout out to our wonderful contributor @annashelton.bsky.social who got the book into the National Poetry Library!🥳🥰 sidhe-press.eu/books/to-lig...

sidhe-press.eu

To Light The Trails- Poems By Women In A Violent World – Sídhe PressAccessibility ToolsIncrease TextDecrease TextGrayscaleHigh ContrastNegative ContrastLight BackgroundLinks UnderlineReadable FontRese...

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Sídhe Press @sidhepress.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

Our books 2024, a🧵: we started off with `To Light The Trails – Poems By Women In A Violent World" My fabulous co-editors were Mo Schoenfeld @suefinch.bsky.social Giovanna MacKenna @sarahsouthwest.bsky.social Róisín Ní Neachtain. In the first few months, all proceeds from this book went to UNRWA,

Cover of To Light The Trails, Poems By Women In a Violent World. On the right, the front cover shows a vibrant 3-d- sun made out of cardboard, with yellow, red, gold, pink, white. On the left is a quote: The poems in To Light the Trails force us
to look, empowering the women and girls
featured in the pieces through the act
of witness. The voices of these women
refuse to be silenced, and from diverse
perspectives, we hear experiences of
escaping controlling behaviour, of living
in fear, of suffering assaults, of not being
believed, and of rising up and reclaiming
the narrative. The poems come together
to form a powerful and immensely
readable testimony to freedom and
resistance.
Hilary Otto, Zoetrope

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

Took my current #BrokenLegBookClub read into the garden ❄️ Beautiful book by @wendypratt.bsky.social 🙌 Wonderful to hear Wendy read some of her new poetry yesterday. #theghostlake

A copy of Wendy Pratt’s book The Ghost Lake held against some frosted Ivy

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

Wonderful to hear the brilliant Grace Reid perform at the Winter Fire reading yesterday.👏❤️💋 Thanks to host @miriamo77.bsky.social #BrokenDuckPoets #BlueskyPoets

A photo of Grace Reid on screen at the Winter Fire poetry evening.

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Broken Sleep Books @brokensleepbooks.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

SUBMISSIONS CALL: We are open for submissions of poetry pamphlets (up to 40 pages). Email: Include a short biography, brief synopsis, & poetic influences. Subject Line: Poetry pamphlet Submission - [Name], [Title] Full details & guidelines: brokensleepbooks.com/submissions

Yellow notepad and pen on a blue background. Text above reads 'POETRY PAMPHLET SUBMISSIONS OPEN!' Text below reads '1st October - 30th November brokensleepbooks.com/submissions

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Today’s Broken Leg Book club read: the stunning White Cloud Over Purple by @jpseabright.bsky.social I love how this poem Cold Dark Matter explodes sentences like splinters across the page. ❤️ #16daysofactivismagainstgenderbasedviolence

Gorgeous front cover of White Cloud Over Purple by JP Seabright, a colourful painted swirling picture on the front, complemented by Anna Shelton’s swirling pink and purple trousers with leg brace behind.

Page of White Cloud over purple with the poem Cold Dark Matter.
Returning again to
Cornelia Parker's
we've both changed
over the years.
I reflect on
exploded shed,
Fragments of splintered
how little
When I first saw
A recognition, that
the work, in 1997,
wood hanging in
I felt something
suspended animation.
shift
thousands
this is what it feels like.
inside my body.
of tiny shards,
a sum of the whole,
slowly twisting
Trauma, frozen
in time and space,
in statis without
but not touching,
-something years later,
resolution.
I visit the moment
And now, twenty-
and feel the splinters
still buried in my limbs.
of explosion again
Tiny thorns lodged
in my side,
twisting
but not touching.
after Cornelia Parker, Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View, 1991
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S. Reeson / Experimental Poet @internetofwords.com · 24/11/2024

Not gonna lie: if you get Memed as a Poet that is some S-Tier love RIGHT THERE. For those of you who don't speak Internet? GO SIGN UP AND CHANGE YOUR LIFE :D

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 24/11/2024

38 days until Poetry Heaven! 🙌 What are you waiting for? Get your ticket here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/january-wr... #JanuaryWritingHours

Meme of Mr Bean waiting for a bus. Text says ‘Me waiting for the January writing hours to start…realising it’s only November’

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Today’s Broken Leg Book Club read: Susie Wilson’s brilliant pamphlet - well deserved winner of the Disabled Poets Prize. ❤️🙌 @concordmoose.bsky.social #BlueSkyPoets

A photo of Susie Wilson’s new pamphlet, Nowhere Near As Safe As A Snake In Bed, held by Anna Shelton above a yellow blanket that is covering her broken leg. A pair of crutches is in the corner. The book cover colours match the blanket.

Photo showing the poem Banana Circus from Susie Wilson’s pamphlet ‘Nowhere Near As Safe As A Snake In Bed’.

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

Mourning moon. Time to write of light in the darkness. 🌕 #moon

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 12/11/2024

My attempts to edit a poem this week are like the Hokey Cokey. Put something in, take something out, in out in out shake it all about… 🤦‍♀️😂 #editing

Screenshot of the dictionary.com entry for the Hokey Cokey - a party dance and song

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 10/11/2024

Please give me examples of compliments/rejections you received about your writing that really weren’t. All ‘we loved your poem but…’ examples gratefully received. It’s for a thing…

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 08/11/2024

Incredible Fire River Poets evening! Poetry came full circle: I started with a poem about removing men’s names from the landscape of my body, Joelle ended with ‘the topography of body/a woman’s body is always a man’s business’🙌 Lucky to hear Joelle read exceptional new poems. I’m still buzzing!

A screenshot of the Fire River Poets zoom, Joelle Taylor is reading a poem, Anna Shelton and others are watching the performance.

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Anna Shelton @annashelton.bsky.social · 07/11/2024

Wish me luck🤞- I’m on 1st tonight at FireRiverPoets before the poetry powerhouse that is Joelle Taylor🙌7.30! Register here fireriverpoets.org.uk/register-for...

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Mary Robinette Kowal @maryrobinettekowal.com · 07/11/2024

This is your reminder that writing is a political action.

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