Sign in

Caroline Bird

@carolinebirduk.bsky.social
1.8K followers 443 following 65 posts

Poet & playwright. 7th poetry collection, Ambush at Still Lake, out from Carcanet: shorturl.at/JXYCR. Winner of Forward Prize for Best Collection 2020 www.carolinebird.co.uk

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Caroline Bird
John Glenday @johnglenday.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Just occasionally, you come across a new poem from a young poet that reassures you all is well with the future of poetry. Dean Browne, from his debut Picador collection ‘After Party’
28313
Reposted by Caroline Bird
Nottingham Playhouse @nottmplayhouse.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
We are delighted to have received a total of 4 UK Theatre Awards nominations! 🎉
A purple background with UK THEATRE AWARDS logo with encore NOMINEE 2026. Best New Play The Last Stand of Mrs Mary Whitehouse. Best Play Revival - Small Island. Best Performance in a Play - Katie Redford and Benedict Salter in Scenes from a Friendship. UK's Most Welcoming Theatre.
1114
Reposted by Caroline Bird
The Poetry Society @poetrysociety.org.uk · 24/07/2026
Just one week to go! Are you a poet aged 11-17? Have you entered the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award yet? Our life-changing talent development scheme is free to enter, and poems can be on any theme. For more information, please visit foyleyoungpoets.org Deadline: 31st July 2026
041
Reposted by Caroline Bird
Tom Snarsky @tomsnarsky.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
Czesław Miłosz, trs. the author & Lillian Vallee
ENCOUNTER


We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn.
A red wing rose in the darkness.

And suddenly a hare ran across the road.
One of us pointed to it with his hand.

That was long ago. Today neither of them is alive,
Not the hare, nor the man who made the gesture.

O my love, where are they, where are they going
The flash of a hand, streak of movement, rustle of pebbles.
I ask not out of sorrow, but in wonder.

1936
67418
Reposted by Caroline Bird
Sasha Dugdale @sashadugdale.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Am I the only one who has to look up a flight number in a poem? This is the daily flight from LHR to SAN, peopled with birds and ghosts. from Michael Schmidt’s poignant new Smith | Doorstop pamphlet @carcanet.bsky.social
BA 0265 (poem
Title)
... the birds not perched but seated properly in rows as if with
opera glasses to follow the red sun down.
I miss you. The birds do. 'Shadows lengthen' and it's night for good for you. I'm confident it's not very dark wherever you have gone.
There are no flames, either. Hell's no destination.
Maybe still audible the waves chewing the rocks below your house or there's unhallowed harmony, or a low voice reading into your blindness another history audiobook.
Id like to share with you the names of some places I flew over to be here:
Medicine Hat, Gimly, Flin Flon, Pukatawagan, Red Sucker Lake, Pikangikum, Assinibole, Nipawin,
treeless Plentywood, with the ghosts of forests teeming with the ghosts of extinguished birds, and Carrot River dry as a skeleton.
It's a sort of history that bears me back to you.
Another time I'll tell you, when you're listening.
0345
Reposted by Caroline Bird
Laura McKee @lauramckee.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
Ruth Stone’s birthday today ❤️ www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51285/...
At Eighty-Three She Lives Alone 
BY RUTH STONE

Enclosure, steam-heated; a trial casket.
You are here; your name on a postal box; entrance into another place like vapor.
No one knows you. No one speaks to you.
All of their cocks stare down their pant legs at the ground. Their cunts are blind. They barely let you through the check-out line.
Have a nice day. Plastic or paper?
Are you origami? A paper folded swan, like the ones you made when you were ten?
When you saw the constellations, lying on your back in the wet grass, the soapy pear blossoms drifting
and wasting, and those stars, the burned out ones whose light was still coming in waves; your body was too slight.
How could it hold such mass?
Still on your lips the taste of something.
All night you waited for morning, all morning for afternoon, all afternoon for night; and still the longing sings.
Oh, paper bird with folded wings.
051
Reposted by Caroline Bird
Tom Snarsky @tomsnarsky.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
RIP Lieke Marsman 💔 (tr. Sophie Collins)
One afternoon

there was once an afternoon with a face. a round face with a friendly mouth, decent nose and two small, shiny, inkblack eyes that you would look into whenever you would go get a glass of water from the kitchen or open a window in the front room. sometimes the afternoon would hum – sometimes happily, sometimes sadly, but always the same tune. as afternoon became evening the face would sing. first softly, then louder and louder as evening approached, until it was night, and the world would go quiet. as quiet as this house when, for example, I would go get a glass of water from the bathroom and my shiny, inkblack eyes would be watching me from the mirror above the sink, from the window in the front room. I’ve got to get out of my head, but if you knew how dissociated I’ve been feeling this statement wouldn’t make sense. it wouldn’t shock me if I woke up tomorrow as someone else but it would shock her.
1113
Caroline Bird @carolinebirduk.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
Are you free next Tuesday 9th June, 7-9? Join me online here and become madly, desperately obsessed with line-breaks www.arvon.org/writing-cour...
arvon.org
Masterclass: Line Breaks | How the light gets in | Arvon
There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in. – Leonard Cohen Line-breaks are thrilling, with multiple powers. They can enact the poem’s state of mind, unleash swathes of extra meaning...
1186
Reposted by Caroline Bird
Tom Snarsky @tomsnarsky.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
William Bronk
THE BODY OF THIS LIFE

I lie along the body of this life,
all night stilling my breath to listen to breath,
feeling its weight heavy against my weight.
Awake, in early light, I look at it
and set my eyes to search its hollows out,
its curves and surfaces, sojourning there
as walkers quarter whose aimless walks are a kind
of office in which they read the proper of the day,
slowing at pools of light under the trees,
impelled to certain roads, bemused at flowers,
as little knowing what a place should mean
or what they meant to find as I with you,
still sleeping, mute to me, or, waking now,
awake to some desire not my desire
and helpless to answer mine which puzzles itself
pondering what day that it were proper to
were here, that it should see in sets of bone,
in skin, in streaks of hair, some different sight
as if it were there and it not there,
nor know, at all, what sight it is it sees.
1293
Reposted by Caroline Bird
Dr. Han VanderHart @hanvanderhart.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
Oh, I know all the arguments for and against my life— Cameron Awkward-Rich
"The Role of The Poet"

There are many kinds of poetry, each with its own affordances, implicit politics, posture vis-à-vis the hegemonic definitions of Literature and Man and, while I understand the many arguments against or indifferent to the lyric as a category / ideal / image of some white someone who, talking at the threshold of the interior (its dark heart, its bright walls, etc.), yes, just talking as if to no one thereby expands their world until it appears as if it were the world, the self, the imagination, terms, it should be said, that never quite (thankfully) address us but nonetheless press us to their service, watch us in the grocery store, what was I saying? Oh, I know all the arguments for and against my life-
03310
Reposted by Caroline Bird
Tom Snarsky @tomsnarsky.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
Grace Paley
Somewhere     Grace Paley


Somewhere between Greenfield and Holyoke
snow became rain
and a child passed through me

as a person moves through mist
as the moon moves through
a dense cloud at night as though
I were cloud or mist    a child
passed through me

on the highway that lies
across miles of stubble and
tobacco barns    our bus  speeding
speeding   disordered the slanty rain
and a girl with no name  naked
familiar  wearing the nakedness
of the last days of childhood
breathed in me once  no
two breaths
a sigh  she whispered    Hey you
begin again     Again?
again   again   you’ll see
it’s easy     begin again     long ago
26610
Reposted by Caroline Bird
Lena (they/them) 🩷💛🩵 @petalsketch.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
April by Mary Oliver
April
Mary Oliver

I wanted to speak at length about The happiness of my body and the Delight of my mind for it was April, a night, a full moon and -
But something in myself or maybe from somewhere other said: not too
Many words, please, in the muddy shallows the
Frogs are singing.
835762
Reposted by Caroline Bird
phillip crymble @phillipcrymble.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
Cynthia Cruz ⸻ from the iowa anthology of new american poetries (2004)
How to Catch a Ghost in a Jar

That was the summer the bleeding stopped,
The summer the cold took over.
My hands, brittle as bismuth, blind as lab mice. 
That was the summer I set the field on fire.
I am a closet of secrets, dying.
In gowns of torn cotton, bits of discarded trash- 
Weed, dragged hem, white lace stained black, 
I went missing beneath the din of the city.

The door to the World keeps opening and closing.
1113
Reposted by Caroline Bird
Luke Kennard @lukekennard.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
One of my faves from Shakespeare Okuni’s (@i-shakespeare.bsky.social) brilliant A Twist of Rotten Silk, which I’m really enjoying today.
073
Caroline Bird @carolinebirduk.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Join me and Rachel Long for a week of ‘love and terror’, a week long online course for The Writing School, May 11th-15th. JOIN US (she said in terrifying yet lovely voice) thewritingschool.co.uk/love-and-ter...
thewritingschool.co.uk
Love and Terror
LOVE AND TERROR ‘The poem carries love and terror, or it carries nothing’ - Jane Hirshfield. What makes a poem haunt us long after its read?Join poets Caroline Bird and Rachel Long for a week-long wri...
183
Reposted by Caroline Bird
Litbowl @litbowl.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
The last lines of this wreck me in the best of ways. From Kim Addonizio's book, Tell Me: bit.ly/tellmeBK #poetry #books #writing
35417
Reposted by Caroline Bird
Adam Gianforcaro @adamg.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
Ada Limón
TORN
Witness the wet dead snake, its long hexagonal pattern weaved around its body like a code for creation, curled up cold on the newly tarred road.
Let us begin with the snake: the fact of death, the poverty of place, of skin and surface. See how the snake is cut in two—its body divided from its brain.
Imagine now, how it moves still, both sides, the tail dancing, the head dancing.
Believe it is the mother and the father.
Believe it is the mouth and the words.
Believe it is the sin and the sinner-the tempting, the taking, the apple, the fall, every one of us guilty, the story of us all.
But then return to the snake, pitiful dead thing, forcefully denying the split of its being, longing for life back as a whole, wanting you to see it for what it is: something that loves itself so much it moves across the boundaries of death to touch itself once more, to praise both divided sides equally, as if it was easy.
518231
Reposted by Caroline Bird
Todd Dillard @toddedillard.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
Really, really happy to have a new poem in one of the first literary journals I ever read as a teen trying to find poems in the world. Here’s “After A Few Beers, My Uncle Asks Me How” in The Southern Review.
After a Few Beers, My Uncle Asks Me How

	for Uncle Tommy 

do you write a poem? It's like laying bricks,
I say. You put down one word, then another, 
and after a while you've made this path. 
Bullshit, my uncle says. Tell me the truth. 
The trick, I say, is the bricks can be anything. 
A window, the moon, even snow. Snow, my uncle says.
I remember when I was stationed in Germany in the 80’s. 
There was this huge field outside the base. 
It was the kind of cold that yanks your balls
up into your stomach, so much snow
you'd smoke a little hash and forget the planet
you were on was earth. I was on guard duty. 
Some civilian on a snowmobile raced
out of the woods and rocketed across the field,
waves of powder foaming up around him. I remember
I shouted: Hey Man! Hey man you're trespassing!
But he didn't hear. I didn't hear the gun
fire, but when he fell off I knew why. 
And the snowmobile growling like some animal.
I ask my uncle, If you could catch the bullet,
if you could turn the bullet into anything else, 
what would you pick? My uncle takes a long drink.
Shit man, he says. Maybe a bird? And it appears:
a little white bird in his hands, its wingtips
freckled with red. What do you feed the bird?
I ask, and, like a piece of bread, my uncle tears
a corner off the field. The bird pecks it from his palms.
How did we get here? my uncle asks, but there's 
so much snow, we can’t see the path. Before us,
a dark wood. You hear that? my uncle asks. And I do. 
Something's in there. Something ancient, growling.


Second page of the poem in the journal; the entire poem is in the previous image and here:

After a Few Beers, My Uncle Asks Me How

	for Uncle Tommy 

do you write a poem? It's like laying bricks,
I say. You put down one word, then another, 
and after a while you've made this path. 
Bullshit, my uncle says. Tell me the truth. 
The trick, I say, is the bricks can be anything. 
A window, the moon, even snow. Snow, my uncle says.
I remember when I was stationed in Germany in the 80’s. 
There was this huge field outside the base. 
It was the kind of cold that yanks your balls
up into your stomach, so much snow
you'd smoke a little hash and forget the planet
you were on was earth. I was on guard duty. 
Some civilian on a snowmobile raced
out of the woods and rocketed across the field,
waves of powder foaming up around him. I remember
I shouted: Hey Man! Hey man you're trespassing!
But he didn't hear. I didn't hear the gun
fire, but when he fell off I knew why. 
And the snowmobile growling like some animal.
I ask my uncle, If you could catch the bullet,
if you could turn the bullet into anything else, 
what would you pick? My uncle takes a long drink.
Shit man, he says. Maybe a bird? And it appears:
a little white bird in his hands, its wingtips
freckled with red. What do you feed the bird?
I ask, and, like a piece of bread, my uncle tears
a corner off the field. The bird pecks it from his palms.
How did we get here? my uncle asks, but there's 
so much snow, we can’t see the path. Before us,
a dark wood. You hear that? my uncle asks. And I do. 
Something's in there. Something ancient, growling.


Cover of the 2026 Winter Edition of The Southern Review featuring a blue-black background with a woman’s long white hair
1915438
Reposted by Caroline Bird
Caroline Bird @carolinebirduk.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
If you fancy ‘thawing creative blocks’ in the new year and writing a flurry of new poems, I’ll be tutoring this residential with the wonderful Romalyn Ante (plus guest speaker Kostya Tsolakis!) from 26th-31st Jan. Join us! ❄️⁦‪⁦‪⁦‪⁦‪ @romalynante3.bsky.social @kostyatsolakis.bsky.social ‬⁩
arvon.org
Residential Writing Course: Poetry | Arvon
‘and it’s starting again, the longing that begins, and begins, and begins.’ Kim Addonizio Join award-winning writers Caroline Bird and Romalyn Ante in the depths of winter for an energising and playf...
084
Reposted by Caroline Bird
Andrew Neilson @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social · 01/01/2026
Always this poem at this time of year. One of Michael Donaghy's startlers.
Resolution
The new year blurs the windowpane.
Soho surrenders to the rain as clouds break over Chinatown.
See how the storm's resolve winds down?
Its steel pins thin and mist away.
Get up. Come here and see the day.
Through this droplet's contact lens, the West End and the future tense look dainty, vacant, and convex.
We haven't seen such weather since the morning they invented sex.
And yet, baptized, by rain and gin, of last year's unoriginal sins of inattention and cliché, this looks like every other day that we will never see again.
Courage. Coffee. Aspirins.
Our window on the world begins to dry, the breakfast bulletins appal, the civil voices lie, our private garden cloud with doubt.
So let me make this crystal clear: the rain has stopped. Your taxi's here.
The New Year bells will ring you out.
1174
Caroline Bird @carolinebirduk.bsky.social · 31/12/2025
My favourite new year James Tate poem: The Immortals None of us have felt good this year: pus around the eyes, sores that come and go with no explanation. But we still believe we will come through it! I signal this news by lifting a little finger.
0185
Reposted by Caroline Bird
Falling Tree Productions @fallingtreeprod.bsky.social · 27/12/2025
In the company of other poets, @carolinebirduk.bsky.social explored the silences when it feels like poetry has abandoned you in our BBC Radio 3 documentary ‘When the Words Leave’, produced by Eleanor McDowall m.soundcloud.com/fallingtreep...
162
Caroline Bird @carolinebirduk.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
If you fancy ‘thawing creative blocks’ in the new year and writing a flurry of new poems, I’ll be tutoring this residential with the wonderful Romalyn Ante (plus guest speaker Kostya Tsolakis!) from 26th-31st Jan. Join us! ❄️⁦‪⁦‪⁦‪⁦‪ @romalynante3.bsky.social @kostyatsolakis.bsky.social ‬⁩
arvon.org
Residential Writing Course: Poetry | Arvon
‘and it’s starting again, the longing that begins, and begins, and begins.’ Kim Addonizio Join award-winning writers Caroline Bird and Romalyn Ante in the depths of winter for an energising and playf...
084
Caroline Bird @carolinebirduk.bsky.social · 15/12/2025
Tomorrow!
030
Caroline Bird @carolinebirduk.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
So chuffed to hear Maxine Peake is nominated for ‘Best Performer’ by @whatsonstage.bsky.social awards - for the title role in my play “The Last Stand of Mrs Mary Whitehouse.” It really was a phenomenal performance. @nottmplayhouse.bsky.social
020
Reposted by Caroline Bird
Emma Harding @emmaharding.bsky.social · 09/12/2025
The Poetry Detective with Vanessa Kisuule is back 4pm today @BBCRadio4 looking for poems that can help us think through the things we wrestle with. Today: Doomscrolling. With help from @carolinebirduk.bsky.social among others. Producer Ellie Richold www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
bbc.co.uk
BBC Radio 4 - The Poetry Detective, Doomscrolling
Vanessa Kisuule unearths poems that offer us insight into the issues that ail us most.
0104
Reposted by Caroline Bird
The Poetry Society @poetrysociety.org.uk · 08/12/2025
🕰️ With the year coming to an end, we asked a selection of our contributors to give us their favourite poetry books and pamphlets of 2025. Next is Jane Clarke's pick: Something New: Alternative Poems for Alternative Weddings, edited by Caroline Bird & Rachel Long (Picador). Thank you Jane!
Jane Clarke recommends Something New: Alternative Poems for Alternative Weddings, edited by Caroline Bird & Rachel Long and says: I recommend this book for the joy of discovering excitingly diverse poems celebrating the ordinary miracle of love.
281
Reposted by Caroline Bird
John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 06/12/2025
One Source of Bad Information, by Robert Bly (quoted in Wild Things: A Geography of Grief by Barbara Wansbrough)
There's a boy in you about three
Years old who hasn't learned a thing for thirty Thousand years. Sometimes it's a girl.

This child had to make up its mind
How to save you from death. He said things like:
"Stay home. Avoid elevators. Eat only elk."

You live with this child, but you don't know it.
You're in the office, yes, but live with this boy
At night. He's uninformed, but he does want
To save your life. And he has. Because of this boy You survived a lot. He's got six big ideas.
Five don't work. Right now he's repeating them
to you.

Robert Bly, 'One Source of Bad Information'
12589101
Reposted by Caroline Bird
phillip crymble @phillipcrymble.bsky.social · 03/12/2025
There is hope. / There is hope everywhere. Anne Sexton
SNOW

Snow,
blessed snow,
comes out of the sky 
like bleached flies.
The ground is no longer naked. 
The ground has on its clothes. 
The trees poke out of sheets
and each branch wears the sock of God.

There is hope.
There is hope everywhere.
I bite it.
Someone once said:
Don't bite till you know 
if it's bread or stone. 
What I bite is all bread, 
rising, yeasty as a cloud.

There is hope.
There is hope everywhere. 
Today God gives milk 
and I have the pail.
1356
Caroline Bird @carolinebirduk.bsky.social · 03/12/2025
Tomorrow! I’ll be performing at Soho Poly alongside the poetry-forces-of-nature that are Joelle Taylor and Will Harris. Tickets here: sohopoly.co.uk/events/soho-po…. Hosted and curated by the brilliant Hannah Copley @hannahcopley.bsky.social
0123
Caroline Bird @carolinebirduk.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
The Only Yak in Batesville, Virginia … Stephen Sexton shared this Oni Buchanan poem on a recent arvon course we taught together about obsessions… and now I am obsessed with this poem. The tragedy of a yak falling in love with a horse…
0111
Caroline Bird @carolinebirduk.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
If you haven’t booked this yet, do JOIN ME on Dec 16th for our Christmas tradition of writing a frankly ridiculous amount of new poems… 🎄
arvon.org
Masterclass: Infinite Ways in to Writing Poems | Tackling big subjects with wonder | Arvon
For the third year running, with all new prompts and exercises, Arvon favourite Caroline Bird returns for our final Masterclass of the year, which promises to be a bolt of creativity to kick-start som...
052
Caroline Bird @carolinebirduk.bsky.social · 29/11/2025
‘All through Tuesday the air smelled like one big orange slice’ - Hannah Copley @hannahcopley.bsky.social
0163
Reposted by Caroline Bird
Hannah Copley @hannahcopley.bsky.social · 27/11/2025
One week to go until Soho Poly Poetry & this ⭐️superstar⭐️ lineup 👀 Get your 🎟️ to see the brilliant @carolinebirduk.bsky.social , Joelle Taylor & Will Harris next Thursday @thesohopoly.bsky.social (and if you need a free student ticket get in touch!) tinyurl.com/sohopolypoet...
031
Reposted by Caroline Bird
Out-Spoken Press @outspokenpress.bsky.social · 26/11/2025
January - Grief with @no1emily.bsky.social & @pascalepetit.bsky.social February - Parents with @carolinebirduk.bsky.social & Jack Underwood March: Eros with @kimaddonizio.bsky.social & Oluwaseun Olayiwola April: Resistance with Joelle Taylor & @aanaxagorou.bsky.social
GRIEF
Consider the different ways poems can help get between the feelings of grief and loss and look at how to ensure a poem remains artful while also true to its emotional life and sensibility. Both Emily Berry and Pascale
Petit have
written
extensively on the theme of grief using metaphor, allegory and anecdote and will be guiding poets through a range of tips and prompts aimed at enhancing their skillset and thinking around the kind of poetry they want to write.
6-27 JANUARY 2026
TUTORS: PASCALE PETIT,
EMILY BERRY
WORKSHOPS: TUES 7-9PM UK
HYPERFOCUS
grief:
outspokenldn.com/hyperfocusHYPERFOCUS
- parents
How do you write about a problematic parents)? How best could you navigate a complex upbringing? How do you handle the sheer awe and panic of being a new parent? How do you write about the loss of a parent? In this second segment of Hyperfocus, join poets Caroline Bird and Jack Underwood as they look at ways we can write poems that draw from the multilayered experiences of having parents and being a parent.
3-24 FEBRUARY 2026
TUTORS: CAROLINE BIRD
JACK UNDERWOOD
WORKSHOPS: TUES 7-9PM UK
PARENTS
outspokenldn.com/hyperfocusEROS
Love, desire, lust, eros and longing are all part of March's Hyperfocus. Participants will be looking at what makes an erotic poem... erotic. How does one write erotica without sounding crass or twee, how can we express notions of longing or desire for another person and not make the poem feel like it's over-reaching or performative and if we are to write sex how much does that involve the body. How do sexuality, ability and gender impact the way we write into these themes?
3-24 MARCH 2026
TUTORS:
KIM ADDONIZIO
OLUWASEUN OLAYIWOLA
WORKSHOPS: TUES 7-9PM UK
HYPERFOCUS
eros
outspokenldn.com/hyperfocusHYPERFCCUS
resistance
7-28 APRIL 2026
TUTORS: JOELLE TAYLOR
ANTHONY ANAXAGOROU
WORKSHOPS: TUES 7-9PM UK
Writing poems that talk truth to power or address the state of the nation can often be tricky to navigate. Either a poem is so direct it ends up feeling didactic or it's so subtle it doesn't have the push and bite it needs to make its case.
Over the course of the four weeks participants will explore what it means to write a poem that is concerned with the world, injustice, oppression, trauma and witness.
RESISTANCE
outspokenldn.com/hyperfocus
174
Reposted by Caroline Bird
Falling Tree Productions @fallingtreeprod.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
...listen to @carolinebirduk.bsky.social's documentary through BBC Sounds (or in the Falling Tree archive) www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
bbc.co.uk
BBC Radio 3 - Sunday Feature, When the Words Leave
The poet Caroline Bird explores the silences when it feels like the words have left you.
033
Reposted by Caroline Bird
Falling Tree Productions @fallingtreeprod.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
"Being poets, they were able to explain what creativity and creative silence feel like in ways that lingered on the ears, not least because many of their metaphors and similes sprang from the radio..." When the Words Leave is reviewed in today's Spectator www.spectator.co.uk/article/was-...
spectator.co.uk
Was Queen Victoria's doctor the first psychoanalyst?
Queen Victoria began to experience dark visions after giving birth to her second child. Concerned that she might have inherited the madness of her grandfather, George III, Prince Albert summoned her d...
111
Reposted by Caroline Bird
Falling Tree Productions @fallingtreeprod.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
In the company of other poets, @carolinebirduk.bsky.social explores the silences when it feels like words have left you. Listen to When the Words Leave on BBC Sounds www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m... @oliverinthenorth.bsky.social @hannahcopley.bsky.social Music - Phil Smith Prod - Eleanor McDowall
033
Reposted by Caroline Bird
oliverinthenorth.bsky.social @oliverinthenorth.bsky.social · 09/11/2025
Was a pleasure to talk to Caroline Bird about how it feels when the words leave.
0102
Caroline Bird @carolinebirduk.bsky.social · 09/11/2025
Tonight at 7.15 on Radio 3. Writer’s block, dry spell, fallow period, worrisome silence, that terrifying, lonely time when you *cannot* write a poem. I speak to Liz Berry, Oliver Carmichael, Hannah Copley, Marie Howe, Vanessa Kisuule and Jack Underwood! www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
bbc.co.uk
BBC Radio 3 - Sunday Feature, When the Words Leave
The poet Caroline Bird explores the silences when it feels like the words have left you.
23511
Reposted by Caroline Bird
Maya C. Popa @mayacpopa.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
Friends, I'm grateful to have a poem from my forthcoming book, IF YOU LOVE THAT LADY, in this week's New Yorker. 🤍
119925
Caroline Bird @carolinebirduk.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
Happy launch day to @antoshwojcik.bsky.social Here’s one of my favourite poems from his new collection ‘Suburban Locust’
1244
Reposted by Caroline Bird
Carl Phillips @cphillipspoet.bsky.social · 28/10/2025
A new poem in the new issue of Agni @agnimagazine.bsky.social 🫨
26318
Reposted by Caroline Bird
Jeremy Noel-Tod @jntod.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
Congratulations to Vidyan Ravinthiran, who has jointly won (with Karen Solie) the Forward Prize for Best Collection with Avidyā (Bloodaxe). Its brilliant final poem, "as a child", describes how an early speech impediment led him to be "a scrutineer of sound" with a love of "the avid void of English"
As a child

By Vidyan Ravinthiran
because my voice was not the right voice
and could not be understood I stood
before the mirror — a murky glassen word
this mouth can’t shape right to this day — and was made
to watch my teeth and lips being imprecise.
So this is why I come across a Southron
and not from Yorkshire, or Sri Lankan; but I’ll complain
no more about this clarified and potent tongue

for when the moustached gent at US Customs
asked me in his hapless twang
are you a terrorist, my borrowed posh it sure
abashed that poor colonial; and it was of course
what my child-face perceived or could not in the glass
which made of me a scrutineer of sound,
a listener for and into every glitch
in the aathma, the script, the avid void of English.
58325
Caroline Bird @carolinebirduk.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
‘This poem is me at my beast’ Huge congratulations to all the winners and shortlistees (is that a word?) for the @forwardprizes.bsky.social. The readings last night were a triumph. I love this poem from Isabelle Baafi’s ‘Chaotic Good’ (winner of best first collection)…
0152
Caroline Bird @carolinebirduk.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
Are you free on the evening of December 16th? 🎄 Join me for this masterclass all about finding multiple (infinite?) ways in to the same subject matter. We’ll write a ridiculous amount of poems in 2 hours…with brand new exercises ⁦‪‬⁩ www.arvon.org/writing-cour...
arvon.org
Masterclass: Infinite Ways in to Writing Poems | Tackling big subjects with wonder | Arvon
For the third year running, with all new prompts and exercises, Arvon favourite Caroline Bird returns for our final Masterclass of the year, which promises to be a bolt of creativity to kick-start som...
1199
Reposted by Caroline Bird
Dr Rosie Miles @rosiemilespoet.bsky.social · 27/09/2025
Final night of “The Last Stand of Mary Whitehouse” by @carolinebirduk.bsky.social . I doubt there’s any tickets left but it’s a fantastic play. Maxine Peake and Samuel Barnett are superb. Let’s hope there will be another run.
121
Reposted by Caroline Bird
Nick Hern Books @nickhernbooks.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
'Incredibly powerful' ★★★★★ WhatsOnStage 'Witty and timely' ★★★★ Guardian The Last Stand of Mrs. Mary Whitehouse by NHB author Caroline Bird is now on @nottmplayhouse.bsky.social. Get your playscript copy at the venue or online: www.nickhernbooks.co.uk/the-last-sta...
Top photo: Maxine Peake in The Last Stand of Mrs. Mary Whitehouse at Nottingham Playhouse. Photo by Helen Murray. Bottom photo: Playscript cover of The Last Stand of Mrs. Mary Whitehouse by Caroline Bird.
221
Reposted by Caroline Bird
Tessa Foley @tessafoley.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
If there are ANY tickets left for this, I advise you to snap em up. Standing ovation on the first night. It’s feckin brilliant. Caroline Bird’s THE LAST STAND OF MRS MARY WHITEHOUSE nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk/events/the-l... Starring Maxine Peake and Samuel Barnett. Mind blowing.
Maxine Peake playing Mrs Mary Whitehouse
073