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Dai George

@daigeorge.bsky.social
704 followers 426 following 144 posts

Poet, academic, other writings. Young and easy under the apple boughs. How to Think Like a Poet (Bloomsbury Continuum), out now

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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
You can't spell KEATS without STEAK
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
As usual, when Stefan Collini lets rip about the state of universities, it's good to pull up a chair and listen. Squadrons of Pigs www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
lrb.co.uk
Stefan Collini · Squadrons of Pigs: Bonfire of the Universities
The problems with Britain’s universities are systemic and deep-rooted, not just local or contingent. Yet political and...
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
Ahoy, Londoners! I am giving a talk at Conway Hall on April 12. It's a Sunday afternoon affair where we will consider why poetry and politics make such difficult (but necessary) bedfellows. What could be more VIRTUOUS or IMPR0VING! Come through!! www.conwayhall.org.uk/whats-on/eve...
conwayhall.org.uk
How to Think Like a Poet - Conway Hall
From Homer, Sappho and Rumi, to Shakespeare and Sylvia Plath, how did poets make the world anew? What can we learn from the magic, wisdom and humour of their poetry? Poet and writer Dai George asks ho...
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 22/01/2026
Does anybody know of a proper list of academic publishers in the field of poetry criticism / poetics? I have a pretty good working knowledge but want to be systematic
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innes mck @innes.bsky.social · 03/01/2026
"international law must be followed" is european for "thoughts and prayers"
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 02/11/2025
Enjoying being on Substack - and probably clicking with it / finding my algorithm more there than here, if I'm honest - but man there are a lot of diatribes about the publishing industry, makes you wonder how we ever get anything done.
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 20/10/2025
Unsettling realisation that, at the current rate, I am not allowed to buy any more books in my lifetime if I'm to make good on a self-promise that I would read everything on my to-read shelf + good shit on my parents' shelves before buying new gear.
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
I ate some cherries that were being saved for decorating cupcakes, and I can report that playfully citing William Carlos Williams does not help one's case.
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 27/09/2025
Feeling miserable about the rise of Reform and the far-right, and realised it was a self-centred feeling, in part, about what *I* stand to lose if they had their way. Brits need to start talking about migration as if we have skin in the game. open.substack.com/pub/beyondme...
open.substack.com
The Real Citizens of Nowhere
A cri de coeur about racist Britain
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 30/08/2025
As of this week, I have a Substack. Would be great to have you along for the ride. open.substack.com/pub/beyondme...
open.substack.com
Beyond Mercy | Dai George | Substack
Books, ideas, political hopes - a workbook for the poems I may never write. Click to read Beyond Mercy, by Dai George, a Substack publication. Launched 2 days ago.
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 30/08/2025
As of this week, I have a Substack. Would be great to have you along for the ride. open.substack.com/pub/beyondme...
open.substack.com
Beyond Mercy | Dai George | Substack
Books, ideas, political hopes - a workbook for the poems I may never write. Click to read Beyond Mercy, by Dai George, a Substack publication. Launched 2 days ago.
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
I mean, I really am
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
Be warned, I'm writing a long creative-critical verse essay called 'Homage to Brian Wilson'
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 28/05/2025
Proud to have signed this. Free Palestine ✊🏻 www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...
theguardian.com
Zadie Smith and Ian McEwan among 380 writers and groups to call Gaza war ‘genocide’
Letter also signed by Hanif Kureishi and Russell T Davies urges ceasefire and unrestricted distribution of aid
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Darren Chetty @darrenchetty.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
Talking with a colleague about this. Planning to develop this into a paper / essay. Any suggestions for further reading?
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 17/05/2025
What's your least favourite publishing cliché / euphemism? Mine's probably 'luminous prose', a sure sign I will find the book precious and boring, with ironically little va va voom in the prose.
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 12/05/2025
From Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Toddler I do not know which to prefer, The tantrum with the yoghurt Or the tantrum with the choo choo, The toddler going apeshit Or just after.
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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
Obviously things have got dramatically worse in the US recently, and I don't want to diminish that, but I've been at *so many* conferences in the UK on topics like empire, humanitarianism and development where multiple speakers from the Global South have been denied visas or held at the border
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
Deathly dull content but I recently bought a block of mild cheddar for the 2yo, worrying abt the salt content of the usual Cornish crunchers we have in the house, and WHAT THE HELL IS THIS STUFF. Weird lactic playdough, never once laid hands on it till now.
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 13/04/2025
You make me dizzy, Peter Gizzi
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
What's the best book to read about the expansion and (sub)urbanisation of London? Something that tells me how Finchley Road went from being fields to city in the 19th C. Growth of the railroads and the rise of Metroland - all that.
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Ian Duhig @ianduhig.bsky.social · 30/03/2025
Happy Mothers Day!
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
Also this 😅
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
I had a bad review in the TLS a few months back. Read it for the first time today and gotta admit it's knocked me. Ah well - important to acknowledge these things. Here it is, for those with access. www.the-tls.co.uk/literature/p...
the-tls.co.uk
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D. A. Powell @dapowell.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
In unreasonable times, art cannot be expected to appear in reasonable forms in reasonable speech acts in league with the official language when there is nothing official about language and there are no boundaries to what can be uttered officially official language itself a way of kidnapping meaning.
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 22/03/2025
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept.
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Hari Kunzru @harikunzru.bsky.social · 13/03/2025
The ‘can machines do creative writing’ thing is mostly a distraction from the use of the machines to go through text and images to cancel grants and put people on deportation lists
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 13/03/2025
What are your favourite history books? History books with spark, flair, literary panache - history that eschews the 'three major factors in the rise of the Medici were xyz. To start with x...' style of writing that I find such a snooze and highly prevalent.
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
This deeply fascistic power move scares the hell out of me. It isn't my country, there's a limit to what I can do, but it can't be allowed to stand. nymag.com/intelligence...
nymag.com
What We Know About the Arrest of Mahmoud Khalil
DHS agents detained Khalil, a green card-holding Palestinian activist who took part in the Gaza protests at Columbia University.
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D. A. Powell @dapowell.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
Poem by Suzanne Buffam
On Forgiveness 

It is best to forgive all sins in advance 
Because afterwards it can be hard.

(Poem by Suzanne Buffam)
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
To be honest, this makes just as much sense as the sorry excuse for a Pip & Posy outfit I sent the kid out wearing today.
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
Up with son having a flannel fight at 1am, having finally admitted defeat in the pursuit of sleepiness. How bout u?
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 05/03/2025
Here's a question I don't often see asked. Would it have been better for Trump to win in 2020? Keeping chaotic sleazy shit show MAGA spluttering in power for another four years, rather than letting this turbo-charged version regroup.
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
Anne Carson on Parkinson's, handwriting, boxing, Catullus... The fact that such liquid virtuosity comes out of the experience of impairment and mortality is one of those sublime ironic victories of art. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
lrb.co.uk
Anne Carson · Beware the man whose handwriting sways like a reed in the wind
This​ is an essay about hands and handwriting. I think of handwriting as a way to organise thought into shapes. I like...
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
Stopped listening to the Today Programme, partly due to family routines, partly tiring of the centrist groupthink, but I'm tuned in now and it's just glaring how little there is in current affairs that speaks to any part of my values. The rightward shift is massive.
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
Guy next to me on the train is eating the meatiest greasiest-smelling Burger King meal deal - some kind of 'dirty fries' situation - while watching other people play a football video game on his phone, waaaaah
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
I'm in Cardiff tomorrow night. Do I know anyone here in Cardiff? A part of me is always in Cardiff, so it would be nice to be in Cardiff, in body and spirit, together. In conversation with top poet and human @tazrahman.bsky.social www.bookspacecardiff.co.uk/products/thi...
bookspacecardiff.co.uk
Think Like A Poet Event Ticket
In conversation with Cardiff poet Dai George about his book How To Think Like a Poet, hosted by Taz Rahman. When: Wednesday 19th February, 18:20 start (doors 18:00) Where: 26a Crwys Road, CF24 4NL ~~~...
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
This is happening on Monday - an online class at 7pm GMT. Would love to see you! I'm polishing up some slides as we speak, on ways of looking at a blackbird, playing tennis without a net, and other fun curiosities of the poetic mind.
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 13/02/2025
What is a Pushcart Prize? What does it mean to get one / to be nominated? Realise I've gone through my writing life without really having a clue. Feels like baseball or congressional politics - something I kind of know about but mostly don't, if you know what I mean.
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Seren Books @serenbooks.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
It’s not too late to register for @daigeorge.bsky.social's online Writers & Artists workshop ‘How to Think Like a Poet’ on Monday 17th February. Book online here www.writersandartists.co.uk/events-and-c...
writersandartists.co.uk
How to Think Like a Poet | Writers & Artists
What do poets think about?
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
I took a bad photo of the brilliant crowd at the Heath Bookshop in Birmingham who came out tonight to hear me spiel about HOW TO THINK LIKE A POET. Love Brum 💚
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
Looking forward to leading this masterclass for Writers & Artists, which will build on the themes of the book as a spur to creativity. Online, so a good chance to connect with you wherever you may be -- www.writersandartists.co.uk/events-and-c...
writersandartists.co.uk
How to Think Like a Poet | Writers & Artists
What do poets think about?
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
Does anyone else get nervous on Dylan's behalf when he sings 'One More Cup of Coffee'? Like, I know this an erotic pretext but even so - the encroaching caffeine headache, the coffee breath, the impossibility of sleep should the pretext fail. Seems like a high stakes gamble to me!
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 22/01/2025
You can upsell me anything and I'll regret it straight afterwards. Bad combination. I'm a gullible skinflint, Mr Tighty McDaft.
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
Watching footage of the inauguration, I don't think the peril to any sort of leftist politics can be overestimated. I think back to 2016, when there was a sense of having a fight on our hands. It's the difference between getting punched in the face and laughed at - the latter is worse.
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 13/01/2025
Another great piece on food, drink and cultural memory from the @vittles.bsky.social stable. Momtaza Mehri on beverages was always going to be a winner. www.vittlesmagazine.com/p/chugging-a...
vittlesmagazine.com
Chugging Away
Momtaza Mehri writes about beverages as affective transportation through three drinks.
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 11/01/2025
Superb. Can't think of a book that comes closer to catching the feeling of music. In this case, dub and roots - the ghosts in the grooves.
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
Confession: I enjoy browsing the catalogues of prestige imprints. Penguin Modern Classics, Fitzcarraldo, NYRB... sniffing out the scholarly editions of Emile Zola, in case I need them. I'll read maybe 0.05% of these shimmering hoards in my lifetime. Enough, though, just to know they're there...!
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LRB Bookshop @londonreviewbookshop.co.uk · 04/01/2025
T.S. Eliot died on this day in 1965. This photo of his mustard, from the Faber staff fridge in Russell Square, was taken not long afterwards
some mustard which seems to have belonged to t.s. eliot
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Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 04/01/2025
Lovely write-up of How To Think Like a Poet in John Geraint's highlights of 2024 for Nation.Cymru nation.cymru/culture/cult...
nation.cymru
Culture Highlights 2024: Revolutionising our world view and nothing lost in translation
John Geraint Christmas is a time for family, for friends… and for revolutionising our world view! So taking my cue from those three headings – and entirely unapologetically – I’d like to share this tr...
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