iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Lynn Valentine @dizzylynn.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

Not a bad spot to be in, sequencing poems for my next collection at the shores of Loch Broom (collection will be published by Cinnamon Press in Spring 2026)

080

Reposted by Lynn Valentine

Don Paterson @dharmabam.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

Introducing North Sea Poets. We run online masterclasses, workshops and webinars for poets and readers in the UK and Ireland (and for early birds and night owls planet-wide). We look forward to meeting you online soon. northseapoets.com 🌊 Follow @northseapoets.bsky.social #NorthSeaPoets #Poetry

North Sea Poets announcement image with sunset beach background.

04320

Reposted by Lynn Valentine

Ian Duhig @ianduhig.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

RIP Michael Longley. I'd known him for over 40 years when he taught an Arvon with Paul Muldoon. I always said Paul supplied the genius, but Michael the magic: how else would a classicist write 'Ceasefire', an intervention into a vicious war admired by both sides? Ave atque vale.

36114

Lynn Valentine @dizzylynn.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

Such sad news - a truly lovely man and a favourite poet of mine. I met him when he was guest reader at Moniack a good while back - he talked long into the night alongside his wife Edna. Was also lucky to see him read at a past StAnza. The poetry world has lost a great. www.bbc.com/news/article...

bbc.com

Michael Longley: Acclaimed NI poet dies at 85

Belfast-born poet Michael Longley dies aged 85, his family says.

161

Lynn Valentine @dizzylynn.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

Another top Zoom writing hour from @clareshawpoet.bsky.social & @kimmoorepoet.bsky.social and these borrowed books arrived in the snowy post - some of the poets that were discussed in writing hours. Thank you Scottish Poetry Library ❤️📚

170

Lynn Valentine @dizzylynn.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

A beautiful walk at Achnahaird Beach - Assynt is so lovely especially with the mountains dusted with snow ❤️

050

Lynn Valentine @dizzylynn.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

Having a wee break at the shores of Loch Broom - it’s a beautiful winter wonderland - snow still falling ❄️❤️

1120

Lynn Valentine @dizzylynn.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

Beautiful Ben Wyvis, my neighbour mountain in the Scottish Highlands - sunrise and sunset today ❄️

070

Reposted by Lynn Valentine

James Mcconachie @jamesmcconachie1.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

It’s my birthday, so you have to read my poem. I don’t make the rules. ‘Elderflower Cordial’

3718719

Lynn Valentine @dizzylynn.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

These two books on my wee current reading pile are perfectly paired - owls, blackbirds and so much more - memoir and poetry - thank you for nourishing my brain @wendypratt.bsky.social and @pollyrowena.bsky.social

1173

Reposted by Lynn Valentine

John Glenday @johnglenday.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

Thought for the day:

2296

Reposted by Lynn Valentine

Kit de Waal @kitdewaal.com · 23/11/2024

The Discoveries writing development programme and prize for unpublished women writers in the UK accepts novels in any genre of adult fiction, with entrants invited to submit the first 10,000 words of their novel and a synopsis

curtisbrowncreative.co.uk

Discoveries 2025

Calling all unpublished women writers! The Women’s Prize Trust, Audible, the Curtis Brown literary agency and Curtis Brown Creative have partnered to run the Discoveries novel-writing development prog...

2258196

Lynn Valentine @dizzylynn.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

It is Fibonacci Day - here’s a wonderful poem by Michael Donaghy

050

Lynn Valentine @dizzylynn.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

And what can be better than books and dogs

Flo - black Labrador and Summer - yellow/red fox Labrador in the snow in the Scottish Highlands

010

Reposted by Lynn Valentine

SeaGoatScreamsPoetry(Ankh Spice) @seagoatscreams.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

In the sideways light off the sea today, I saw a Vrubelesque shimmer, something falling. & time rewinds: the Tretyakov gallery, the painting that inspired this poem, the brave ?human who slipped me a note on the Moscow metro. I still wonder what happened to him www.afterpoetry.com/poem/nov-13-...

afterpoetry.com

Read New Ekphrastic Poem 'Falling quietly: Moscow, 1999 by Ankh Spice exclusively in After... | Poems Inspired By Other Art

32410

Reposted by Lynn Valentine

SeaGoatScreamsPoetry(Ankh Spice) @seagoatscreams.bsky.social · 25/10/2024

~Khalil Gibran - in 1933

I shall live beyond death, and I shall sing in your ears Even after the vast sea-wave carries me back
To the vast sea-depth.
I shall sit at your board though without a body,
And I shall go with you to your fields, a spirit invisible.
I shall come to you at your fireside, a guest unseen.
Death changes nothing but the masks that cover our faces. The woodsman shall be still a woodsman,
The ploughman, a ploughman,
And he who sang his song to the wind shall sing it also to the moving spheres.

Kahlil Gibran
The Garden of the Prophet

617036

Lynn Valentine @dizzylynn.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Good morning from the snowy Highlands ☃️❄️

2101

Reposted by Lynn Valentine

Kelli Russell Agodon @kelliagodon.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

This poem does me in every single time. #poetry

The Two-Headed Calf
by Laura Gilpin

Tomorrow when the farm boys find this
freak of nature, they will wrap his body
in newspaper and carry him to the museum.

But tonight he is alive and in the north
field with his mother. It is a perfect
summer evening: the moon rising over
the orchard, the wind in the grass. And
as he stares into the sky, there are
twice as many stars as usual.

561646185

Lynn Valentine @dizzylynn.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

A Sunday back ‘home, home’ - the gorgeous Lunan Bay beach in Angus, Scotland 💛

050

Reposted by Lynn Valentine

Ian Duhig @ianduhig.bsky.social · 13/11/2024

As publication day for my new book, 'An Arbitrary Light Bulb' approaches and I have a number of readings coming up, I imagine my bit of a tour as like this one by John Wesley, except for the afternoon of June 2nd.

3419

Reposted by Lynn Valentine

SeaGoatScreamsPoetry(Ankh Spice) @seagoatscreams.bsky.social · 13/11/2024

~Lisel Mueller from Alive Together (1986) #poetry

There Are Mornings

Even now, when the plot
calls for me to turn to stone,
the sun intervenes. Some mornings
in summer I step outside
and the sky opens
and pours itself into me
as if I were a saint
about to die. But the plot
calls for me to live,
be ordinary, say nothing
to anyone. Inside the house.
the mirrors burn when I pass.

13210

Reposted by Lynn Valentine

SeaGoatScreamsPoetry(Ankh Spice) @seagoatscreams.bsky.social · 13/11/2024

~Sarah Connor from The Poet Spells Her Name (2023) #poetry

A poem in a book, the page curved, distorting the words slightly. The rounded edge of a flat white petal peeps the top margin, like a ghost dog's tongue.

Text:
My poems are shrinking

Soon I will write a poem
that's a single word
ice
milk
cloud
leave you to do the work,
with your map of dreams and memories, your tales heard once,
your stories that have sunk into the bone
blade
flame
gull

912140

Lynn Valentine @dizzylynn.bsky.social · 13/11/2024

New writing courses are up at #MoniackMhor for next year - online and residential. I’ve attended a fair few and they are brilliant. Signed up for the Helen Mort and @johnglenday.bsky.social course - see some of you poets there?

090

Reposted by Lynn Valentine

SeaGoatScreamsPoetry(Ankh Spice) @seagoatscreams.bsky.social · 12/11/2024

'I mean fragile. I mean, it is.' Hey you, off-balance? This one is for you, wherever it, or you, might land today. from ~The Water Engine (2021)

A poem in a book. Deep red fallen peony petals dance the right margin.

Text:

I mean how do we balance at all

At centre you carry the weight / I don't mean a heart but yes chambers liquid
with iron / I don't mean blood I mean restless and betrayed only by being magnetic / your core invisible
to something on the surface
otherwise / I mean a heart is a constant kind
of collision / I mean momentum
dizzies us / sure as a slow leak
in the moon. I mean we tide.
I mean our being off-
balance has flow-
on effects. I don't mean
ory there'd
to be dense / I mean if your heart was different this whole life thing would collapse. I mean fragile. I mean, it is.

45018

Reposted by Lynn Valentine

Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 12/11/2024

The Trump/Musk/Putin axis from hell is so menacing. That so many Tories and Faragists are loudly cheering it on is staggering. Tying themselves to the mast of evil, falling over themselves to trash democracy and sell us out to this authoritarian malignancy… Never let them forget their complicity.

Julia Davis News posts:

Meanwhile in Russia: Putin’s presidential aide Nikolai Patrushev said, “To achieve success in the election, Donald Trump relied on certain forces to which he has responding obligations. As a responsible person, he will be obliged to fulfil them.”

Extract from TASS - Russian News Agency confirms this below her post.

23446175

Lynn Valentine @dizzylynn.bsky.social · 12/11/2024

After weeks of lurgy the dogs and me made it to our local beach (Chanonry Point, Highlands). It was glorious 💛🖤🌊🌞

Dogs at beach, yellow Lab in water, Black Lab on shore

Chanonry Point Beach looking towards Rosemarkie

040

Lynn Valentine @dizzylynn.bsky.social · 08/11/2024

What a night at St Mungos Mirrorball - zooming in - my favourite poet headlining - Niall Campbell

030

Lynn Valentine @dizzylynn.bsky.social · 08/11/2024

Flo checking in for Friday. She is my absolute lifesaver but deteriorating in her senior years. She’s a great poetry listener too, always my go to when I’m reading a new poem out loud 🖤

140

Lynn Valentine @dizzylynn.bsky.social · 07/11/2024

Hoping for some light at the end of the tunnel. This was ‘my’ wee Highland woods this morning 🍂

050

Lynn Valentine @dizzylynn.bsky.social · 03/10/2024

Just creeping on here to say that I won the Scots category of the McLellan Prize. I’m in Galloway waiting to see if I get further than the shortlist of the Wigtown Prize (Scots) tomorrow - I’m having a v exciting poetry year 🎉

media.tenor.com

a cartoon character holding a bow and arrow

ALT: a cartoon character holding a bow and arrow

191

Reposted by Lynn Valentine

Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 07/09/2024

My cartoon for this week’s Guardian Books.

A figure stands in a dark alley holding a pile of books talking to a police officer who is making notes in a small book. “It all happened so fast, officer! One minute I was walking down this alley and the next, I'd been loaned four novels and a cookbook!”
Caption: The Masked Librarian strikes again!

7900220

Reposted by Lynn Valentine

Angela T. Carr @angelatcarrpoetry.bsky.social · 06/09/2024

Over 150 calls for submissions of poetry, fiction, flash, nonfiction, art, photography & more - competitions, literary journals, residencies, bursaries etc - open or with deadlines in September 2024. Best of luck & pls share! www.thisiswordbox.com/wordbox-blog...

thisiswordbox.com

Writing & Poetry Competitions & Submissions | September 2024 — WORDBOX

Over 150 calls for literary competitions and submissions including poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, art, photography, and more - contests, literary journals, residencies, bursaries etc - open ...

22721

Lynn Valentine @dizzylynn.bsky.social · 22/08/2024

In one of our favourite places - a few days away in beautiful Argyll ❤️💛🖤

020

Lynn Valentine @dizzylynn.bsky.social · 15/08/2024

Delighted to be on the shortlist for the Scots category of the Wigtown Poetry Prize. Huge congratulations to those shortlisted www.wigtownpoetryprize.com/poetry-compe...

wigtownpoetryprize.com

Wigtown Poetry Prize

7263

Reposted by Lynn Valentine

And Other Poems @andotherpoems.bsky.social · 14/08/2024

Hi poetry folks, We’re new on here! Do give this a like and share so we can reach as many of you poetry lovers as possible. Much love 🤠

510758

Lynn Valentine @dizzylynn.bsky.social · 14/08/2024

Yay a poetry acceptance yesterday and sun in the north for a beach walk - Flo n Summer helping themselves to the high tide sushi bar

1140

Reposted by Lynn Valentine

Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 14/08/2024

Submissions invited to NEW WRITING SCOTLAND 43! We want poetry & prose in English, #Gaelic, & #Scots from #writers who are Scottish by residence, birth, or inclination. All successful contributors are paid – deadline 31 Oct! Submit free via Submittable 👇 nws.submittable.com/submit

nws.submittable.com

New Writing Scotland

New Writing Scotland publishes works by writers resident in Scotland or Scots by birth, upbringing, or inclination. Prose (fiction and nonfiction); poetry; drama; screenplays; and graphic artwork (mon...

11214

Lynn Valentine @dizzylynn.bsky.social · 13/08/2024

Trying to get the hang of this blue sky again now that the beloved bird seems to have been burned. Here’s a Highland red sky from the other night.

0222

Reposted by Lynn Valentine

Yilin (she/they) @ check out The Lantern and the Night Moths @yilinwriter.bsky.social · 08/02/2024

I made a Classical Chinese Poetry Bingo to help people recognize the common tropes/motifs. These show up frequently in the modern poetry I translate as well. Do you recognize anything from your readings or from pop culture? Tag yourself. I'm "feeling sad on a boat" lol #poetry #translation #cdrama

Five by five bingo card. From left to right and top to bottom: drinking under the moon, bodies of water, standing at the top of a historical building I proclaim, food symbolism, emotional guqin performance, arguing with another poet, dramatic snowfall, sent from the borderlands, crying woman in the boudoir, missing one's ancestral hometown, awaking from a dream, feeling sad on a boat, male poets expressing deep affection for one another, fallen flower petals, lonely concubine in the palace, advice on how to be a hermit, farewell my friend, messages sent by wild geese, willow trees, carefree clouds, satirical comments about the emperor, ten references in the same poem, angsty birds, traveller on the road

61546166

Lynn Valentine @dizzylynn.bsky.social · 10/02/2024

Haven’t been on here for ages - seeking sympathy for cracked ribs and a sore leg! Had a spectacular fall a few days ago so on prescription drugs but they aren’t really cutting it. Send hugs! Here’s Summer with snowdrops at Rosehaugh Estate in the Black Isle x

450

Lynn Valentine @dizzylynn.bsky.social · 07/01/2024

A beautiful icy walk to Loch Glass and the Pink House this morning. Slightly took the sting out of my first poetry rejection of the year.

040

Lynn Valentine @dizzylynn.bsky.social · 31/12/2023

Happy Hogmanay from my wee Highland corner (with added dolphins today). I hope 2024 is kind to you.

161

Lynn Valentine @dizzylynn.bsky.social · 21/12/2023

On this shortest of days in my wee Highland corner, how lovely to see my first rainbow cloud from the living-room window. I’m too ill to venture out but this brightened the afternoon

3100

Lynn Valentine @dizzylynn.bsky.social · 20/12/2023

I have Covid / don’t know if I’ll make home for Christmas/ then I moaned on the other place and an exiled Ukrainian poet pal wished me well - what right do I have for moaning. Then a pal is having her dog being put to sleep tomorrow. I loved him. I’ll stop moaning. Sending hugs to everyone I can x

240