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Reposted by Dominic Leonard

Tom Snarsky @tomsnarsky.bsky.social · 08/02/2024

happy birthday Elizabeth Bishop 🎈

Somebody embroidered the doily.
Somebody waters the plant,
or oils it, maybe. Somebody
arranges the rows of cans
so that they softly say:
ESSO—SO—SO—SO
to high-strung automobiles.
Somebody loves us all.

Towering, antlerless,
high as a church,
homely as a house
(or, safe as houses).
A man’s voice assures us
“Perfectly harmless. . . .”

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Jeremy Noel-Tod @jntod.bsky.social · 05/02/2024

On 5th February 1963, Sylvia Plath wrote her last two poems. I wrote about how one of them, "Balloons", is a neglected statement of what she wanted to do in poetry, which has room for both Winnie the Pooh and W.B. Yeats someflowerssoon.substack.com/p/pinks-13-b...

someflowerssoon.substack.com

Pinks #13: Boons, Boons

Was "Balloons" Sylvia Plath's last poem?

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Reposted by Dominic Leonard

Jeremy Noel-Tod @jntod.bsky.social · 01/01/2024

When Ted Hughes died in 1999, he left an unfinished translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the great medieval poem about New Year. Here is Hughes relishing the eerie passage where Gawain seeks out the wild Green Chapel of the Green Knight on New Year's Day ('Scouts': high overhanging rocks)

Then he spurred Gringolet, and took up the trail.
Trees overhung him, the steep slope close to his shoulder.
He pushed on down through the rough, to the gorge-bottom.
Wherever he turned his eyes, it looked wilder.
Nothing anywhere near that could be a shelter.
Only cliffy brinks, beetling above him,
Knuckled and broken outcrops, with horned crags.
Clouds dragging low, torn by the scouts.
There he reigned in his horse and puzzled awhile.
Turning his doubts over, he searched for the Chapel.
Still he could see nothing. He thought it strange.
Only a little mound, a tump, in a clearing,
Between the slope and the edge of the river, a knoll,
Over the river’s edge, at a crossing place,
The burn bubbling under as if it boiled.

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tits andronicus @tambourine.bsky.social · 13/12/2023

ok images pilfered from Tom Cook at the other place. THE BEST DONNE POEM... and i will link to this blogpost in lieu of doing alt-text - simply bc it's not going to fit in these two images, apologies aclerkofoxford.blogspot.com/2009/05/noct...

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Dominic Leonard @dominicleonard.bsky.social · 05/12/2023

As England's Green continues to rightly sweep up every award going, a reminder that you can read my TLS review from some time ago here: www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/eng...

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Reposted by Dominic Leonard

tits andronicus @tambourine.bsky.social · 26/11/2023

poem by abbas ibn al-ahnaf, translated by abdullah al-udhari and g.b.h. wightman (published in the anthology birds through a ceiling of alabaster)

Abbas I wish you were the shirt On my body, or I your shirt.
Or I wish we were in a glass
You as wine, I as rainwater.
Or I wish we were two love birds
Who lived alone in the desert,
No people.

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Tom Snarsky @tomsnarsky.bsky.social · 22/11/2023

two poems by Robert Creeley

The Revelation

I thought that if I were broken enough
I would see the light
like at the end of a small tube, but approachable.

I thought chickens laid eggs
for a purpose.

For the reason expected, a form occurred more
blatant and impossible

to stop me.

Wanting You

Specific light,
water, ground
it’s on—heart’s

the hard
thing
to define.

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Tom Snarsky @tomsnarsky.bsky.social · 20/11/2023

Geoffrey Hill

i

‘One cannot lose what one has not possessed’.
So much for that abrasive gem.
I can lose what I want. I want you.

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Dominic Leonard @dominicleonard.bsky.social · 12/11/2023

A Sunday well spent. Morning reading Anne Carson, afternoon writing a poem about the neverending cosmic horror of life on earth, now time for a wine tasting

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Reposted by Dominic Leonard

David Naimon @davidnaimon.bsky.social · 01/11/2023

I can't express how excited I am to share today's conversation with one of my favorite living writers, the extraordinary Bhanu Kapil. With the reissue of the long unavailable Incubation: A Space for Monsters we look across her writing life entire Audio: tinhouse.com/podcast/bhan...

tinhouse.com

Bhanu Kapil : Incubation : A Space for Monsters - Tin House

Bhanu Kapil’s postcolonial feminist road novel Incubation : A Space for Monsters has long been out-of-print. The book of hers that most engages with the mythos and reality of America, Incubation fo...

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Dominic Leonard @dominicleonard.bsky.social · 31/10/2023

Loved visiting Eton today and seeing, amongst other things, one of the 5 existing originals of Keats's death mask, some of Shelley's graffiti, and the oldest classroom in continuous use in Europe (potentially the world)

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Dominic Leonard @dominicleonard.bsky.social · 25/10/2023

Funnily enough I just nearly broke my ankle at the Temple of Asklepios

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Dominic Leonard @dominicleonard.bsky.social · 24/10/2023

Many paragraphs Donna Tartt writes have opening sentences so good they could be the start of a short story: "Though Mrs. Fountain had not poisoned the cat, she was nonetheless pleased that it was dead."

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Dominic Leonard @dominicleonard.bsky.social · 22/10/2023

An excellent ghazal by Jericho Brown, which also sounds - from the rhythm, not just the refrain - like it's got Barrett Browning's Musical Instrument playing in the background

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Dominic Leonard @dominicleonard.bsky.social · 22/10/2023

Making mayonnaise from scratch is self care

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Dominic Leonard @dominicleonard.bsky.social · 21/10/2023

Watching the only good film ever made

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Dominic Leonard @dominicleonard.bsky.social · 18/10/2023

Shakespeare is never great at endings, but my god every word of this is magnificent

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Dominic Leonard @dominicleonard.bsky.social · 16/10/2023

Evaristo Prize for African Poetry open for submissions! brittlepaper.com/2023/10/subm...

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Dominic Leonard @dominicleonard.bsky.social · 15/10/2023

Evangelists over the road playing Christian rock so loudly that I can't focus on reading Saint Augustine. Is this what you want

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Dominic Leonard @dominicleonard.bsky.social · 13/10/2023

RIP Louise Glück, what a sad surprise

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Reposted by Dominic Leonard

John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 13/10/2023

“I can read racists, misogynists, Soviets, American capitalists, because when an artist is good . . . there is going to be something that is nurturing there. When I am picking up the book, I just want great art.” Teju Cole interview: [Gift link]

on.ft.com

Teju Cole: ‘Fiction has to touch on your bruises’

The Nigerian-American writer on the genesis of his new novel, history’s riches and the US’s ‘film of filth’

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Dominic Leonard @dominicleonard.bsky.social · 13/10/2023

Saw The Zone of Interest last night, a film in which nothing unpleasant happens on-screen but is nonetheless indescribably horrible. I had to purposefully un-tense my body every 5 minutes. Invades your imagination and makes you imagine the worst things imaginable happening behind the wall

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Dominic Leonard @dominicleonard.bsky.social · 12/10/2023

Jaw-droppingly good as you shifted it my arms it was the sea changing the shingle that changes it

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Dominic Leonard @dominicleonard.bsky.social · 11/10/2023

Love these poems from Ivor Gurney, the short poem songmaster

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Dominic Leonard @dominicleonard.bsky.social · 10/10/2023

Mona Arshi, Daljit Nagra and Matthew Hollis are reading at the Coronet Theatre next week - the Coronet poetry club line-up never misses. Tickets here: www.thecoronettheatre.com/whats-on/poe...

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