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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis)

@maxwallis.bsky.social
417 followers 211 following 268 posts

📚 Max Wallis | Author of the Polari Prize-shortlisted Modern Love (2011) & Everything Everything (2016). 🖋️ Poems in The Rialto, Poetry Scotland, Spectator ✍️ Freelance journalist (The Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph). 🌈 Gay, disabled, survivor.

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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
It’s time. February 2027. The Last Song of the World by Joseph Fasano (@joseph.fasano) is published in the UK with five previously unreleased poems, by @aftershockpoetry.
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
Haha it’s a design choice from pre existing issues so that one element wasn’t going to change :) It’s a poetry magazine (but shaped like a book)
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
Hey Glyn this is what I got printed in the end - is this suitable for astigmatism? Could I send you copies to read?
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Oh you pretty things! Pocket Aftershocks have arrived and are available to buy! www.aftershockreview.com/category/all...
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
It's time for renewal - a neon-tinged hope. Issue Three is not finalised yet but here's your chance to pre-order now. www.aftershockreview.com/product-page...
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 23/11/2025
STORE UPDATE - we now have a sidecart and it's easier to add things to your basket and still select more. Blackfriday discount automatically applied. www.aftershockreview.com
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
Two poems from my new book. The first one won @vervepoetryfest.bsky.social June’s POTM “Our winning poem for Poem of the Month is Thinking of how many elevators by Max Wallis which was the most loud and unapologetic entry. Beginning with thinking about intimate opportunities in private spaces
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
35% off for Black Friday - just use the code! www.aftershockreview.com/category/all...
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
‘The sun sang honorific hymns and I was in an Uber to die.’ Except I didn’t. And found a life i long thought impossible. Thank you @vervepoetrypress.bsky.social for publishing my first book in a decade. I have copies if you want to buy one. Otherwise available at usual places! 1/2
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 07/11/2025
Buy a copy of issue two here, I’m so very very proud of it: www.aftershockreview.com
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 01/11/2025
Across Dunne’s sequence, we move from the mother’s humiliation to the child’s car journey toward the father’s absence. By the time we reach In the Prison Gardens, love exists only within visitation hours… a ritual of limited touch, a tenderness fenced by rules.
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
We’ve made @thebookseller.com again! www.thebookseller.com/comment/icon...
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 09/10/2025
www.aftershockreview.com/product-page...
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
Tune into BBC Radio 4 Front Row tonight to hear about The Aftershock Review. ALSO - At age 36 I have passed my driving test! What a life you can live when you choose to live the one you want.
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
We have been awarded a £15,000 grant from the T S Eliot Foundation. Words can't explain what I'm feeling right now, but thank you to everyone who believes in us. And to all who see what recovery, survival, persistence and change can do. And most of all - to the poets who trust us with your words.
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
www.vervepoetrybookshop.com/product-page...
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 05/08/2025
“Riotous and razor sharp, this phenomenal pamphlet is proof that survival and recovery is not only possible - it can be sexy, too.” - Rhian Elizabeth Published with @vervepoetryfest.bsky.social in November. www.vervepoetrybookshop.com/product-page... Thank you!!!! Ps thanks Original Brian xx
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
Joseph Fasano said this about Well Done, You Didn’t Die and I still haven’t quite recovered. This pamphlet nearly didn’t happen. I nearly didn’t happen. Preorder with Verve Poetry Press now. www.vervepoetrybookshop.com/product-page...
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
I have a new book coming out in November with @vervepoetrypress.bsky.social www.vervepoetrybookshop.com/product-page...
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 04/07/2025
Aftershock has arrived on billboards! Head to the Deansgate/Bridgewater crossroads ❤️
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
Me reading my poem Fulcrum published by @fourteenpoems.bsky.social Effable @jpseabright.bsky.social
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 19/06/2025
Thank you Ludlow!
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 16/06/2025
Make each pane hold its own emotional weather. Think of silence pressed to glass… Think of what you see when you can’t go outside. Two panes. One window. Your language inside it. #poetry www.aftershockreview.com
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 07/06/2025
duotrope.com/duosuma/subm... DIRTY LAUNDRY SUBMISSIONS OPEN NOW! #poetry #aftershockreview
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 06/06/2025
The ASTONISHING @chenchenwrites.bsky.social which you can read more in the mag and here: aftershockpoetry.substack.com/p/pride-2025...
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 05/06/2025
This Pride we’re spotlighting some of the queer poets from The Aftershock Review: Issue One. We’re starting with Dale Booton. Dale’s poem Wide Awake doesn’t soothe. It stings. @dalebooton.bsky.social aftershockpoetry.substack.com/p/pride-2025... #poetry #poetrycommunity #poetrybluesky
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 12/05/2025
There are poems that circle a subject, and poems that walk straight into it. The ‘S’ word by Mark Antony Owen is a record of that moment, when someone says it out loud. aftershockpoetry.substack.com/p/the-s-word...
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 10/05/2025
#poetry
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 10/05/2025
aftershockpoetry.substack.com/p/day-25-bri...
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
And static image for those who don't like video. Today I am 1 year, 2 months, 2 days sober. New poem. www.aftershockreview.com #sober #recovery #poetry
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
Today I am 1 year, 2 months, 2 days sober. New poem. www.aftershockreview.com #sober #recovery #poetry
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
TODAY’S PROMPT: WRITE ABOUT BIRTH Write about the moment before. Before the breath. Before the name. Write the first hurt. The first silence. The first time you were seen. aftershockpoetry.substack.com/p/day-18-wri...
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
Day 17 of the Daily Aftershock - head to our substack for more @poetrysociety.bsky.social #poetry
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 24/04/2025
Read the editorial note from The Aftershock Review here. aftershockpoetry.substack.com/p/editorial-...
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 19/04/2025
Meanwhile, here’s Day 4 of @AftershockPoets Daily Aftershock Writing Prompts, which asks you to write from the in-between — that liminal space, that just-before-or-just-after, that moment of tension before transformation. Write from there.
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
WE GOT THE FUNDING! “I am writing to offer you a grant of £XX,XXX towards the costs of The Aftershock Review. Congratulations on your successful application.” THANK YOU EVERYONE. THANK YOU, CONTRIBUTORS. THANK YOU @artscouncilengland.bsky.social
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
WE’VE BEEN SHORTLISTED! It’s a programme that helps neurodivergent and disabled founders launch their ideas.
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 11/04/2025
Pals, friends, poets, cats, you can buy it! (Pending delivery of 500 books.) www.aftershockreview.com/product-page...
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 06/04/2025
The final page of the magazine I started from bed. Thank you everyone.
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 31/03/2025
𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗦 𝗜𝗦 𝗠𝗬 𝗖𝗛𝗢𝗢𝗦𝗜𝗡𝗚-𝗟𝗜𝗙𝗘 𝗦𝗧𝗢𝗥𝗬 My getting-clean-and-sober story. My 'fit-for-public-consumption' story. My beginning-of-the-aftershock story. www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/aftershock... #poetry
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 31/03/2025
𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗦 𝗜𝗦 𝗠𝗬 𝗖𝗛𝗢𝗢𝗦𝗜𝗡𝗚-𝗟𝗜𝗙𝗘 𝗦𝗧𝗢𝗥𝗬 My getting-clean-and-sober story. My 'fit-for-public-consumption' story. My beginning-of-the-aftershock story. www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/aftershock...
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 30/03/2025
New poem from me in Issue One of The Aftershock Review - last day to donate! www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/aftershock...
How we go on

Won’t you sit with me
on the curb outside my parents’ house,
just past six, summer-warm,
tarmac breathing into our legs.
I am thirteen, not yet a man,
picking at the ends of cigarettes and sunshine,
ash in the creases of my fingers,
a wasp circling the lip of a warm Coke can.
My knees are scabbed.
My shirt smells of pondwater.
Mum’s voice - sharp, then soft -calls from the kitchen window.
But I don’t move. I stay.
In that hush before the voice changes,
before someone, somewhere, slams a door
just hard enough to mean it.

Once, the past lodged in me
like gravel
in elbows, in teeth,
in how I learned
to walk without sound,
to flinch without showing.
I carried it
like a second spine.

I am sixteen. I am seventeen. I am eighteen.
I am all of them.
Still sitting there,
watching a bead of cola slide
down the curve of the can,
the weight of a Walkman in my lap,
waiting for something
I don’t yet have words for.
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
We have now raised £6,474. Here’s a video poem of Cage originally published in @rialtopoetry.bsky.social www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/aftershock...
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 14/03/2025
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 14/03/2025
Okay I get the numbers wrong but ! xxxxx £5,133! www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/aftershock...
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 14/03/2025
£5,133! Absolutely blown away to find out we have a private donation of £1,000 from a donor who wishes to remain anonymous and is not family. I told you aftershocks would be coming right?! THREE (BUT REALLY TWO TOMORROW) DAYS REMAIN. What the heck! www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/aftershock...
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
£3,140 raised so far! Do you want to join us? Can you spare £1, £3, £any to help us create a new space for poetry? www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/aftershock...
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
“The fight for sexual equality… not between men and women… but people and dickheads.” @jackiehagan.bsky.social www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/aftershock...
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The Aftershock Review (Max Wallis) @maxwallis.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
WE NEED YOUR HELP - £3,096 raised - can you help us reach £7,000? www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/aftershock...
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