iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

It's pretty racist to lie about it, which you are doing, very knowingly, and fooling no one in the process.

Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

At a glance, it looks like a mix of safe well-established poets and representatives of key groups/issues -- which is not to say that the individual poets and collections aren't deserving, but that it fits my impression of prize culture as primarily a sort of diplomatic/political process.

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I don't think most people will interpret it like that. For one, it's well-known that the majority of public expressions of Zionism come from avowed racists and Jewish supremacists. The problem is the effect on those Zionists who quietly hold a more moderate position.

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Why did you never think you would say this? You'd say anything to try to maintain the status quo.

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Ugh. These all sound frustratingly myopic -- each with a fair point to make that is then given far too much weight.

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Cambridge Writing Centre 🖋️ @aruwriting.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Future Karaoke is back on Friday 9th October as part of the Cambridge #Poetry Festival fringe! Join us for a quickfire evening of new work on the theme of 'Superwomen'. 6.30pm, LAB002. Book your spot here: www.eventbrite.com/e/future-kar...

Future Karaoke #17: Superwomen. Friday 9th October, 6.30-8.30pm at ARU, LAB 002. Free entry.

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Cambridge Writing Centre 🖋️ @aruwriting.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Cambridge #Poetry Festival is back after a four-decade hiatus. And CWC are right in the thick of it! Check out all the events so far here: www.cambridgepoetryfestival.org

cambridgepoetryfestival.org

Cambridge Poetry Festival

Cambridge Poetry Festival - October 10th & 11th 2026 A community-focused celebration of poetry in the beautiful city of Cambridge

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

I was part of a fan mailing list for a British folk singer in September 2001. It was dominated by liberal Americans. After 9/11 my inbox was chock full of rants about carpet-bombing the entire Middle East for weeks.

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

"Poetry does not belong to a single medium. Poems are printed in books, magazines and newspapers, and shared online as digital text. But they’re also read aloud, performed live to audiences, recorded and shared as audio and video files ..." substack.com/home/post/p-...

substack.com

RESOURCE / “Are stage poems and page poems different things?”

A surprisingly thorny subject.

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

"Don’t haul me up before a judge, boys; he’ll only try to marry me." Here's a puzzle poem from one of our Hipflasks books.

shotscarecrow.substack.com

POEM / Prisoner's Dilemma, starring Zelda Fitzgerald and Bathsheba Everdene

from Look Again: A Book of Hidden Messages

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Best Star Trek crew, wrong answers only.

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Over on Substack: review of Eleanor Holmes' (@eleanorholmes.bsky.social) hybrid #poetry /fiction/art pamphlet #Moth, handmade by Sara Lefsyk for Ethel Zine and Micro Press. Plus some extra bug poems! substack.com/home/post/p-...

substack.com

REVIEW: #Moth by Eleanor Holmes

PLUS more bug poems and links to my latest book.

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

'AI in general' refers to the category of software we have now. Your hypothetical suffering humanoid robot with desires is in a different category. It's a bit like asking "If this chicken evolved into Prince Vultan from Flash Gordon, would it still be ethical to eat it?"

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Yep. The OU's 'philosopher of sport' Jon Pike has hashed out entire articles about what's 'fair' in women's sport, based on selective reading, without ever reflecting on what it means to be 'fair'.

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flyingrodent @flyingrodent.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

I’d reiterate that the key incident that drove the Cancel Culture panic - a wholly elite project, imposed from the top down - was the sight of Harvey Weinstein being dragged sobbing from court to jail, unprotected by his wealth, and the internet-based movement for justice that went with it.

theguardian.com

Here is the news from the US: Woke 1.0 is over. But what did progressives do wrong? | Nesrine Malik

A movement with safety, dignity and equality at its heart has been blamed for the rightwing backlash. But within it were principles worth carrying forwards, says Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik

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Sidekick Books @sidekickbooks.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

A quick look back on the year's live outings, including our appearance at Wilderness Festival, via Substack: substack.com/home/post/p-...

substack.com

DIARY: Sidekick on Tour '26

Come buy our fruits, come buy.

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Why does this argument not extend to giving anyone, in any context, an excuse to fire a gun? Aren't police officers and soldiers also confident they are in the right when they shoot at someone?

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Very excited to receive copies of 'Instar Hotel', winner of the @sarabandebooks.bsky.social Chapbook Prize (as it declares on the cover) and my first book of #poetry since 2021. UK residents can pre-order it exclusively from the London Review Bookshop: www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/stock/instar...

Cover to Instar Hotel, showing the interior of a well-used hotel (possibly from the 70s, judging by the wallpaper?) The cover artist is Elisa Root.

The dedication reads 'for Harriet, Clare and Orla'. Harriet is my partner and colleague; Clare and Orla are our cats, a void and a tortie.

The back cover contains an extract from 'How to Imagine These Arthropod-People': "That's up to you. Not entirely, of course -- sometimes you'll happen on a reference to an antenna, or to hands, perhaps even to a spine, and these specificities will limit the range of your imagination. After all, an arthropod is an invertebrate; how can it have a backbone? Well, suppose they are people dreaming, imperfectly, that they are arthropods? Or arthropods imperfectly dreaming they are people?"

An extract from 'Room 43: The Garden Tiger Caterpillar': "With all his stubbly, prickly soul he's waiting, / waiting to be turned, / waiting for that misty hostess / who will stick her little pins in his sorenesses, / natter him to jam. // I know you, Woollybear. Forget these fools. // For her, he'll become a venemous duke, drunk on misconstrued destiny, revenging himself on the town / with cacophonous hum. // Smile like a slit plum."

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

"parroting idiotic ideologies to remain in with their mates" is practically your job description. It's just missing "stir up lynch mobs".

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Ah, your true colours. So much for caring about men's mental health, eh?

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

I didn't say you were a racist, so this response is about as half-arsed and foolish as the previous one. Why don't you just fuck off altogether and come back when your concern for *anything* is genuine, you tedious ghoul.

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

If you're not willing to hold people accountable for a racist hounding, then you do not really care about men's mental health at all. You're a fraud, using a serious issue to try to have your day in the sun.

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

If you genuinely care about this and it isn't just a hobby horse, you will acknowledge that a key contributory factor is the kind of reactionary politics stoked by our media, which lies to men about both their entitlements and the chief cause of their disillusionment.

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Peace & Justice Project @peaceandjustice.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

The need for urgent media reform and a continuation of the Leveson Inquiry remains as stark today as it was following Hillsborough disaster, phone-hacking scandal and other failures in journalistic culture.

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

I know mental health is your focus area -- and it's a good one -- but the conversation we should be having after this is about which reactionary populist agitators should be going to prison.

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Accidentally stumbled on Copenhagen Pride the other night -- end of a 'Back to the 90s' set. Sure enough, it was all songs I remember from the school coach.

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Thanks to Poetry Wales for including me in their special teaching issue! I have a brisk article about using card games in poetry classes, plus an ekphrastic garden poem which adds a dash of danger to the original painting.

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Nobody has ever protested "a system of control that allows everyone, if they have the right mindset, to flourish" -- though that characterisation sounds suspiciously like a lie someone would tell about a system that is designed specifically to help *them* flourish.

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

There's no magic bullet. Our culture is obsessed with simplistic stories of greatness and wrongdoing, and people everywhere abandon safeguards, proportionality and due diligence in order to star in, or benefit from one of these stories. Clickbait journalism has played a key role in this.

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Cambridge have plenty of incentive to figure out what went wrong, since it's their own reputation which has been damaged -- though I don't expect anything they or anyone else do to solve the problem of charismatic narcissists finding ways to rapidly ascend the social hierarchy.

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

The OfS? The body only recently disgraced because of its abysmal and transparently politically motivated treatment of Uni of Sussex? No, I don't, funnily enough. They need to clean up their own house first.

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

You think they shouldn't be carrying out an investigation?

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SoMrHarris @somrharris.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Rod Liddle has died. Odious columnist for The Times & Spectator who hated on minorities including the disable, immigrants, and trans people. Here are Rosie Duffield, Kathleen Stock & Julie Bindel mourning his death, coupled with screenshots from two articles Rod wrote defending paedophilia.

Screengrabd of Rosie Duffield's twitter mourning Rod Liddle, and retweets of Kathleen Stock and Julie Bindel doing the same.

Spectator article written by Rod Liddle where he says he couldn't be a teacher as he couldn't imagine not shagging kids.

Screenshot from a Guardian article by Rod Liddle defending people watching child SA porn.

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Dr Harriet Fletcher @harrietfletcher.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

I wrote a guest blog for Open Graves, Open Minds about my book #Gothic #Celebrity: Fame and Immortality from #LordByron to #LadyGaga - a study of the relationship between the modern phenomenon of celebrity and the Gothic mode. You can read it here 👇 www.opengravesopenminds.com/books-and-ar...

opengravesopenminds.com

Gothic Celebrity: Fame and Immortality from Lord Byron to Lady Gaga

Our guest blog is by Dr Harriet Fletcher, Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication at Anglia Ruskin University. Her new book, Gothic Celebrity: Fame and Immortality from Lord Byron to Lady Gaga (…

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

You'd love it if it were true, eh? I'm also not clear why people aren't allowed to express support for the death penalty for unreformed dangerous criminals.

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

The difference is that people believe (so far) that Burnham means it, while we know that Kier Starmer lied through his teeth at every opportunity.

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

"Art is not an end in itself, but a practical measure. Making and studying it is research and communion — it spurs us towards an ever more complete, more finely calibrated view of how things really are." Yes, it's a new Substack post! shotscarecrow.substack.com/p/essay-what...

shotscarecrow.substack.com

ESSAY: What is a bad poem exactly? (Part 2)

Further thoughts on taste and the role of criticism in forming it.

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

He recognises, as do most politicians, that accepted truths can be bullied into being by people of power and influence. This has pretty much been his sole strategy of 'getting Britain back on track', ie. fake it till you make it.

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Aurelien Mondon @aurelmondon.com · 13/07/2026

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, there can be no mainstreaming of far-right politics without the active complicity of the mainstream elite The rise of the far right is therefore not irresistible, inexplicable or people-driven but carefully orchestrated in a top down manner

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Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 12/07/2026

Amnesty International put out a major report documenting the influence of UK based anti trans gender critical organizations and their funding. Within hours, GC groups threatened defamation lawsuits and Amnesty was forced to pull it down. Proving the point they're anti rights. Anyways, here it is.

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

Short Substack post on burglary and trespass games I've been making. open.substack.com/pub/shotscar...

open.substack.com

DIARY / Games of Intrusion

"Not quite a hand on the door, or a key’s nicked teeth ..."

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

Want to try out a new ludokinetic poem? You play as a thief. Takes about four minutes to read/play through all three scenes. shotscarecrow.itch.io/scenes-from-...

shotscarecrow.itch.io

Scenes from a Flit by Jon Stone

A three-part ludokinetic poem

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Warp Door @warpdoor.com · 11/07/2026

I could kiss, say, (@shotscarecrow.bsky.social) "It is a ‘ludokinetic poem’; that is, a poem that imbues the reader with responsibility for (and implicates them in) one or more outcomes via interactivity." Free - Browser: warpdoor.com/2026/07/11/i...

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Jon Stone @shotscarecrow.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Some mini-posters with extracts from 'The Eyed #Ladybird', a poem from 'Instar Hotel', which is out with @sarabandebooks.bsky.social next month. You can also hear a full audio recording of the poem here: shotscarecrow.substack.com/p/poem-the-e... #poetry

a surly split dress of watermelon flesh and watermelon seed

a vicious crown, a crown of eyes, a crown of sniggering eyes

Photo of several rows of spare dolls' eyes. Taken at the Dolls' Hospital, Lisbon.

The Eyed Ladybird. From Instagram Hotel, winner of the Sarabande Chapbook Prize. Available 18th August.

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