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Steve Whitaker

@stevewhitaker1.bsky.social
286 followers 226 following 230 posts

Writer, book reviewer for Yorkshire Times, and grateful national park resident. yorkshiretimes.co.uk

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Steve Whitaker @stevewhitaker1.bsky.social · 10h
YT Children's Book Review: 'Peas on Your Knees - A Life in the Poems of Michael Rosen' @michaelrosenyes.bsky.social @walkerbooksuk.bsky.social yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Revi...
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Jonathan Humble @northernjim.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
dirigibleballoon.org/poem/The-Book
dirigibleballoon.org
Dirigible Balloon - Poetry for Children
Dirigible Balloon - Poetry for Children
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Steve Whitaker @stevewhitaker1.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
YT Poem of the Week: 'From Cheshire' by Kit Wright yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Poem...
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Reece Dinsdale @reecedinsdale.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
If you could take a minute to read this and, if it takes your fancy, then re-post it… I’d be so grateful. 🙏🏻 I’m doing my utmost to #SaveSquareChapelArts for the good people of Halifax & far beyond, and I need all the help you lovely lot can give me. Thank you! x www.canncomms.co.uk/post/actor-a...
canncomms.co.uk
Actor and long-standing Patron, Reece Dinsdale fronts new campaign to save Halifax’s Square Chapel Arts Centre
Photo credit: Reece Dinsdale in the cinema/studio space at Square Chapel (photo by Ant Robling)Reece Dinsdale leads Square Chapel rescue mission: “It’s time to bring it home”Award-Winning Actor, Write...
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Bloodaxe Books @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
'Challis’ poems dealing with his relationship with fatherhood are among the finest of a universally compelling collection.’ – @stevewhitaker1.bsky.social, in the Yorkshire Times, on The Green Parcel. A wonderful close reading of John Challis's second collection. yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Unde...
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Jeremy Noel-Tod @jntod.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
The military bloat of the massive SUVs on the school run is getting ridiculous. You're there to take a child home for tea, not transport a pallet of shrinkwrapped banknotes through the fall of Basra.
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Steve Whitaker @stevewhitaker1.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
YT Poem of the Week: 'Among the Talk and the Laughter' by Norman MacCaig yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Poem...
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Ian Duhig @ianduhig.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Noggin the Nog was broadcast so long ago that early episodes were in Old English www.youtube.com/watch?v=l69h...
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Noggin the Nog in Old English
YouTube video by Old English and lyre with Russell
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Steve Whitaker @stevewhitaker1.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
YT Poetry Review: Understanding the Stone - 'The Green Parcel' by John Challis @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Unde...
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Steve Whitaker @stevewhitaker1.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
YT Poem poem of the Week: 'Soiree' by Peter Reading yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Poem...
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Reece Dinsdale @reecedinsdale.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
I have more meetings in Halifax today. 🤞 I’m doing all I can to save this place for the Arts and the good people of West Yorkshire… and even further afield. In saving such places, we ALL win! 🙏🏻 Please RT. Thank you. #SaveSquareChapelArts #Halifax
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Reece Dinsdale @reecedinsdale.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Please RT! 👇 🙏🏻 X
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Steve Whitaker @stevewhitaker1.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
YT Poem of the Week - Children's Special! : 'Catamaran Smile' by Carmella de Keyser @northernjim.bsky.social @carmellapoetry.bsky.social yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Chil...
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Jonathan Humble @northernjim.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
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Rachel Burrows @rburrows.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
A poem from Issue 5 of @underbellypress.bsky.social - for those going back this week! 🌰🌰🌰🤬 #autumnterm #teaching #poetry #conkers
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Steve Whitaker @stevewhitaker1.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
YT Poem of the Week: 'Hilltop' by Ruth Sharman yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Poem...
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Graham Mort @grahammort.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
It’s now 10 years since an earthquake devastated Amatrice in central Italy. I visited the site shortly afterwards and saw the devastation and spoke to aid workers there. The village has still not been fully re-built and people are still living in temporary accommodation. Here’s the poem I wrote.
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Steve Whitaker @stevewhitaker1.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
YT Poem of the Week: 'Pretending not to Sleep' by Ian Hamilton yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Poem...
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Steve Whitaker @stevewhitaker1.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
YT Poem of the Week: 'Trust Me' by Mary Ruefle yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Poem...
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Steve Whitaker @stevewhitaker1.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
YT Review: Citizens of Nowhere - 'Journeys of Hope: The Letters of Meyer and Sonia' by Alison Marshall yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Citi...
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Steve Whitaker @stevewhitaker1.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
YT Poem of the Week: 'The Pheasant' by Ali Lewis yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Poem...
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Count Binface @countbinface.bsky.social · 19/07/2023
Under a Binface government, anyone who doesn’t accept human-made climate change as fact will be sent back to school, from Year 1 right the way to A Levels, to see if anything goes in the second time round. #VoteBinface
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Salt Books @saltpublishing.com · 02/08/2026
Is this the best book ever on Leeds in the 1970s? #Booksky #SaltBooks
saltpublishing.com
There's No ‘F’ In Wonderful, Bill Broady
Broady has long written for those who remain irrepressibly young in heart and spirit. With There’s No ‘F’ in Wonderful, he delivers a strange, glor
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Steve Whitaker @stevewhitaker1.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
YT's Poem of the Week: 'Dicks' by Eoghan Walls @serenbooks.bsky.social yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Poem...
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Steve Whitaker @stevewhitaker1.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
YT's Poem of the Week: 'Marky' by Ian Duhig @ianduhig.bsky.social yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Poem...
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phillip crymble @phillipcrymble.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
her shroud like washing / blown onto the grass Carol Ann Duffy
CAROL ANN DUFFY
Wish
But what if, in the clammy soil, her limbs grew warmer, shifted, stirred, kicked off the covering of earth, the drowsing corms, the sly worms, what if her arms reached out to grab the stone, the grooves of her dates under her thumb, and pulled her up? I wish. Her bare feet walk along the gravel path between the graves, her shroud like washing blown onto the grass, the petals of her wreath kissed for a bride. Nobody died. Nobody wept. Nobody slept who couldn't be woken by the light. If I can only push open this heavy door she'll be standing there in the sun, dirty, tired, wondering why do I shout, why do I run.
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Steve Whitaker @stevewhitaker1.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
YT's Poem of the Week: 'Heredity' by Thomas Hardy yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Poem...
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Salt Books @saltpublishing.com · 06/07/2026
Publication day! 🎉 Bill Broady's There's No 'F' in Wonderful is out now – a hilarious, unsettling dive into 1970s Leeds clubland, Northern Soul, casinos and the radiant, unforgettable Christine. 'Live! Live! Live!' 📖 £10.99 → www.saltpublishing.com/products/the... #PublicationDay #NorthernSoul
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Steve Whitaker @stevewhitaker1.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
YT's Poem of the Week: 'The Old Pantry' by Peter Scupham yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Poem...
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Bill Manhire @pacificraft.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
At a poet’s memorial, I saw how Andy Burnham could be a different kind of prime minister | Blake Morrison
The putative PM-to-be explained how one of Tony Harrison’s poems gave him a new outlook, says poet and author Blake Morrison
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Steve Whitaker @stevewhitaker1.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
YT Book Review: 'There's No 'F' In Wonderful' by Bill Broady @saltpublishing.com yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Revi...
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Steve Whitaker @stevewhitaker1.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
YT Poem of the Week: 'Sleeping Through' by Faith Lawrence @poetrybusiness.bsky.social yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Poem...
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Robert Sheppard @robertsheppard.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
Fascinating interview with NR!
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Steve Whitaker @stevewhitaker1.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
YT Poem of the Week: 'Abra-Cadabra' by Grace Nichols yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Poem...
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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
‘He and She’ - #RSThomas (Destinations, Celandine 1985) #Bardd #Barddoniaeth #Cerdd #Poet #Poetry #Poem
Text of poem -

He And She.
When he came in, she was there.
When she looked at him, he smiled. There were lights in time's wave breaking on an eternal shore.
Seated at table - no need for the fracture of the room's silence; noiselessly they conversed. Thoughts mingling were lit up, gold particles in the mind's stream.
Were there currents between them?
Why, when he thought darkly, would the nerves play
at her lips' brim? What was the heart's depth?
There were fathoms in her, too, and sometimes he crossed them and landed and was not repulsed.
RS Thomas
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Steve Whitaker @stevewhitaker1.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
YT Book review: The Footsteps of Dinosaurs - 'In Search of Sea Dragons' by Matthew Myerscough @serenbooks.bsky.social yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/The-...
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Graeme Richardson @ravoon.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
"Sometimes I think the central attraction of writing poetry is that like the act of sex, and unlike most other art-forms, it can with a little ingenuity be practised anywhere, at any time" - Charles Causley (🤔) thelondonmagazine.org/archive-a-19...
thelondonmagazine.org
Archive | A 1962 Survey of Poets - The London Magazine
The February 1962 edition of The London Magazine was dedicated to poetry. Thoughts from Robert Graves, Philip Larkin, Derek Walcott, Sylvia Plath and more.
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Steve Whitaker @stevewhitaker1.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
YT Poem of the Week: 'When I land in Northern Ireland' by Colette Bryce yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Poem...
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Steve Whitaker @stevewhitaker1.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
YT review: Reasons to be Cheerful - 'Lyrical Ballads' by Bill Manhire @pacificraft.bsky.social @carcanet.bsky.social yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Reas...
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Beth Brooke @bethbpoet.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
Fantastic poem
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Steve Whitaker @stevewhitaker1.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
A belated look at Van Gogh in YT: 'Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience' at York's St Mary's yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Revi...
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Steve Whitaker @stevewhitaker1.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
YT's Poem of the Week: 'Happiness' by Blake Morrison yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Poem...
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Steve Whitaker @stevewhitaker1.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
YT Poem of the Week: 'In Passing' by Lisel Mueller yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Poem...
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Steve Whitaker @stevewhitaker1.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
YT book review: 'Heimat' by David Rose @nightjarpress.bsky.social yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Thro...
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Ian Duhig @ianduhig.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
Happy birthday Beckett! Here he is playing pitch'n'putt with Joyce www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbF5...
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Pitch N Putt with Beckett and Joyce
YouTube video by wyllieohagan
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Steve Whitaker @stevewhitaker1.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
YT's Poem of the Week: 'Pennines in April' by Ted Hughes yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Poem...
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Steve Whitaker @stevewhitaker1.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
YT Film review: "Wuthering Heights" yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Revi...
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