iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Less than 10 days to go to submit to this. It’s an excellent way to boost poets and presses in the run up to Christmas. See the original post for full details.

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Paul Connolly @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social · 3h

I breakfast on a Christian mystic. We walk in cleansing dark, paradoxical power, illumination. Yet dualism persists, reason privileged as in Augustine, not to innovate but to police, aligning ambiguous visions & revealed truth. Offstage are cries, chain-cut, flame-licked, from those who don’t agree…

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Paul Connolly @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social · 3h

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Paul Brookes @thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social · 4h

Doubly chuffed to have my poem and audio featured on Open Arts Forum Front Page: openartsforum.com/low-kick/

openartsforum.com

Paul Brookes | Low Kick

Poetry by Paul Brookes

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 17h

Met my new freshers at Univ today 🥰 Can’t wait to get stuck in and teach them some Old English! Hwæt!

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Paul Connolly @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I’m thrilled to get a 2nd Best of the Net nomination from @lothlorienpoetryj.bsky.social & its brilliant editor @stridermarcusjones.bsky.social Congratulations to all the nominees, whose work you can find👇. Here’s my recording of my nominated poem Brahms Variations #poemsaloud #poetrycommunity #botn

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Paul Connolly @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Brahms’ glories are hard-won. Sadness is constant, like air. But if dejection perdures & joys are small, each includes its opposite. Bleakness blurs in a quaver into an aching sweetness, like birdsong in the rain. Happiness broods almost when felt. Brahms: the laureate of melancholy & disappointment

m.youtube.com

Brahms: Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 68: IV. Adagio - Piu andante - Allegro non troppo, ma...

YouTube video by Chamber Orchestra of Europe - Topic

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Carmella de Keyser @carmellapoetry.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Glad to have had my poem listed as an #HonourableMention out of 4000 entries by the #DarkPoetsClub. Check them out, they publish interesting pieces & raise money for @sane.org.uk Many thanks to everyone involved this time, looking forward to reading all the poems... 💀🥀🏴‍☠️

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Lothlorien Poetry Journal @lothlorienpoetryj.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Welcome to Lothlorien Poetry Journal. Our Blog has now had THREE MILLION VIEWS. Submissions OPEN. No reading or submission fees. lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com facebook.com/groups/23614... lulu.com/spotlight/st... lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/p/patrons-of... pic.x.com/2IpRnx2NLy

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Lothlorien Poetry Journal @lothlorienpoetryj.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Best of the Net Nominations 2027. Congratulations to all outstanding nominees. Lothlorien Poetry Journal: Best of the Net Nominations lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/p/best-of-ne...

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Paul Connolly @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

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Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

This #PoemsAbout #Rot is for any football fans disgusted by wha been goin on at the Etihad. Thanks as ever to @thebrokenspine.co.uk

Rot Rain into grass, crowd into club, street into stand,
father into son.
The roots went deep. They drew on place, memory,
rivalry, the stubborn hope
of another Saturday.
Then came the harvesters.
The shirt.
The ground.
The kick-off.
The television rights.
Sham contracts worked into the earth, accounts tattened, money buried, dug up,
called something else. Season after season the trophies came, bright fruit
from poisoned ground. Now the roots are shallow,
but the rot is deep.
Again.
Again. Until the soil
gave up its goodness.
What remained
was fed with money.
Artificial light.
Artificial heat.
Artificial growth.
And City rejoiced in barren soil. brands. assets.
data. And where the game once grew from the ground, something rank has taken hold, blue, glossy,
rampant,
feeding on what is left.

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Merril D. Smith @merrildsmith.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Good morning! Happy Friday! Another tough one for me. #PoemsAbout #Rot As always, thanks to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk I'll be back later to read and comment on others!

Poem:

Composting
Fools seek fools’ gold,
for a glimpse of gain—

destroy the seas
forgo the rain—

they rot from within
belching bellies, dissolving spines,

upped on T,
mean with greed.

Can protests, people, press
break down the morass--

what might we grow
after decomposition, in new soil?

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Anna Orridge @anna-orridge.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Red patches advance on wet, green leaves plastering our sullen pavements. The dream islands of childhood, feeding on fantasy's rot. #PoemsAbout #Tanka

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David Birch @davidbirch.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Thank you @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk for today's #PoemsAbout prompt #Rot. Here are some unfiltered reflections on the state of our local river. Looking forward to reading other offerings from the #PoetryCommunity later

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Jen Thorne @jenthorne.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I hope everyone is having a good Friday. I am having a busy one, so am going to post this and run! I will leave reading everyone else's until tonight when I can hopefully relax 😌 #PoemsAbout #Rot @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk #Poetry

Slow Death

My mother's garden once held itself together
the way a thought survives a sleepless night,
each bed and border aligned
to some private geometry of care.

Now rot works through it
like a forgotten language returning
to the mouth.

Apples soften where they land.
Pears remain aloft, unchosen,
moons refusing their eclipse.

The shed folds inward by degrees,
its boards separating from one another
old friends who have exhausted
every story.
Rain collects in the bench.
The wood drinks and drinks,
remembering old thirsts.
The fence gives up its straight lines.
One panel lies down in the nettles,
gravity has won the argument.

Nothing is cleared.
Leaves gather,
brown receipts from a season
that no longer keeps records.

I walk there and feel
time changing shape.
Not passing, but thickening.

Everything she touched
continues the cycle without her.

The trees stand crowded with
their unfinished offerings,
and death hangs on the branches:
a bruised apple
holding one square of light.

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Paul Connolly @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

For #NationalPoetryDay I recorded Prufrock. (The 2 parts are in the thread👇.) Again, I found the value of reading poetry out loud. I’ve known the poem for years. But reading it, taking more note of the epigraph, was a revelation. I met a new Prufrock. I’ll meet another if I read it again #poemsaloud

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Paul Connolly @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

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Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Here’s one for #PoemsAbout #Rot Thanks as ever to @thebrokenspine.co.uk

Rot Apples slump beneath the tree, their sweetness turning,
their skins split open to wasps, mould, the soft insistence
of the earth.
Wood darkens at the edges.
Bark gives up its hardness. Underneath, the pale threads of fungus move quietly through the wreckage,
stitching fallen things together. There is heat in it, low, damp, held close, the mulch steaming faintly
when the morning turns cold. Everything firm is being persuaded out of its shape: leaf into loam, flesh into richness,
the fallen branch
into something roots can enter. And below all this yielding, blind as hunger,
the earth grows dark
with what it has been given.

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John Chmura @johnchmura.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

#PoemsAbout #Rot @thebrokenspine.co.uk I will put a reading in the comments.

KNOCK GO GENTLE

round here
knock gentle
better yet holler

anything made of wood
termites have
probly obliterated

holeyer than your mama’s
teeth on the nightstand
that kind of fit so you share them

the buckets catching drips
from the ceiling
themselves leak through rags onto the floor

if there was a doctor in these parts
they’d tell you speaking of holes
your liver weren’t none too good neither

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Paul Connolly @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK by T.S. Eliot, read in two parts for National Poetry Day by Paul Connolly. PART ONE #NationalPoetryDay #poetrycommunity #poemsaloud

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Francesca L Rolle @francesca-laura.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

A quick poem written on the theme of #Wonder for #NationalPoetryDay

A poem written by Francesca L Rolle:
I will pluck a star from the sky,
To drop into one of your eyes,
So that you can see the world in two halves,
One through a lens of starlight,
And the other,
Through the sun,
So that you will never be afraid of the dark,
And you will always follow the wonder of the rising dawn.

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Leia Butler @leiabutler.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

So delighted to have a piece in the latest issue of The Visual Poetry Times. The Visual Poetry Times really is incredibly special and I can’t recommend it enough! ☀️✨

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Anna Orridge @anna-orridge.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

#NationalPoetryDay Still quite proud of this one. It was displayed outside the Royal Society of Geography :) 🌠🌌🪐

A
pencil
lead, if you
zoom in on it
with a microscope
is first a dark expanse,
but each magnification
reveals candescent clusters:
galaxy filament in graphite -
Let my pencil leave gauzy
comet tails in its wake,
nebula of dreams
across the stark
cosmos of
empty
page

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Paul Connolly @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

To all my friends in the #poetrycommunity Happy National Poetry Day. I’m spending today doing some polishing on my poetry collection, which will be published next year👇. Whatever poetic projects you’re undertaking, I wish you every success with them. The world needs poetry & poets #NationalPoetryDay

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Full House Literary @fullhouselitmag.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Thanks to all who submitted during FH’s last window. Our donation to @msf.ca has been sent. We’ll look to reopen issue subs again toward the end of the year! ❤️

Charity donation to MSF UK, a small donation for each piece FH passed on during May 2026. Thank you so much to everyone who submitted.

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Paul @paulwritespoems.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Let’s share a warm welcome for the latest featured poet in the Poetic Voice series, the excellent @annestgwilym.bsky.social

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James Mcconachie @jamesmcconachie1.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Breaking the 4th wall with this here sonnet. #NationalPoetryDay

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Full House Literary @fullhouselitmag.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

THE GAMES ROOM IS OPEN!!! 🍁 Would you believe it's been almost a year since The Games Room opened? Now, a new game is waiting...

THE GAMES ROOM. Open 1st October - 5th October. THEME: DRIFTING. We want tiny poems/flash/art/hybrid pieces all about ‘Drifting’.

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Leia Butler @leiabutler.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

The Games Room is one of my fav little parts of FH! Open for a few days on the theme of drifting 🍁🍂

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Paul Brookes @thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Thank you to @janecornwell.bsky.social , outstanding artworker and publisher for this account of her work on my "Hedgerow of Voices" as part of her celebration of "wonder" for National Poetry Day:

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Jane's Studio @janes-studio.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

It is National Poetry Day, I love this year's theme! To celebrate, I am going to share some poetry collections I've enjoyed working on. First up, Hedgerow of Voices by @thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social DM Paul for a signed copy, or £5.99: amzn.eu/d/06M3wEuF #NationalPoetryDay #poetrycommunity

Paul's cover is a watercolour painting which features some of the 'voices' in his collection, including the gap in the hedge, the hare, a map showing the river Dove, and the North Star. I loved working on it.

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Paul Connolly @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

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Daniel Hinds @danielghinds.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Happy National Poetry Day! This year's @poetrydayuk.bsky.social theme is "Wonder" so if anyone is "wondering" what to read next they could give my UNESCO Bridges of Struga Award winning collection New Famous Phrases a go. Message me if you would like a signed copy. #NationalPoetryDay

A copy of the poetry collection New Famous Phrases by Daniel Hinds

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Paul @paulwritespoems.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Help your favourite presses and poets out!!! ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

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Paul Connolly @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I’m having a Plantagenet/Tudor day. Two weeks ago, long drives caused a bit of RSI in my left sole. So, as I cross Tower Bridge, & behold the famous battlements, I’m limping & tempted to put on an Olivier voice & cry: Can I do this & cannot get a crown? Tut, were it farther off, I'll pluck it down

Olivier as Richard III. Gold crown, black wig, heavily made-up eyebrows, putty nose

The Tower of London. Yellowish brown stone keep, battlements, crenellations

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Paul Connolly @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

There are five people I wish to thank. They know why. They are wonderful, generous people. If you don’t follow them already, these fine writers & poets, then do: @regretteruane.bsky.social @paulwritespoems.bsky.social @leiabutler.bsky.social @thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social @danadelibovi.bsky.social

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Paul Connolly @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

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Carmella de Keyser @carmellapoetry.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Sharing a poem I haven't ever shared before... 🫀 It is from my collection Heart Muscle which won the Hedgehog Press Crimson Spine Competition for best pamphlet last October. It is called Intersectional Dining. #families #contrasts #blacksheep #power #powerlessness

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Paul Connolly @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Last night I sat up late. The dog wheezed. There were throbs like distant music, which may have been my heart. Then I split into predicate & object. I observed me, & me divided in turn into memory, hope, fantasy, motions taken, not taken, until my microcosm’s dense singularity sucked everything back

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