Rory Waterman
@RoryWaterman
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Poet & writer - COME HERE TO THIS GATE @carcanet 2024. Academic. Critic. Ed @newwalkmagazine . Views yours; likes/RTs=marriage proposals. OTBC🔰/COYP
Yellerbelly exiled in Notts
Joined March 2009
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Verified C-19 deaths in western Europe's five biggest countries:
UK: 38161 (324 today)
Italy: 33229 (87)
France: 28714 (52)
Spain: 27121 (2)
Germany: 8594 (24)
Why? Because our government was slow to act. And has only been increasingly shambolic since.
#borisvoteofnoconfidence
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I’m deeply saddened, and angered, by the decision made by
@uniofleicester
- where I spent six years & gained two degrees - to scrap the teaching of medieval literature. I’ll try to explain why, in a nutshell.
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A couple of yrs ago, I was subject to a pile-on on here (every sin was my sin), for suggesting poets’ work often suffers when they try to present themselves as morally unimpeachable defenders of goodness. Here’s another poem that would fail hilariously if it did so. Fleur Adcock.
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My dad died 3.30 this morning. I’m not looking for any sympathy, but a few people who see this will know a bit about him, or will have read him, and might want to know. Replies disabled because I absolutely don’t want to talk about him on here. Photo from summer. Night then, dad.
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I’ve just been promoted to Associate Professor
@ntuhum
. And today I’ve been looking through emails to Carcanet, because they are about to be archived & I need to do some pruning. I found this from September 2012, to my dear editor
@MichaelSchmidt7
. I love my job, & I’m grateful.
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I’m extremely grateful, delighted and surprised to be on the shortlist for this magnificent prize. What an honour.
@ledburyfest
#LedburyFortePoetryPrize
for second collections shortlist! Congratulations
@akblakemore
@Danez_Smif
Adam O'Riordan, David Tait,
@RoryWaterman
James Womack
@lieutenantkije
and publishers
@OffordRoadBooks
@ChattoBooks
@poetrybusiness
@Carcanet
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I'm 40 today. Goodbye, yoof. We had fun. It's time to grow older disgracefully.
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The final stage before I send off the typescript for my next
@Carcanet
collection: laying it out on a floor in spreads, stepping round it, tutting, etc.
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...the only university that offered this to me - a state school kid who had lots of potential but not much else - has now, fifteen years later, decided that it doesn’t want to give similar kids similar opportunities. It wants to chase fashionable rainbows instead.
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I was so proud and touched to win the NTSU Student-led Teaching Award tonight for (apparently) ‘outstanding pastoral support’. This is awarded by students, so it means a hell of a lot. I do my best - we all do. Thank you. X
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When your name appears on the front cover of
@TheTLS
, it is a Good Day - even if the words beside your name accidentally imply that you are terminally hopeless, and you’ve spent most of that day with a thumping headache.
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If you want to put aspects of current discourse in historical context, read Orwell’s proposed (and spiked) preface to Animal Farm, included in the Penguin Modern Classics edition. And if you think that is excessively overblown, consider whether you’d dare to like this tweet.
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Not available to order yet, no cover photo, etc, but my fourth collection of poems, Come here to This Gate, is now listed on the Carcanet website. I like the description they've gone with.
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This poem means a lot to me, and I'm grateful to
@TheTLS
and
@CamilleRalphs_
for publishing it.
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My poem ‘Envoi’ is in the TLS this week.
'That is when I saw you, the ghost of you, / twenty or so, on a splendid little lawn, / laughing with an airman, and beautiful, // and not knowing I’d ever come this way, / that I’d ever exist, not wanting me to.'
'Envoi' by
@RoryWaterman
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I hope
@uniofleicester
reconsiders what it is doing. I’d like to stay proud that I am an alumnus, and keen to recommend it to new students. Because at present that degree is a rare gem. It really is.
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A year ago today, right NOW, I launched my 3rd
@carcanet
collection. It hasn't received as much media attention as its predecessors, but it's doing well enough without that, and I'm still sure it's my best yet. THANK YOU very much to those who own one.
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This has been shortlisted for the Ledbury Forte Prize. So naturally I now hope you’ll buy it (what do you mean you haven’t already?) because it is a proven fact that books suddenly improve if they’re shortlisted for prizes.
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@AsifKhanSPL
@CILIPScotland
@CILIPinfo
@SLIC1991
@NickPoole1
@SLICCEO
I want those with whom I disagree to have the same free speech as those with whom I agree. I believe in a world of ideas. And if you don’t support free speech for those with whom you disagree, then you’d better hope your opinions are never outside a socially-sanctioned orthodoxy.
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New book, and the first ever volume of critical essays on W. H. Davies - though I didn’t write it on my own, and I’m very grateful to the 9 contributors, including my
@ntuhum
colleague
@rebecca_butler7
.
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...MANY practical skills by studying medieval lit, and a solid grounding in history too - things that enrich my daily life. 3. Throwing staff under the bus is despicable. 4. Most of the brilliant PhD students I knew were working on medieval/early modern projects and had funding.
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I'm very grateful to Carol Rumens for her wonderful
@guardian
Poem of the Week write-up on my poem 'Old Flat, Abandoned'.
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Leicester has a good reputation (which is sliding), but it isn’t a Russell Gp university. It isn’t full of rich, privately-educated students. I don’t know the figures, but the vast majority of universities ‘like’ Leicester don’t teach medieval lit, or at least not really. So...
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A student of mine is looking for poems that refer/allude to covid. If you have suggestions, they'll be gratefully received! (No need to mention Jacqueline Saphra's, Lachlan Mackinnon's, those in the Poetry and Covid Shearsman anthology, or those in other main covid anthologies.)
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I’m very glad to make my debut appearance in
@PoetryBrum
, one of the most intriguingly eclectic, original and attractive of the newer print poetry magazines. Thanks,
@naushsabah
.
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I'm delighted to say my new collection, Come Here to This Gate, is now available to order from Carcanet at a discount, ahead of publication in April:
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I was so proud to study a degree that developed and sparked new passions - including in contemporary literature AND writing from a millennium ago. And I was taught by fascinating people in both (and much else besides). And I was lucky, because...
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The idiots and libellers appear to have moved on in search of a new false target. Thank you to those who stuck up for me and my character, whether or not you agreed with everything I said, and especially the far smaller proportion who felt able to do so publicly.
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The English dept at UoL impressed me when I was a student, & impresses me even more now I am an academic myself. It was, & is, packed with wonderful scholars who do exciting things. It is heterodox & dynamic. And undergrad students are given an unusually comprehensive education.
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Happy birthday to mee, happy birthday to meeee, happy birthday dearest me-me, happy birthday to meeeee.
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...the overwhelming majority of students who have the world of medieval literature opened wide for them are at the sorts of universities filled with kids who didn’t go to state schools. And good luck to them. But: what a world it is! This isn’t just a USP, though it is that.
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My third collection is available for preorder from Carcanet. It’s out in May. Please send me an email if you want me to read or talk or anything of that sort.
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My new collection, Sweet Nothings, is now available from Carcanet - a full seven weeks before the official publication date: It's my best book, even though I do say so myself. If you get a copy, I'll adore you. x
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I didn’t know I’d write that kind of account of my feelings. I had at least ten disappointments in my head, and that was only one of them. To summarise a few others: 1. Imagine building that legacy and then dismantling it! Good luck rebuilding it in the future. 2. I gained...
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I once reminded a (very bright) new student to double space her essay, & she looked at me quizzically, then submitted an essay in which every letter was double spaced. It looked like a word search. Years later, at the end of her MA, she gave me a card with a word search in it.
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They really do study a full range of English literature. This isn’t usual. Trust me. And then they go and get good jobs. It works As a department, perhaps its most impressive strength - or so it seems to me - is in medieval literature. Why? Let me explain...
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My book on Wendy Cope for
@LivUniPress
is now available to order. The first critical book on Cope, it contains many close readings, and consideration of her cultural and literary contexts and her poetic development.
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Freedom is my own wee terrace in Bucheon. Also pictured: my new friends Seo-young and Sunmin of Bucheon UNESCO City of Literature, who are absolutely wonderful. Let the research and writing and doing commence.
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I’m launching my new
@carcanet
collection in Nottm, at Five Leaves, on 18/4. This is close to booking out, so if you want to come, sign up below!
@woodsgregory
will open proceedings. You may leave at the interval!
@ntuhum
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The most recent poem included in this collection was finished SEVEN YEARS AGO TODAY. I knew I was about to turn in a different direction, so I closed the file. The book did better than I’d expected. I still didn’t feel very legitimate. The good folk at
@Carcanet
believed in me.
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A kid of 4 can't consent to this, can they? And none of the refugee toddlers get a book, but the son of an academic does? No 4-y-o is a poetic savant, after all, & all 4-y-os have insights. (& where will the proceeds go?) Feel free to (dis)abuse me...
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I wrote this thing. With thanks to
@Poetry_London
for publishing it.
New from
@RoryWaterman
is an op-ed on the negative effects of superficial do-goodery & self-flattery on contemporary poetry.
'The best poets of any age challenge that age, but they are also not afraid to challenge themselves.'
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My new collection, Sweet Nothings, is available for preorder: . It will be out in May. I never thought I’d be this satisfied with one of my books. I never thought I’d be this nervous about one, either.
#poetry
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‘Poets often write about grief, but rarely so well about its complexity.’ I’m grateful to Graeme Richardson for this review of my new
@carcanet
collection, Come Here to This Gate, in The Sunday Times.
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I’m really sad to hear that Ciaran Carson has died. He was a very fine poet - a great in a great generation. He also went out of his way to be kind to me when I first met him, in a way that meant a lot (and had nothing to do with poetry).
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This review/overview of my poetry has made me happier than the proverbial Larry (though I assume he's dead).
"His three collections demonstrate the progressive broadening of his writing into a method and approach that are unique in contemporary UK poetry."
Matthew Stewart (
@roguestrands
) writes on the poetry of
@RoryWaterman
for Wild Court:
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The
@uniofleicester
researchers celebrated in this post are about to be made redundant by the institution celebrating them - which is exquisitely despicable, and thereby emblematic of what my alma mater has become under its current leadership.
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A few photos from tonight’s
@ntuhum
MA Creative Writing anthology launch. Everyone was wonderful. You’d expect me to say that, but it’s true. Those who get hold of the
@UncertainNTU
anthology will be glad. You are also a wonderful group of people. I’m better for knowing you all.
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I’m touched that so many people came to my online
@carcanet
book launch tonight, and have messaged or emailed me about my new book. Thank you. I’ll reply to everyone as soon as possible.
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I’m currently in Grasmere, so I feel a little…overshadowed. Nonetheless, this book means an immense amount to me, and I hope it will mean something to you, too.
Come Here to This Gate,
@RoryWaterman
's fourth collection includes poems about the last year of his father's life, poems which open gates, and poems which rewrite folk tales.
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Thanks,
@GregMLeadbetter
and
@naushsabah
and the wonderful audience I had at BCU, the first to hear me read poems from my new collection. I’m grateful to so many of you for buying books and for being so positive, and I hope you all enjoy the collection.
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I just read someone's review of a book review I wrote, in which it is claimed that because I do not agree entirely with the glowing endorsements provided by Carol Ann Duffy and a few others, I can't have read the book with sufficient care. Some people are hilarious.
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A seventh-century church, a meadow in winter, and a Francesca. The last sunset of 2021.
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Today: the official publication day of my 3rd Carcanet collection, Sweet Nothings. To celebrate, I’ll be staying in, but I’m very proud of this book. Please get a copy! OR OR wherever you buy books OR message me directly. Thank you!
.
@RoryWaterman
’s 3rd collection Sweet Nothings is about absences, how they tempt us, and sometimes what they make us do. An absence is a conjuration, not palpably present in longing, imagination or dream. We are lured on by absences, and how they call to us.
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With my mum today, before she lobbed me in the mighty river.
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My book on Wendy Cope is now out in paperback for £13.60. I look at all her collections, of course, but also at her poems for children, and at her uncollected poems, most discovered in archives at the British Library and at her house. It was a very enjoyable book to write.
New in Paperback: Wendy Cope by Rory Waterman (
@RoryWaterman
) is the first book on the poetry of one of Britain’s favourite poets.
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The reward is in the act. And yes, the possibility of connection, even across time & space. Even if I don’t know. But today a woman in Yorkshire, with a life unlike mine in simple terms, emailed to say a poem of mine had made her suddenly feel understood. Which makes two of us.
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Just in case I missed any kindnesses: THANK YOU to everyone who logged on for my launch on Wednesday. It felt surreal: I spoke to & saw a grand total of 2 people, logged off, sat on the sofa with a cuppa (or similar, very broadly speaking), and my phone went berserk.
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Sweltering, I headed to a studio in Notts where my good mate
@tcurtisphoto
() took 'author' photos of me while proclaiming 'You're beautiful!' & 'I wish I could be just like you' & 'My anaconda don't want none unless you got buns hun' and stuff like that.
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Email from ex-student tonight: “Without your support back then to help me be myself and push myself I wouldn’t be where I am now.” (And no, she’s not in HMP Foston Hall or owt.) Things like this make me sing, & every decent university lecturer has a wealth of similar stories.
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I’m launching my next book of poems, Come Here to This Gate, at the great Five Leaves
@FiveLeavesBooks
, Nottingham, on 18 April. Book here:
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Well, this is nicer (objectively) than the message I received from a relative of Digusted of Tunbridge Wells, who told me it is ‘artless obscenity’.
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I’m about to go on BBC radio across the East Midlands to talk about my new
@carcanet
collection, Come Here to This Gate. Please place your hexes on me…NOW.
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Well, I'm very excited by & grateful for this - partly a product of living in Notts & being supported by the wonderful
@nottmcityoflit
, & taking me to
@BucheonL
: (On a side note, the publication will be a pamphlet, & should then form part of my next book.)
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A short navel-gaze from me, about an aspect of my childhood and where a poem came from, is here: . TFP is superb, and regularly contains things worth reading - much more so than almost everything else broadly like it, in my opinion.
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A poem from my recent
@carcanet
collection Sweet Nothings is at the bottom of this Guardian article. I'm not sure it is one of 'the best poems about football', but the match was a cracker.
What are the best poems about football? | The Knowledge
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I remain delightfully stunned by this recent review in The Guardian, so I'm sharing it again, shamelessly.
...
If you want to buy the book, you can do so via the link in the article, or on Ama**n, or from real places, or by messaging me. See next tweet.
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I’ve spent most of the past few days thinking and writing about this.
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About 22 hrs left before my online launch! Please do come along, if you can.
On 24th April at 7pm, celebrate the online launch of Come Here to This Gate by
@RoryWaterman
! Rory will be joined in conversation by Declan Ryan, and there will be the opportunity to ask your own questions.
Book here:
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Huge congratulations
@akblakemore
, worthy winner of Ledbury Forte Prize, & fellow shortlistees
@oriordanadam
,
@Danez_Smif
, David Tait &
@lieutenantkije
. Thanks to the judges, Linda Gregerson & Lachlan Mackinnon, & the organisers
@ledburyfest
- for the recognition & the...spoon.
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Reasons to love Bucheon, number 781781985: Thanks to Bucheon UNESCO City of Literature, I will always be able to look at my own face.
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Dear Friends, you can order my new collection with 25% OFF until 25th April.
Go to and at the checkout enter this code:
RWGATE25
This book is my proudest achievement in covers, and it will mean a lot to me if you want a copy.
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Shameless plug. My 3rd collection & proudest achievement as a writer is 4 months old. What a strange time to publish a book - & now it almost feels like it never happened. I’m NOT complaining! All the same, if you’re interested: or message me.
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My former MA and PhD student
@tuesdayshannon
launching her debut pamphlet, The Rough Guide to Ilkeston, at tonight’s Rack Press launch at The Music Room, Bloomsbury.
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Please come! Date: 13 May. Location: anywhere in the world/my spare room. With thanks to Carcanet, my wonderful publisher. Sign up below. Thank you!
V. excited to announce our second lockdown launch -
@RoryWaterman
's SWEET NOTHINGS will be launched on May 13th. Join us:
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This really is an extraordinary, surprisingly wide-ranging anthology. I'm glad to be in it with three poems - I'm not a poet of country houses, surely, though it seems I also AM a poet of country houses. And I'm pleased to see that it's now available on the cheap in paperback.
Now available in paperback – Hollow Palaces: An Anthology of Modern Country House Poems, edited by Kevin Gardner and John Greening, reclaims the country house for the modern age.
#Poetry
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I’ve just rediscovered how ludicrously catty and irrelevant UK poetry has become. And I’m glad to be heading to Birmingham to…read poetry tonight with
@naushsabah
, who is none of those things (well, she likes cats), for
@GregMLeadbetter
, who is none of those things, at BCU.
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For my life entire adulthood, and one way or another, I’ve dedicated more effort to the task of writing poems than to anything else. The haul is meagre. Sometimes I wonder what else I might have done, or do. Many things ARE more important, objectively. Then I get back to it. 1/2
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I'm glad to have a poem in The North - the penultimate part of a sequence that will be in my next collection, and one I very nearly etherised, though I'm glad I didn't. Thank you, guest editors
@AMcMillanPoet
&
@snsyquia
.
Always that small tremor of anticipation when the latest issue of "The North" comes through the door ...
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Mother’s Day 2020. We just sort of stared at one another from a distance for a bit.
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The Poetry Archive is a tremendous resource, a thing without equal.
We'll be posting lots soon about the myriad of ways that you can help
#KeepTheArchiveFree
, but one of the easiest and free ways you can help us is to shout us out on social media and draw attention to the work we're doing in the hope of keeping poetry free for all!
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Graduation. So many wonderful people got their gongs today, but this assortment of superstars will have to stand for all of them: Tom Curren and Amy McGrath (BA)
@BeckyCullen
(PhD) and honorary doctor professor doctor
@williamivory
. Plus my colleagues Sarah & Nicole.
#ntuhum
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I’m very happy to have an essay on de la Mare, W.H. Davies and Georgian poetry in this lovely thing. It’s a very impressive book. Thanks to the three editors, and to
@LivUniPress
.
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@Veritas11001896
@KateWilliamsme
Hadrian's Wall - an ancient monument of huge cultural significance. This - an otherwise unremarkable statue of a man only really known for trading in black people. Surely these things are quite easy to tell apart.
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You can now preorder my next collection, COME HERE TO THIS GATE, from the Carcanet website! 10% off in the process. Please buy this way, if you can: a direct order is better for the publisher than an indirect one.
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I'm VERY glad to be in the new issue of
@Poetry_London
, which is one of the most intriguingly multifarious and consistently high-quality issues of any poetry magazine I've seen for a long time (present company included or excepted, according to taste, etc).
“Why do you call me The Lie?” ‘Tell Me Lies’, an adapted extract from my new reader’s guide to the poetry of Don Paterson (
@LivUniPress
, 2021) appears in the new Spring issue of
@Poetry_London
, alongside fine poems by
@RomalynAnte
,
@RoryWaterman
,
@MayaCPopa
, plus many more 📙
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There is nothing progressive about the University of Leicester's proposal to axe medieval literature, most early modern literature, and English language from its curricula.
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I am one of the several TLS reviewers for whom the University of Leicester's English department has been a home of sorts: I took two degrees there and taught as an associate lecturer for two years. And I'm distraught at what the university is doing to it, and to the subject.
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I've just seen this lovely blog review by Emma Lee of my new collection. 'Sensitive, considered poetry, which looks at life not through a binary [...] but with all the nuances in between. His concern is humanity, what makes us human and what prevents us from being human (1/2)
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Me but a little while ago. In a Norwich shirt, of course.
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I’m glad to see
@naushsabah
’s outstanding long pamphlet Litanies get such a hot reception in the
@guardian
today - and from
@nemoloris
, among the most discerning and knowledgeable of critics.
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