A personal selection of posts from around the Anglophone blogosphere, including Substack, with a commitment to following a somewhat haphazardly chosen selection of poets, poetry lovers, literary critics and publishers over time. Although I tend to quote my favorite bits, please do click through and read the whole posts. You can also browse the blog digest archive at Via Negativa or, if you’d like it in your inbox, subscribe on Substack (where the posts might be truncated by some email providers).

This week: speech bubbles, egoistic namby-pambyness, the staid denizens of heaven, a rainbow in a storm, and much more. Enjoy.

/ hope’s ache, pinkly.
/ in the mind’s ill-mannered museum.
/ something is stirring.
/ claustrophobic and soft.
/ the bad idea. with its octopus of arms and gossip.
Fran Lock, OPAQUE OR “DURATIONAL #11”

Some flowers hold their petals for only a few days and in those few days they are likely witnessed time and again by what is most important, the pollinators, be it winged, footed, or the wind. The more-than-human world is always announcing itself, a lot of it silently, invisibly. The swarm of insects indicate the announcement of flowers. The perching of birds announces the quiet leafing-out of trees, the whispering growth of berries, the stock-still readiness of seeds. You smell of lilac announces the high-up cones of flowers waving at the sky.
Sarah Lada, Quiet Announcement

On the nearby peat bog and in patches on the croft, bog myrtle flowers opened. They turned from bright orange to peach and cinnamon. Each day the heavenly perfume rises and threads through everything, caught and transferred by wind. For me, the essence of spring, the herald to a year of light, colour and smell, of growth and possibilities, the fragrance of life itself, is found in this combination of myrtle-incense and peat. When cold easterlies blew, I sat in a sheltered nook near the cliff-top, facing west to the sea, and almost felt the scent of bog myrtle as a tangible thing, a stream of life, overpowering even the aroma of salt, seaweed and rock. This, this, marks the real beginning of a new year – when I am submerged in, cleansed and blessed by attar of myrtle.

On April 22^nd I take a break from writing to catch up with the latest news. I see a picture of a small boy in a woollen jumper and long pants holding on to a chair and am completely undone. He is very young, with the stance toddlers adopt when they are first learning to walk independently – widely space legs, arms spread. His hesitant smile is that of all children at that age, wide-eyed, hopeful, ready to explore. He looks so like my youngest grandchild I need to study the image carefully to be certain it isn’t her. She is at the same stage, tottering around with her arms held out for balance, a smile of delight on her face as she investigates her world. Tears flow. I can’t stop them. Hot tears and a rage-sweat. I let it all burn out of me.
Annie O’Garra Worsley, April-May… the force be with you

This week saw my friend Catherine Broadwall launch her book Aftermath at the downtown gallery/bar Vermillion, the announcement of the Pulitzer Prizes, a new poem in the lit mag Assaracus, and the return of some favorite birds, like the Black-Headed Grosbeak and the Rufous Hummingbird.

Also, the Iran war continues and a hantavirus scare from a cruise ship. Plus, the Supreme Court continues to abuse the “shadow docket” in order to support an evil, racist regime. Is this all discouraging and apocalyptic? It is.
Jeannine Hall Gailey, A Book Launch at Vermillion, a Desert Rat Poem in Assaracus, Spring Bird Appearances, The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

Are you getting much sleep? Are you awake with me at 4am? Can you see this beautiful May dawn light? I’m not supposed to be here, but here I am, watching and noticing the soft peach and pinks in the May skies, listening to the dawn chorus and sipping some mint tea. Are you ok? Are you looking after your bold hearts and big dreams? Not easy is it.

What a mess.

In every direction there is chaos, calamity, catastrophe. It feels like all the sections are wrong, like the forks are muddled up in the spoons section, like all the pieces of us are scattered. It feels like the script of this episode of you and me is being writen by a maniac sniffing glue. The news keeps reminding me of boys in the playground at school kicking the bins to make wasps fly out and getting angry when they get stung. Fuck about and find out over and over again. The consequences of all of this, the divisions, the bubbling hatred, the violence, this vibration, this unease, all the energy of humanity is cornered and angry and confused and frustrated and frightened and sick and tired as this ooze of misinformation and wildly unchecked macho egomania spreads like a stinky toxic treacle sticking to every leaf and idea, every wing and cloud of thought. It feels like our world needs to be drenched with sea salt and sage and rose petals and rosemary, take a deep breath, but maybe that’s just me.

I’m going away on a Writers Retreat and just packing.
Salena Godden, Death is another country

The other day I went out for walk. I went out for a walk in the same way I would go about making a poem – and I do believe you make a poem, you do not simply write it. I went out to seek connection. I went with an idea of where I was going but, as with a poem, without knowing exactly what I might find. I went with purpose. I went, as one goes to poetry, with the cautious endeavour of bringing elements together. […]

The walk began in Moorgate, London, beside the bronze cast of a life mask of the poet John Keats. The sculpture itself marks the poet’s birthplace, a London pub now called The Globe. It was originally called The Swan and Hoop. Ten years ago I took my poem, My Name is Swan, to every pub in London that, like The Swan and Hoop, had the word Swan in its name. I read my poem in around twenty Swan pubs. The performances were documented in film. The poem is now due to appear in a book. My publisher will be making an announcement about My Name is Swan and other fine titles on their list at 4:30pm UK time. […]

The walk took me north to Bunhill fields and to the grave of William Blake. Here I began to conceive of a series of walks, with each walk connecting two points of literary or poetic history within a roughly one mile radius of each other. The walks form single scenes, short acts, that move toward a much larger play slowly unfolding across the city. The course is plotted weekly and broadcast live, here on Substack on Sundays at 5pm.
Jan Noble, Nº63 Poetry is mobility contrary to the viral thesis

So here’s something I’ve wondering—do you ever wake up and feel you should be happy, but melancholy feels like a heavy blanket someone keeps putting on your shoulders? That’s how I’ve been feeling lately, besides all the beauty around me—I’m thinking springtime birds, cherry blossoms in bloom, sunshine, so much we decided to skip going into the Two Sylvias Press office this week and instead are working from home. But to look at one’s life and feel SO grateful and thankful for all you have, but then also kind of sad.

I’ve carried this feeling a lot throughout my life (it’s come and gone and returned) and I know with the state of our country, things are feeling a bit harder everywhere. So there’s that. . .unfortunately. (Also,

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