Jean Atkin
@jmatkin.bsky.social
British, mostly Scottish, poet in education + community projects / The Poetry Wire online courses / 3rd collection HIGH NOWHERE from IDP / out walking / plagued by the cat / www.jeanatkin.com
Pinned
Jean Atkin
@jmatkin.bsky.social
· Feb 1
I had a wonderful opportunity recently to share a poem with Shrewsbury-based sound artist Chris Renshaw, who has made a marvellous soundscape around it. Here's 'Real at Last' (about adventuring by bicycle with a woman friend back when we were 20). Thank you!
drive.google.com/file/d/112F5...
drive.google.com/file/d/112F5...
Reposted by Jean Atkin
waking at first light
cold little reliquary
pebble leaf and bone
cold little reliquary
pebble leaf and bone
November 26, 2025 at 10:03 PM
waking at first light
cold little reliquary
pebble leaf and bone
cold little reliquary
pebble leaf and bone
And... signed up like a shot! Thanks Annie!
It's a tad down to the wire, I know, but I'm thrilled to say that I'm running the Poetry Advent Calendar again this year -- sign up by donating to @msf.ca and receive a poem every day from 1 to 24 December: book.benefacthq.com?id=poetry-ad...
November 26, 2025 at 4:35 PM
And... signed up like a shot! Thanks Annie!
I think this is a marvellous collection. I'm reading and re-reading it. Thanks for this @poetryschool.bsky.social
🌟 Gillian Allnutt – T. S. Eliot Writer’s Notes 🌟
Our Writers’ Notes series is back! Gillian Allnutt shares how practising different poetic forms helped create her collection 'Lode'.
📚 Read the full piece:
Our Writers’ Notes series is back! Gillian Allnutt shares how practising different poetic forms helped create her collection 'Lode'.
📚 Read the full piece:
Gillian Allnutt – T. S. Eliot Writer’s Notes • Poetry School
Gillian Allnutt talks about how she wrote her recent T.S. Eliot Prize shortlisted poetry collection 'Lode'.
poetryschool.com
November 26, 2025 at 4:35 PM
I think this is a marvellous collection. I'm reading and re-reading it. Thanks for this @poetryschool.bsky.social
Artists, project creators, community workers in Shropshire! Please come along + join us on Thurs 4 Dec at Shropshire Archives in Shrewsbury. This is the final event of HEY! EARTHLINGS! - a National Lottery Heritage funded project to share Shropshire with people who've crossed borders to be here.
November 26, 2025 at 4:27 PM
Artists, project creators, community workers in Shropshire! Please come along + join us on Thurs 4 Dec at Shropshire Archives in Shrewsbury. This is the final event of HEY! EARTHLINGS! - a National Lottery Heritage funded project to share Shropshire with people who've crossed borders to be here.
Reposted by Jean Atkin
#PoemsAbout #NoFuture hits Friday. Write climate collapse, political burnout, joy lost in the algorithm. The ground beneath us is cracking. Draft now. Post Friday. Use Alt Text. Tag it or be lost. Sign up for more prompts: shorturl.at/0Xm7A
November 25, 2025 at 6:39 PM
#PoemsAbout #NoFuture hits Friday. Write climate collapse, political burnout, joy lost in the algorithm. The ground beneath us is cracking. Draft now. Post Friday. Use Alt Text. Tag it or be lost. Sign up for more prompts: shorturl.at/0Xm7A
Reposted by Jean Atkin
It's a joy to have my lapwings- however endangered- in this choice feathered company from @candlestickpress.bsky.social! Clare,Hardy.. I particularly commend @jmatkin.bsky.social's regal chough &Lynne Wycherley's dazzling Bewick swans! Do you need a small gift for someone who loves poetry - & birds?
November 25, 2025 at 3:24 PM
It's a joy to have my lapwings- however endangered- in this choice feathered company from @candlestickpress.bsky.social! Clare,Hardy.. I particularly commend @jmatkin.bsky.social's regal chough &Lynne Wycherley's dazzling Bewick swans! Do you need a small gift for someone who loves poetry - & birds?
Reposted by Jean Atkin
November 23, 2025 at 10:31 PM
Reposted by Jean Atkin
Thanks so much Roger ❤️And @nmoliverpoetry.bsky.social, if you look at my pinned post, 1st comment thread, I've included a link to the UK Poets list that was kindly compiled by @lukejohnemmett.co.uk here: bsky.app/profile/luke... which has posts from everyone in all the starter packs.
November 16, 2025 at 4:15 PM
Thanks so much Roger ❤️And @nmoliverpoetry.bsky.social, if you look at my pinned post, 1st comment thread, I've included a link to the UK Poets list that was kindly compiled by @lukejohnemmett.co.uk here: bsky.app/profile/luke... which has posts from everyone in all the starter packs.
Reposted by Jean Atkin
Only a few days left to enter the Cafe Writers poetry competition. Our sole judge is Jessica Mookherjee. First prize is £1000 and there are other prizes too. #poetry #poetrycommunity cafewriters.co.uk/home/poetry-...
Poetry Competition | Cafe Writers
cafewriters.co.uk
November 22, 2025 at 10:41 PM
Only a few days left to enter the Cafe Writers poetry competition. Our sole judge is Jessica Mookherjee. First prize is £1000 and there are other prizes too. #poetry #poetrycommunity cafewriters.co.uk/home/poetry-...
Reposted by Jean Atkin
Out winter anthology from last year in paperback and hardback with artwork by Emma Bissonnet 🔥 ❄️ 🔥 ❄️ 🔥 ❄️
www.blackboughpoetry.com/christmas-wi...
www.blackboughpoetry.com/christmas-wi...
November 23, 2025 at 7:32 AM
Out winter anthology from last year in paperback and hardback with artwork by Emma Bissonnet 🔥 ❄️ 🔥 ❄️ 🔥 ❄️
www.blackboughpoetry.com/christmas-wi...
www.blackboughpoetry.com/christmas-wi...
Had a lovely afternoon yesterday leading an intro to poetry workshop at the Jenna Blair Yoga Centre. What a great group, adventurous and brave! We played with cut-ups then wrote our own poems about nests.
November 23, 2025 at 7:49 AM
Had a lovely afternoon yesterday leading an intro to poetry workshop at the Jenna Blair Yoga Centre. What a great group, adventurous and brave! We played with cut-ups then wrote our own poems about nests.
Reposted by Jean Atkin
Artist’s painting of an acrobatic dancer on a flake of limestone, c. 1292 - 1077 BC.
Around 3,000 years ago in ancient Egypt, artists used stone fragments for painting and drawing instead of paper sketchpads!
From Deir el-Medina. Museo Egizio, Turin 📷 by me
#Archaeology
Around 3,000 years ago in ancient Egypt, artists used stone fragments for painting and drawing instead of paper sketchpads!
From Deir el-Medina. Museo Egizio, Turin 📷 by me
#Archaeology
November 15, 2025 at 4:05 PM
Artist’s painting of an acrobatic dancer on a flake of limestone, c. 1292 - 1077 BC.
Around 3,000 years ago in ancient Egypt, artists used stone fragments for painting and drawing instead of paper sketchpads!
From Deir el-Medina. Museo Egizio, Turin 📷 by me
#Archaeology
Around 3,000 years ago in ancient Egypt, artists used stone fragments for painting and drawing instead of paper sketchpads!
From Deir el-Medina. Museo Egizio, Turin 📷 by me
#Archaeology
A doorknocker springing from its door!
November 17, 2025 at 7:35 AM
A doorknocker springing from its door!
Reposted by Jean Atkin
Just one day left to send your poems to the @cheltenhampoetryfestival
Festival's International Poetry Competition!
We welcome poems from all over the world!
To enter and find out more info visit: www.ticketsource.co.uk/cheltenhampo...
Festival's International Poetry Competition!
We welcome poems from all over the world!
To enter and find out more info visit: www.ticketsource.co.uk/cheltenhampo...
November 14, 2025 at 5:59 PM
Just one day left to send your poems to the @cheltenhampoetryfestival
Festival's International Poetry Competition!
We welcome poems from all over the world!
To enter and find out more info visit: www.ticketsource.co.uk/cheltenhampo...
Festival's International Poetry Competition!
We welcome poems from all over the world!
To enter and find out more info visit: www.ticketsource.co.uk/cheltenhampo...
Reposted by Jean Atkin
Such empathy with these huddled beasts on a 10th/11thC whalebone chesspiece, perhaps a rook or a bishop, snuggling up against cold and damp autumn days…
www.britishmuseum.org/collection/o...
www.britishmuseum.org/collection/o...
October 19, 2025 at 9:40 PM
Such empathy with these huddled beasts on a 10th/11thC whalebone chesspiece, perhaps a rook or a bishop, snuggling up against cold and damp autumn days…
www.britishmuseum.org/collection/o...
www.britishmuseum.org/collection/o...
Reposted by Jean Atkin
Thrilled to have some poems in the Street! initiative organised by Ralph Hoyte & @bristollibraries.bsky.social. Here's how to access them; plus, at 1.30, a snatch of my poem about my great-great grandmother who lived on Christmas Steps in 1880s #Bristol #poetry
www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8oo...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8oo...
STREET - geo located poetry of the street
YouTube video by Ralph Hoyte
www.youtube.com
November 14, 2025 at 2:40 PM
Thrilled to have some poems in the Street! initiative organised by Ralph Hoyte & @bristollibraries.bsky.social. Here's how to access them; plus, at 1.30, a snatch of my poem about my great-great grandmother who lived on Christmas Steps in 1880s #Bristol #poetry
www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8oo...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8oo...
In case you have had to be outside today, here's a (possibly) comforting demonstration of how Orlando is dealing with #stormclaudia
November 14, 2025 at 2:41 PM
In case you have had to be outside today, here's a (possibly) comforting demonstration of how Orlando is dealing with #stormclaudia
Furred for winter, the broom seeds have long split. Walking this path in hot August I'd have heard the popping of pods, small rain of seeds.
November 13, 2025 at 4:43 PM
Furred for winter, the broom seeds have long split. Walking this path in hot August I'd have heard the popping of pods, small rain of seeds.
Reposted by Jean Atkin
There is a moment at this time of year when the word ‘apricity’ really comes into view. For those who don’t know it, it was recorded only once, in 1623, before slipping out of view. Apricity is the warmth of the sun on a chilly day.
October 24, 2025 at 11:35 AM
There is a moment at this time of year when the word ‘apricity’ really comes into view. For those who don’t know it, it was recorded only once, in 1623, before slipping out of view. Apricity is the warmth of the sun on a chilly day.
Rock crystal and gold from the 9th century.
Gold jar from Galloway Hoard on display for first time www.bbc.com/news/article...
Gold jar from Galloway Hoard on display in Kirkcudbright
It resembles a perfume bottle and a Latin inscription on it suggests it had a religious function.
www.bbc.com
November 11, 2025 at 7:10 AM
Rock crystal and gold from the 9th century.
Reposted by Jean Atkin
This accidentally turned into a short thread. Bit of a rage-thread I'm afraid. Please read to the end if you can. Thanks
Once every 20 years or so, the director-general of the BBC is forced to resign for being insufficiently rightwing. Alastair Milne in 1987. Greg Dyke in 2004. Tim Davie in 2025. The great irony is that the BBC was in all cases profoundly biased towards established power. But just not biased enough …
November 10, 2025 at 6:16 AM
This accidentally turned into a short thread. Bit of a rage-thread I'm afraid. Please read to the end if you can. Thanks
A marvellous moment of light on a bend in the lane, in Shropshire, in November.
November 10, 2025 at 7:12 AM
A marvellous moment of light on a bend in the lane, in Shropshire, in November.
Reposted by Jean Atkin
I am delighted to be teaching Fidelity and Betrayal: Linguistic Translation. The course will enable you to explore your writing and the ethics of the necesary untruths of poetry. It is not simply about translation nor for translators but for anyone who wants to develop their poetry.
Our Spring Term is now live & we’ve got a whole host of brilliant tutors & poetry courses lined up, so be sure to book promptly to avoid disappointment. Our handy Quick Course Guide is linked in bio, where you’ll find everything you’ll need to know…
poetryschool.com/new-courses/... 🪻🌜
poetryschool.com/new-courses/... 🪻🌜
Spring 2026 – Quick Course Guide • Poetry School
Check out our Quick Course Guide for the Spring 2026 term which will help you pick a course to take at the Poetry School.
poetryschool.com
November 6, 2025 at 1:10 PM
I am delighted to be teaching Fidelity and Betrayal: Linguistic Translation. The course will enable you to explore your writing and the ethics of the necesary untruths of poetry. It is not simply about translation nor for translators but for anyone who wants to develop their poetry.
What a fantastic poem.
'It is smell that forgets us last' by Stephen Komarnyckyj / @komarnyckyj.bsky.social is a breathtaking meditation on grief, love, and the echoes of those we've lost.
Read now!
inksweatandtears.co.uk/stephen-koma...
#InkSweatandTears #Submission #Poetry
Read now!
inksweatandtears.co.uk/stephen-koma...
#InkSweatandTears #Submission #Poetry
November 10, 2025 at 7:06 AM
What a fantastic poem.
Exploring today around Wentnor, one of those places at the back of the north wind. Sadly we couldn't act on the advice on the wall, the Crown was shut till later on.
November 8, 2025 at 4:51 PM
Exploring today around Wentnor, one of those places at the back of the north wind. Sadly we couldn't act on the advice on the wall, the Crown was shut till later on.