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Andrew Neilson @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social · 3d

It also tells us that lyric poetry is as ancient and beautiful as the hills, the lakes, the forests. Across the whole world and for a long time. The next time someone with several degrees tells you they are 'anti' or 'post'-lyric...show them Du Fu.

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Andrew Neilson @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social · 3d

Addendum: 'ten thousand' is basically the Tang Chinese version of saying 'infinity', it crops up a lot in Du Fu and elsewhere. I love this. The sophistication and modernity of these 10th century lyrics blows my mind.

Andrew Neilson @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social · 4d

My pamphlet of poems, Summers Are Other, is officially out now. Here's a taster, a version of Du Fu that Linton Kwesi Johnson used as an epigraph to Time Come, his Selected Prose. rackpress.blogspot.com?m=1

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Andrew Neilson @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social · 3d

Great poem, from a great collection.

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Andrew Neilson @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social · 4d

My pamphlet of poems, Summers Are Other, is officially out now. Here's a taster, a version of Du Fu that Linton Kwesi Johnson used as an epigraph to Time Come, his Selected Prose. rackpress.blogspot.com?m=1

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Andrew Neilson @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social · 5d

Poem for a Shabbat. By @jsaphra.bsky.social.

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Reposted by Andrew Neilson

Tony Williams @tonywilliams.bsky.social · 15d

I'm very much enjoying Andrew Neilson's pamphlet Summers Are Other from Rack Press, particularly the lovely lyric 'The Viaduct'
@badlilies.bsky.social

First stanza of The Viaduct:
As a child I would cross
with my father's brother,
and in summer weather
we would walk into loss.

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Andrew Neilson @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social · 14d

The government could stop spending £7bn on building yet more failing prisons and this would give it a head start on a far more promising route to cutting crime:

Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 14d

Child Poverty Task Force will recommend scrapping the two child limit according to The Times. But publication is being delayed and no clarity over whether Government will accept the recommendation even though it's coming from two cabinet ministers.

www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

Cabinet ministers to recommend lifting two-child benefit cap

Starmer to be urged by taskforce before the budget to make the change — but it will cost £3bn a year when Rachel Reeves is trying to plug a spending gap

www.thetimes.com

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Reposted by Andrew Neilson

Andrew Neilson @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social · 20d

My poetry pamphlet Summers Are Other is available for pre-order now from Rack Press: rackpress.blogspot.com?m=1. I also have copies available if you message me. And they're out in the very occasional wild! Official launch in London on 29 October...more info to follow. 🙏

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Andrew Neilson @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social · 20d

My poetry pamphlet Summers Are Other is available for pre-order now from Rack Press: rackpress.blogspot.com?m=1. I also have copies available if you message me. And they're out in the very occasional wild! Official launch in London on 29 October...more info to follow. 🙏

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Reposted by Andrew Neilson

Shoaib M Khan @shoaibmkhan.bsky.social · 27d

Violent crime in London has dropped by 13%—a fall of nearly 10,000 attacks a year—as the capital records its lowest homicide rate in five years. www.standard.co.uk/news/london/...

Violent crime plunges 13% in London as homicide rate less than Paris and Berlin

Despite there being ‘tens of thousands of fewer victims,’ Mayor of London Sadiq Khan acknowledged that ‘one death and one crime will always be too many’

www.standard.co.uk

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Reposted by Andrew Neilson

Andrew Neilson @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social · Sep 5

Coming this autumn from Rack Press. Poems!

"There is much to admire in Andrew Neilson's poetry - its sober aplomb, for example, its musical exactitude, and the humane steadiness of its gaze at love and mortality.
This is a very welcome sample. More, please."
Sean O'Brien

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Andrew Neilson @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social · Sep 7

Cheers!

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Andrew Neilson @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social · Sep 7

Thank you, Tarn!

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Andrew Neilson @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social · Sep 5

Coming this autumn from Rack Press. Poems!

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Andrew Neilson @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social · Aug 30

Thanks, John! I was in a more Longley place (I usually am) but I do know exactly what you mean.

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Andrew Neilson @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social · Aug 30

'The Viaduct': poem and construction. My uncle was a coal miner at Bilston Glen. Thank you to Gerry Cambridge of The Dark Horse for publishing the poem, and my thoughts on Seamus Heaney. This is a poetry magazine everyone should read.

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Andrew Neilson @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social · Aug 28

Back from a trip to see my family in Scotland and what was awaiting me on my return but this grand wee magazine. Featuring the final part of a trilogy of essays therein I've written on excellence, entertainment, and edification...the final essay being on Seamus Heaney.

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Bad Lilies @badlilies.bsky.social · Aug 17

"… great sonics, an authoritative tone (even, or perhaps most especially, in expressing vulnerability), attentiveness to the line (for non-prose poems), and, very obviously, a freshness of language (free of cliché, invigorating)" thefridaypoem.com/in-conversat...

Gathering flowers – The Friday Poem

In Conversation: The Friday Poem talks to Kathryn Gray and Andrew Neilson of digital poetry journal Bad Lilies

thefridaypoem.com

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Andrew Neilson @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social · Aug 16

This has been a civilised discussion, thank you. What I've seen of the same thing on Facebook is...the opposite.

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Andrew Neilson @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social · Aug 16

True. I would be with MacNeice myself, I hope, but what do we know? I do think WHA was brave in his own way because it involved his principles.

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Andrew Neilson @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social · Aug 16

Just him. The move to the US was the singularly most politically controversial thing any poet did and it united the left and the right. *That* is bravery.

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Andrew Neilson @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social · Aug 16

Parliament debated him leaving the country. That is sort of my point!

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Andrew Neilson @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social · Aug 16

I think WHA was the last English language poet to have genuine publicly cultural and political impact. Seamus (amazing as he was) was a shadow of that. The reaction to
KJ's piece, on Facebook, is profoundly depressing

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Andrew Neilson @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social · Aug 16

The social media reaction on other platforms (much of it grotesque and reprehensible) to Kathleen's challenging yet mild thoughts on what has happened to poetry in more recent decades made me think of this. Auden later changed the last line to "and die". But he had it right the first time. 2/2

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Andrew Neilson @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social · Aug 16

"We must love one another or die" wrote Auden in 'September 1, 1939'. That was a truly great public poem by a truly great poet (if seriously flawed). The last of that type, I think...writing at a time when poetry itself was publicly recognised as a major art form. 1/2

Kathleen Jamie @kathleenjamie.bsky.social · Aug 15

Where Have All the Great Poets Gone? My North Sea Poets substack... open.substack.com/pub/northsea...

Where Have All the Great Poets Gone?

Kathleen Jamie on the Giant Tortoises

open.substack.com

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