Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Ben Wilkinson

@benwilko85.bsky.social

1.1K followers 480 following 180 posts

Writer, poet, “refreshingly honest” critic, tutor. Poems: Way More Than Luck (2018), Same Difference (Seren Books 2022). Criticism: Don Paterson (LUP 2021). Writing has appeared in Guardian, New Statesman, Spectator, TLS, etc. Lifelong Red. Likes a jog.

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Ben Wilkinson @benwilko85.bsky.social · Nov 14

This seems a much healthier place than Musk’s disinformation hellhole, so here goes. I’m a writer, poet, critic, and lecturer whose poems, essays, and reviews have regularly appeared in the majors. Sagittarius, lifelong Liverpool FC fan, enjoys a jog. More here: www.serenbooks.com/seren-author...

Ben Wilkinson - Seren

Ben Wilkinson was born in the English Midlands and now lives in Sheffield, Yorkshire. His poems, criticism and journalism regularly appear in national publications including The Guardian, The Poetry R...

www.serenbooks.com

1 3 25

Ben Wilkinson @benwilko85.bsky.social · 3h

Why does the Conservative Party hate Shakespeare, the Romantics, the Brontës, and all the world-renowned richness of British literary culture?

Students who study English gain a whole raft of life skills: verbal and written communication; creative and critical thinking.

Ben Wilkinson @benwilko85.bsky.social · 9h

Totally behind everything Gary Neville says about using flags as a symbol of division and hate, and the need for unity and solidarity.

I’m from an ordinary background, state schooled, and have worked hard all my life. What’s stood in my way has always been been privilege and greed, never diversity.

Reposted by Ben Wilkinson

McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · 2d

“Keeping It Together: How Not to Get So Burned Out That You Walk Out in the Middle of Class” will now be a slideshow presented in the haunted auditorium by Jim “Flip” Philips, head coach of the varsity TP team.

The Faculty Mental Health Fair Has Been Postponed Again

Dear Faculty: Due to concerns expressed by the students, parents, and staff, you are invited to attend a mandatory emergency mental health fair in ...

buff.ly

11 42

Reposted by Ben Wilkinson

Michael Emonds @michaelje67.bsky.social · 3d

Well said, Gary Neville! 👏

33 200 640

Reposted by Ben Wilkinson

John Attridge @johnattridge.bsky.social · 2d

Literary prizes are a cheap distraction from the true purpose of reading great books, which is making people who haven't read them feel bad about themselves

6 31

Ben Wilkinson @benwilko85.bsky.social · 2d

Always reassuring when a prize shortlist consists of an appealing mix of established as well as newer voices (the latter poets with one to three collections, by any sensible definition). A new collection by Tom Paulin! I’ve some books to buy and reading to catch up with.

T. S. Eliot Prize @tseliotprize.bsky.social · 2d

We are thrilled to be able to reveal this year's T.S. Eliot Prize shortlist!
Our judges have chosen ten books "of great range, suggestiveness and power; from Entebbe to Manitoba... there is something here for everyone."

Find out more now: tseliot.com/prize/news/

1 3

Ben Wilkinson @benwilko85.bsky.social · 5d

The fact that the first AI actor is an archetypally attractive young woman who cannot and will not object to any cinematic scenario she is placed within says everything about the forces driving these ‘innovations’.

Reposted by Ben Wilkinson

Longbarrow Press @longbarrowpress.bsky.social · 8d

A walk from Leeds to Goole, via the River Aire, the Aire and Calder Navigation, the Knottingley and Goole Canal, the New Junction Canal and the Dutch River, 6.45am to 9.52pm Friday 26 September.

An improvised, illustrated thread of indeterminate length, part reflection, part reconstruction. 1/

Shipping containers on the waterside at Stourton, two miles south-east of Leeds city centre.

5 22 140

Ben Wilkinson @benwilko85.bsky.social · 5d

If you’ve flu-like symptoms at the moment, test for Covid. My year-long experience of long Covid has been utter hell; my advice to anyone is to rest up as much as you need before your body makes that decision for you, and do not gaslight yourself into trying to push through it.

Ben Wilkinson @benwilko85.bsky.social · 6d

‘“I am a genius of a writer”, Plath had written to her mother. “I am writing the best poems of my life; they will make my name.” She gathered up the neat typescript in a black spring-binder, discovered on her desk after her suicide just months later.’

www.the-tls.com/literature/p...

Lioness of God

“Well, I have finished a 2nd book of poems in this last month”, Sylvia Plath wrote home to her mother on November, 1962, “30 new poems.” Her first volume, The Colossus, had appeared two years before a...

www.the-tls.com

Ben Wilkinson @benwilko85.bsky.social · 6d

Ah, National Poetry Day. A worthy endeavour and well meaning, but it does tend to conjure poetry as a charity case, poets running after you imploring ‘come back! It doesn’t have to rhyme!’ When all’s said and done, I’m with Frank O’Hara: ‘if you don’t need poetry, bully for you.’

Ben Wilkinson @benwilko85.bsky.social · 8d

Ah yes, Tony Blair: a political figure famed for his grinning diplomacy, and not at all for war crimes in horrific Anglo-American pseudo-religious crusades. Trump says he’s a good guy, the best. I’m reminded of this furiously perfect sonnet by Don Paterson, which conjures Blair in Stalinist mode.

The Big Listener

for Tony Blair

Midnight. Connaught Square. A headlight beam
finds Cherie just back from her speaking date.
She looks at you. Less animal of late.
You lose no sleep, but wake within a dream.
Your favourite: that old divided dark,
the white square at your neck; your good ear bent
towards the long sighs of your penitent.
You rinse a thousand souls before the lark
and wake refreshed, if somewhat at a loss
as to why they seem so lost for words.
They are your dead, who still rose to the birds
the day we filled the booths and made the cross,
before you'd forced them howling to their knees
to suffer your attentions. Spare us. Please.

3 6

Ben Wilkinson @benwilko85.bsky.social · 10d

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_(poem)

V (poem) - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Ben Wilkinson @benwilko85.bsky.social · 11d

As for many poets uneasy in their class consciousness, Tony Harrison’s brilliant controversial long poem V. (1985) blew me away when I first read it. But his short lyrics were sharp, wise, and deeply moving, too, cut from lived life. Saddened to hear the great man has passed. RIP.

10 19 84

Ben Wilkinson @benwilko85.bsky.social · 12d

One of the defining errors of our age is the insidious notion that all opinions are equal and valid. They’re not. Undermining corroborated expertise in a dubious overextension of alleged ‘democratic’ values, we end up with a political leader spreading dangerous medical misinformation.

Ben Wilkinson @benwilko85.bsky.social · 16d

Put it on the banned list with shards, gossamer, and petrichor. Immediately.

2 4

Reposted by Ben Wilkinson

Ben Wilkinson @benwilko85.bsky.social · Mar 3

My letter to @theguardian.com about the spiralling use of AI by undergraduates to write their essays, and how students are simply taking their cues from a world losing touch with the irreplaceable value of human creativity and critical thinking.

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Students’ use of AI spells death knell for critical thinking | Letters

Letters: Prof Andrew Moran and Dr Ben Wilkinson on the ramifications of the explosion in university essays being written with artificial intelligence

www.theguardian.com

4 22

Reposted by Ben Wilkinson

Ben Wilkinson @benwilko85.bsky.social · Aug 3

Very grateful to have been offered Arts Council England funding to develop my creative practice towards a sustained work of narrative nonfiction. Running For My Life will be a meditative, discursive memoir that explores distance running, mental health, literature and creativity.

2 2 11

Reposted by Ben Wilkinson

Jeremy Noel-Tod @jntod.bsky.social · 24d

After making a dumb joke on here about the creative side of academic writing as "unfunded hobbit research", I then wrote a serious post about it

Unfunded Hobbit Research

In defence of academic inspiration

someflowerssoon.substack.com

8 28 64

Ben Wilkinson @benwilko85.bsky.social · 23d

All because it’s entirely ideological, of course; SLTs are dominated by those from business, economics, STEM, and the powerful valorise their own expertise. If the goalposts are routinely moved after the ball has been kicked to make sure the right folks score, how can you ever win?

Ben Wilkinson @benwilko85.bsky.social · 23d

Excellent post. Sadly, in some of the smallest post-‘92s, this has long been managerial (bad) practice as well as attitude— sabbaticals are virtually unheard of, and even when subject areas manage, without resource, to excel in T&L and produce 3*/4* research, they receive no reward or support.

1 2

Reposted by Ben Wilkinson

Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 26d

'Analysis of almost 45,000 courses in Times Higher Education’s Courses 360 databases found that roughly 3,900 had shut down between 2024-25 and the upcoming academic year.' 1/2

Almost 4,000 courses closed at UK universities since 2024

Analysis reveals half of closures have come at lower-tariff universities, creating a ‘vicious cycle’ for institutions struggling to attract students

www.timeshighereducation.com

2 20 35

Ben Wilkinson @benwilko85.bsky.social · 28d

On #SuicidePreventionDay, here’s my poem ‘The Signal Box’. Twice in my life I’ve been to that darkest place of suicidal thoughts; it affects so many, and still kills far too many. But suicide is preventable— with caring interventions and reduced mental health stigma. Talking saves lives.

The Signal Box

I'm four pints deep at The Signal Box
since no trains are leaving Euston now.
At the bar there's a guy who talks and talks.
The departure boards are blank as snow.
Silent as someone who, three hours ago, stood at the tracks' edge. Turning and turning
a stone in one hand. Someone who knew one thing, and one thing only. Burning
in their chest for weeks. As bundled kindling
takes, slowly at first, then spreads, a lie with the fierce colours of truth. Nothing now but the wires' hum, a cold winter sky.
I'm five pints deep at The Signal Box.
At the bar there's a guy who talks and talks.

— Ben Wilkinson

1 5

Ben Wilkinson @benwilko85.bsky.social · Sep 7

‘Salah remains an enigma. 𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑆𝑎𝑙𝑎ℎ lives up to its title: like many a Premier League defender, Hughes is forced to follow in the striker’s evasive wake.’

My review of a biography of the iconic Liverpool winger, in the new TLS (@thetls.bsky.social).

www.the-tls.com/regular-feat...

Salah-mania

The Egypt and Liverpool winger Mohamed Salah is one of the most recognizable sportspeople on the planet. Known for his prolific goalscoring (which he

www.the-tls.com

Reposted by Ben Wilkinson

Mel Campbell @incrediblemelk.bsky.social · Sep 5

Lmao at this open letter to the Unimelb VC proposing she pay for Meanjin with a 10% salary sacrifice that would still leave her better paid than the VC of the University of Cambridge

It was my joy to sign, & I recommend doing so to all in the world of arts & letters

An Open Letter to the Vice Chancellor of The University of Melbourne on the Closure of Meanjin

openletter.earth

8 180 360