Martyn Crucefix
@mcrucefix.bsky.social
1.2K followers
510 following
60 posts
Poet, blogger on poetry, translator. See my website https://martyncrucefix.com/ + Editor of Young Poets Page Acumen Poetry magazine https://acumen-poetry.co.uk/young-poets/
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Martyn Crucefix
@mcrucefix.bsky.social
· Aug 31
Autumn Reading Dates 2025
A little flock of reading dates - replacing the swifts that have left our skies recently - have gathered themselves into something that almost resembles a brief Autumn Reading Tour. Admittedly, not going too far beyond the Greater London area - but to Maidstone and (briefly) Winchester - but of course I'm very happy to be granted these opportunities to read my work.
martyncrucefix.com
Martyn Crucefix
@mcrucefix.bsky.social
· Aug 19
Aonghas MacNeacail’s English Language Poems Reviewed
An edited (shorter) version of this review first appeared in Poetry Salzberg Review in June 2025. Many thanks to the editor, Wolfgang Görtschacher, for commissioning the writing of it. It is as a poet writing in Gaelic that MacNeacail – who died in 2022 – is most well-known, though he would himself provide translations of his work into English, what, in the poem ‘last night’, he refers to as Gaelic’s ‘sister tongue’.
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Martyn Crucefix
@mcrucefix.bsky.social
· Aug 12
Continuing Relevance of ‘Cargo of Limbs’
I was recently tagged in a social media post by someone doing the Sealey Challenge - one poetry book a day for the month of August! I do admire people's stamina. I was tagged because the book of the day for this person - and a mercifully short one at that - turned out to be my own chapbook, published by Hercules Editions back in 2019 under the title…
martyncrucefix.com
Reposted by Martyn Crucefix
Martyn Crucefix
@mcrucefix.bsky.social
· Jul 15
Helen Farish’s new collection, ‘The Penny Dropping’, reviewed
An edited (shorter) version of this review first appeared in Poetry Salzberg Review in June 2025. Many thanks to the editor, Wolfgang Görtschacher, for commissioning the writing of it. Tennessee Williams once wrote that ‘memory takes a lot of poetic licence’, but Helen Farish’s memory poems in The Penny Dropping (Bloodaxe Books, 2024) declare from the outset that their intention is to set things (here quoting TS Eliot) ‘in order’, by settling ‘life accounts bravely in the face of now and then, and settle them honestly’ (here quoting Charlotte Bronte’s…
martyncrucefix.com
Martyn Crucefix
@mcrucefix.bsky.social
· Jun 24
Katrina Porteous’ most recent Bloodaxe collection, ‘Rhizodont’, reviewed.
An edited (shorter) version of this review first appeared in Poetry Salzberg Review in June 2025. Many thanks to the editor, Wolfgang Görtschacher, for commissioning the writing of it. The collection, Rhizodont, was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize in 2024. The ‘rhizodont’ which provides the title for Katrina Porteous’ fourth collection (Bloodaxe Books, 2024) is not some niche root-canal dental work, but a large predatory species of fish, which became extinct 310 million years ago.
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Reposted by Martyn Crucefix
Martyn Crucefix
@mcrucefix.bsky.social
· Apr 23
‘I am not I’: the Slippery First-Person in Poems
A couple of recent experiences with my own poems being posted/published on-line and kind readers then commenting on them has made me think again about the use of the first-person singular in poems – the use of ‘I’. Perhaps ‘think again’ is the wrong phrase as I have never – or at least not since my far distant teen years – really thought of the ‘I’ appearing in my poems as identical to the biographical, historical, personal ‘me’ tapping this out on a keyboard on a sunny Tuesday morning after the Easter weekend.
martyncrucefix.com
Reposted by Martyn Crucefix
Martyn Crucefix
@mcrucefix.bsky.social
· Mar 18
Martyn Crucefix
@mcrucefix.bsky.social
· Mar 18
Back in the A.S.M.R.
I see the curious physical/psychological sensation that is ASMR is back in the news again: here's a recent Guardian piece about it which suggests that 'younger adults are increasingly overwhelmed by in-person interaction soothing themselves instead with sensory online content, according to a report on the wildly popular online content known as ASMR'. It reminded me that in the early days of this blog, I posted a little piece about my own experience of the phenomenon and - 10 years is a long time in blogging - I thought it would be worthwhile re-posting the piece.
martyncrucefix.com
Martyn Crucefix
@mcrucefix.bsky.social
· Mar 18
Back in the A.S.M.R.
I see the curious physical/psychological sensation that is ASMR is back in the news again: here's a recent Guardian piece about it which suggests that 'younger adults are increasingly overwhelmed by in-person interaction soothing themselves instead with sensory online content, according to a report on the wildly popular online content known as ASMR'. It reminded me that in the early days of this blog, I posted a little piece about my own experience of the phenomenon and - 10 years is a long time in blogging - I thought it would be worthwhile re-posting the piece.
martyncrucefix.com