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Rory Waterman @rorywaterman.bsky.social · 1d

I'm enjoying these.

Rory Waterman @rorywaterman.bsky.social · 2d

Reading in Oxford on 12 November, 6pm. I'll mainly read from my new(ish) @carcanet.bsky.social collection Come Here to This Gate, plus some of my earlier work. There will be a reading also by N.S. Thompson, and a public discussion about poetry. Do come! It's free.

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Rory Waterman @rorywaterman.bsky.social · 6d

Great to see you, Alex - and your reading, and responses in the Q&A, were superb.

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Reposted by Rory Waterman

Carcanet Press @carcanet.bsky.social · 6d

Tomorrow at 6.30pm, join @rorywaterman.bsky.social at Louth Words Festival where he will be reading from his Carcanet collection 'Come Here to this Gate'.

The event is free to attend, but for more information see here:⬇️
www.zerodegreeslouth.org.uk/home/louth-s...

Louth Words Festival 2025 – Zero Degrees Arts Festival Louth

A Festival of the Spoken Word with a Local Flavour. Free to attend for all Celebrating Poetry, Lincolnshire Dialect, Prose and Oral History Open Mic events for

www.zerodegreeslouth.org.uk

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Rory Waterman @rorywaterman.bsky.social · 8d

Tributes to the great John Lucas, compiled by Neil Fulwood, and including Kathleen Bell, Michael Bartholomew-Biggs, Andy Croft, Michael Eaton, Roy Marshall, Jonathan Taylor, Gregory woods, and me. A joy to read, even if it makes your eyes and forehead sting.

www.openbook.org.uk/chainlink/20...

John Lucas (1937-2025): A Tribute

Photograph of John Lucas copyright Graham Lester George When Roy Marshall asked me, back in 2016, when I was going to stop mucking about and put a collection together, my reply was that I genuinely…

www.openbook.org.uk

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Rory Waterman @rorywaterman.bsky.social · 8d

Thank you!

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Rory Waterman @rorywaterman.bsky.social · 8d

As it is Lincolnshire Day, on which all citizens of the good earth genuflect in the direction of Market Rasen, here are two of the Lincs-set poems from Come Here to This Gate, published by
@carcanet.bsky.social last year.

If you order it, St Guthlac won’t curse you: carcanet.co.uk/author/rory-...

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Rory Waterman @rorywaterman.bsky.social · 8d

Oops, that link is useless. Here's the DOI: 10.1080/0015587X.2025.2539567

Rory Waterman @rorywaterman.bsky.social · 8d

I have two copies, having bought one before I was asked to review it and sent another. If you'd like my spare, send me a private message with a picture of a copy of one of my books in your hand, or proof of buying one now, and your address, and I'll send it.

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Rory Waterman @rorywaterman.bsky.social · 8d

I've just learned that my review of Jake Morris-Campbell's Northumbrian travelogue BETWEEN THE SALT AND THE ASH has been published in Folklore. Paywalled, but for those with institutional affiliation, etc: www-tandfonline-com.ntu.idm.oclc.org/doi/full/10..... A good book.

Shibboleth Authentication Request

www-tandfonline-com.ntu.idm.oclc.org

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Rory Waterman @rorywaterman.bsky.social · 8d

For the past week and a bit, I’ve often been preoccupied with two sets of thoughts: about John Lucas, and about ridiculous responses to reviews. Here I am, writing 11 years ago, in a piece included in a book I published with John’s Shoestring Press a year ago. Be more John.

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Rory Waterman @rorywaterman.bsky.social · 10d

Review of a review, I mean. I asusme we're referring to the same thing. That's an establishment countermeasure, for sure.

Rory Waterman @rorywaterman.bsky.social · 10d

It's prolapsic bumbameter, actually. Unlike in JM's review, I am able to scan the line myself because you've provided a bit of quotation.

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Rory Waterman @rorywaterman.bsky.social · 10d

People will have been mobilised to put out little fires. That's a guess, but an educated one. The establishment must look after itself.

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Rory Waterman @rorywaterman.bsky.social · 10d

I've now been blocked by that outstanding gentleman. Must be a thing right-wingers do to people, etc.

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Rory Waterman @rorywaterman.bsky.social · 10d

Had you worn a Peter Kenny mask and used a voice changer? That is the only logical explanation.

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Rory Waterman @rorywaterman.bsky.social · 10d

I'll check this out later! If you ever get a chance, you should go to the Armstrong Browning Library at Baylor University, Texas. It's basically a secular cathedral to the Brownings. RBB wins the battle for wall space, but there are stained glass windows depicting scenes from EBB's sonnets.

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Rory Waterman @rorywaterman.bsky.social · 10d

You're perhaps unknowingly downplaying the extent of the 'coincidence' - and so does Richardson actually, I think, having since looked at both poems in some detail. It isn't one coincidence, but rather a wholly unlikely composite of them. But never mind, we can agree to disagree.

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Rory Waterman @rorywaterman.bsky.social · 10d

Thanks, Robin. I hugely enjoyed doing it, and Peter was an excellent interviewer - as are you. Great podcast series.

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Rory Waterman @rorywaterman.bsky.social · 10d

Well, Robin, I really enjoyed doing it, Peter was a great interviewer (as you would have been), hearing you chat about my book in the after-interview bit was great if at times uncomfortably perceptive (as it should be), and being invited was a compliment. Thank you.

Robin Houghton @robinhoughton.bsky.social · 10d

I really enjoyed 'Come Here to This Gate' by @rorywaterman.bsky.social Here's my interview with Rory on @planetpoetry.bsky.social : planetpoetry.buzzsprout.com/1414696/epis...

Rory Waterman @rorywaterman.bsky.social · 11d

It's a full-on hatchet job. But it does not lament the 'death of modern poetry' any more than any other hatchet job ever written, is not from the fingertips of a right-winger, and ends on a 'remarkable coincidence' with serious implications that its most fervent detractors seem keen to overlook.

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Rory Waterman @rorywaterman.bsky.social · 11d

If 'v.' was published now, I suspect many people who misinterpret that review's position on the state of modern poetry (whatever else they they think of the book under review) would be giving Mary Whitehouse a reason to put her feet up.

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Rory Waterman @rorywaterman.bsky.social · 11d

I'm not suggesting he is the only poet to show this, of course, but his best poems can stop you from being able to read them out loud and make your eyes suddenly hurt, even when you've read them a million times before and have just thought 'I've got this'. His diction and metre is integral to that.

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Rory Waterman @rorywaterman.bsky.social · 11d

Harrison also showed that metre could be held, or held enough, through completely normal patterns of speech. His worst moments sacrificed the former a little too much to accommodate the latter, but his great many best poems ride those rails and drive straight into your heart.

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Rory Waterman @rorywaterman.bsky.social · 11d

One of three ‘interludes’ in ‘All But Forgotten’, a sequence in my book Come Here to This Gate (@carcanet.bsky.social, 2024).
I probably wouldn’t have written these 3 poems without Tony Harrison’s From the School of Eloquence. He gave us direct, moving poems, and I’ve wanted more of them ever since.

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