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rotherwrites.bsky.social
Rother Writes
@rotherwrites.bsky.social
940 followers 890 following 2.1K posts
[My words] "are shut up tight inside themselves like boxes, yet they would open up, unfolding quite wonderfully, if only" [I could interest them], Sylvia Plath
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rotherwrites.bsky.social
Rother Writes @rotherwrites.bsky.social · Dec 3
I am delighted and flattered to receive this Silver Branch nomination along with Jacky, Sue, Helen, Vicki and Oormila.

And I am indebted to Matthew Smith and Black Bough Poetry for seeing something distinct in my writing, and the value of the mentoring relationship the led to this 'Glamour'. ❤️
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hool415.bsky.social
Hullo. Just put this up on the other place for #TopTweetTuesday and the week’s theme of an 80 word homage to a famous poet. #poetry #larkin
Mr Larkin’s Ghost… Will seek the closing, curling walls of bare let rooms and all other cheaply-rented lives, worn faces propped against parks puffing-out despair, silently; revisit their cold as coffin table-tops, not surprisingly: single-chaired; compose the score for behind closed doors, where the deafening conversational hum is provided by duplicitous electric-fires and misery’s always Sunday-dull, unshared evensong. The world reflected in fishbowl-glasses, grave-dust sticking like wet sugar; he’s still wandering: a caustic balm chronicling any place needed between high heaven and Hull.
February 17, 2026 at 6:22 AM
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hool415.bsky.social
I’d like to put forward @victoriaspires.bsky.social for a #lifttothesky this morning. Yes, yes, you are correct, she’s been up before the academy previously. It’s an entirely justified second Oscar nomination for this iconoclastic poet!
February 16, 2026 at 10:06 AM
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poetry-with-hart.bsky.social
Beyond naked,
what exists?
You undress me
yet parts remain
hidden, no one
must ever see.

(Reworked a scrapped start for today's prompts. Kinda fits as a micro eh?)

@blackboughpoetry.bsky.social
@thebrokenspine.co.uk

#fragmentsfriday #poemsabout #undressed #micropoem #micropoetry #poem #poetry
February 13, 2026 at 2:55 PM
rotherwrites.bsky.social
It's Friday, and #PoemsAbout. Welcome all who write, read, like, comment, share.
I went down a dark path this week for #Undressed, the outcome of watching a documentary series about propaganda; vulnerability from the wrong angle.
After a hasty Thursday rewrite something more mellow emerged.
Kintsugi my thorns swallowed hard spur and wound coiled knotted dug over down plaited a crown sharpness melted scars healed tears forged wabi-sabi lustre fracture and flaw imperfect beauty my gift © Glenn Barker February 2026
February 13, 2026 at 8:04 AM
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thebrokenspine.co.uk
Tomorrow: #PoemsAbout #Undressed.

Not exposure for spectacle.
Not vulnerability as performance.

Don’t post before Friday.
That stillness?
That holding back?
That’s the poem.

Tag it.
Use Alt Text.
a curled figure sits on a wooden floor, head lowered, body bare but non-sexual, conveying vulnerability and introspection. The Broken Spine logo is in the top left, “@thebrokenspine.co.uk” appears in white at the top right, and the lower right text reads: “Read Repost Reply #POEMSABOUT #UNDRESSED”.
February 12, 2026 at 8:00 AM
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rburrows.bsky.social
Today is International Day of Women and Girls in Science. 🥳
This poem, originally written for #PoemsAbout is about me and my microscope.
Thanks @alanparrywriter.co.uk for the prompt. #internationaldayofwomenandgirlsinscience #womeninSTEM #STEM #Volvox #poetry
🟢🟢🟢🔬➡️🦠🧫🐌➡️🌴🦟🛏️
February 11, 2026 at 7:08 AM
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rburrows.bsky.social
Love an acceptance email on a Monday evening! 🥳
A poem I wrote for #PoemsAbout will be on #BBC #Upload Thursday night.
Thank you so much @adamcrowther.bsky.social for choosing it and @alanparrywriter.co.uk for prompting it! ❤️ #poetry #writing
February 9, 2026 at 7:57 PM
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thebrokenspine.co.uk
If your poem doesn’t belong on a billboard but a toilet door in a dive bar, send it.
If it sounds better screamed into a mic than whispered at brunch, send it.
#PoemsAbout #LiftToTheSky #PoetsOfBluesky #WednesdayWIPs #Poetry #SubmissionWindow
Call for Submissions: Poetry With Spit, Spine, and Something to Say - The Broken Spine
Submissions Open Throughout February 2026 | Publication Later That Year
thebrokenspine.co.uk
February 9, 2026 at 8:00 AM
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poetry-with-hart.bsky.social
This is another I did for #poemsabout #mouths. Much harder to type and edit. That much harder to talk about. It could still perhaps use work but it need written nonetheless. Best wishes all around.

@thebrokenspine.co.uk
@alanparrywriter.co.uk

#poem #poetry #wip #skypoem #skypoetry #poemaday
When you’ve gone two days without water your mouth tastes like mucus turned to ash, speech cracks open desert soil complete with the phantom lizard that once was your tongue. Moments are months as your body grows weak. We don’t talk about it, a spectre form of a past left buried behind the walls of polite dinner conversation. Their only daughter served up as a commodity to be consumed by his teeth his torturous appetite his desire to own her body like a womb is a rental property and him the landlord. This time it’s different of course. This time the man is okay, I chose better, they allowed better for me, him a true father and not a wannabe despot. Reassurances assuaging their guilt more than my innumerable fears. I eat now with every meal as if it’s my last. I drink like it’s my first time tasting water. And I still see the mouth of the spectre form in the walls, telling me to never forget my past. my thoughts crack open just a little more.
February 8, 2026 at 8:29 PM
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jenthorne.bsky.social
My offering this week is a long way outside of my angsty little comfort zone, so nobody better get all creepy about this, or I'll be very disappointed in you!

@thebrokenspine.co.uk
#PoemsAbout #mouths
#poetry
Hunger I am the quivering tongue aching to follow the warm, hidden map your skin draws in the half-light. I am the pulsing lips seeking the soft refuge of your kiss, greedy to borrow your warmth as night gathers around us. I am the glistening teeth restless with the urge to graze that place where your pulse rises to meet my unyielding bite. I am the mouth that whispers of needs and flawed vows, but cannot bear the bitter salt of the longing it tastes. I am the heat of a shared breath, suspended between us, waiting for the moment when wanting becomes touch, and touch becomes devouring.
February 6, 2026 at 5:29 AM
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fiftywords.bsky.social
This #PoemsAbout #Mouths answers Beckett’s Not I by suggesting that while language may never belong to us, the body can still learn a minimal, ethical restraint, silence not as failure or abyss, but as practiced discipline after compulsion. @thebrokenspine.co.uk
Mouth After- heat. not blood. hinge remembers. dullness where effort lodged. Saliva, unclaimed. thin residue of passing. Sentences went through without stopping. walls still listening. tongue, slack, shaped what it could from breath never its own. Silence, after shouting. Teeth meet. No argument. jaw sets, learning weight. words forming, precise, restless but tongue keeps them flat against the floor, where borrowing ends. mouth closes on nothing.
February 6, 2026 at 5:51 AM
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rburrows.bsky.social
…and safely back to invertebrates for #PoemsAbout #Mouths 😊
Thanks @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk for the prompt. Happy Friday!
#poetry #mayflies #ephemera
February 6, 2026 at 6:32 AM
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fhpowellwriter.bsky.social
@thebrokenspine.co.uk

@alanparrywriter.co.uk
#poemsabout #mouths
February 6, 2026 at 8:09 AM
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thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social
Here is a poem called "Ermine Moths" from the titular sequence of my new collection "Hedgerow of Voices" JCStudio Press 2026 for #PoemsAbout #Miuths
4. Ermine Moths Before I became what I am I could only crawl, tell brightness from darkness, taste odours. Born in this half light so we would not be food we hid ourselves behind placed webs, made all darker while our mouths ate all sweet succulence, before each of us spun a hardness for ourselves where we grew tall noses, delicate wings to reach the sun. Abandon these bare stems our younger selves emptied all the juice out into us. World is now greenish blue. My long nostrils tell me she's not distant. Her taste unfurls. Age alters our senses remaking all. I sense outside this entwined, closed in tall.
February 6, 2026 at 8:19 AM
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andywilliamson.com
This week's #poemsabout #mouths just wasn't working, I almost gave it a swerve - until this popped into my head yesterday! Kōtare (Māori) is a watchtower around a pā (fort) but, more commonly, a kingfisher! Thanks @thebrokenspine.co.uk & @alanparrywriter.co.uk #poems #poetry
Kōtare your mouth closes around words holding them back like your lips dripping with the juice of fresh cherries in someone else’s story as tears fall saltwater marks the end where the estuary beckons the kingfisher stands sentry ready to break the bones of any traveller by river’s mouth before the ocean that will lead us through waters we cannot name
February 6, 2026 at 8:42 AM
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zoomburst.substack.com
Tough call this week. Mouths? We've all got em, me included... Great poetry on a theme of mouths? A lot less of us can claim any, I certainly can't.
#PoemsAbout #Mouths
February 6, 2026 at 10:14 AM
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janedougherty47.bsky.social
I'm not at home today so will read later this evening. This poem/sonnet is inspired by 'Pasiphaë' my novel that will be published February 12th. I can't think about anything else at the moment For #PoemsAbout #Mouths
@alanparrywriter.co.uk
@thebrokenspine.co.uk
February 6, 2026 at 11:23 AM
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pvcannon.bsky.social
For #PoemsAbout #Mouths

With much thanks to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk
A short free-verse poem that explores the sense of physical attraction focussed on the mouth.
February 6, 2026 at 3:25 PM
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poetry-with-hart.bsky.social
Belated submission for #poemsabout #mouths. Only just found time to type everything I've been writing lately. I might've done 2-3 for this #prompt... Anyway, spooky spicy fun. Enjoy. 🤗

@thebrokenspine.co.uk
@alanparrywriter.co.uk

#poem #poetry #skypoem #skypoetry #poemaday #nightmare
Nightmare taught me a lesson made of gnashing teeth beneath prehistoric stone. Eyeless monsters lying in wait for humanity’s collapse and I turned from meal into one of them, into meal again. Teeth ripping pink limbs grasping all one body, one mind yet stretched into multiples too. It was then I realized the lesson the message in the metaphor as my body dissolved and dripped from the mouths of this creature that was both many, and me. We will consume, and consume and consume ourselves, each other, and the world, until there’s nothing left but our teeth.
February 8, 2026 at 6:45 PM
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drnaturegirl.debbiemross.co.uk
There’s a lot of #PoemsAbout #mouths already this week and I’m throwing ma wee draft into the fray too. I don’t have a title yet. Thanks as always to @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk and the #poetrycommunity who read and support. I’ll pop in periodically, around my commitments today.
A poem by Debbie Ross single stanza, untitled. Text as follows You mouth your treachery in everyday lies; untruths spewing from your fleshy lips - magma, destroying everything in its path.
February 6, 2026 at 7:54 AM
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philippabowe.bsky.social
Needed a bit of poetry time at the end of a crazy week so enjoyed writing to this week's #PoemsAbout prompt #Mouths. Inspired by some fave lyrics, from The Kills' song Baby Says. Happy Friday (night) poets!
And thanks as ever to @thebrokenspine.co.uk and @alanparrywriter.co.uk 💜🙏
Red box with black shading and white letters superimposed with the text of a poem: Baby Says I’m here I’m now so far from then – stitches of youth and beauty worn thin mouth prised open – tearing from her scraping at peeling walls her words her words her words outside of her no longer swelling pushing at soft sunless flesh inside her throat words – tangled wolves breathe legs lungs raven spring rapids swift swim lunge go go go corner switch cloth AND blood and blood and blood – spatter from lips unsealed carpet the floor they die and live
February 6, 2026 at 8:37 PM
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owlnsquirrels1111.bsky.social
This is what’s dished out when not in the mood…for poetry of course.
For #PoemsAbout #Mouths
@thebrokenspine.co.uk
@alanparrywriter.co.uk
& for #vss365: #wound
@nathanbrazil.bsky.social
#2WordPrompt : #prepare #thick
@jason-h-abbott.bsky.social
#Oulens #blueskypoetry
#poetrycommunity #poetry
Black font on white page. The entire piece is in italics. Dinner Time by C. Oulens Oh my…fine…alright… Yup, I know your mouth’s a dish but…but but, all wound up… you preparing dinner tonight? That? Well, sure… sounds yum, nice and thick, should stir… my appetite. Would you be a darling and load the washing machine?
February 6, 2026 at 5:44 AM
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alanparrywriter.co.uk
As editor + founder, I’m tired of presses cosplaying “community” while using prizes as sales funnels. It’s nefarious, it’s cynical, and everyone knows it. We just don’t say it out loud.
#TheBrokenSpineAward #ByPoetsForPoets #PoemsAbout #LiftToTheSky
thebrokenspine.co.uk The Broken Spine (SUBS OPEN) @thebrokenspine.co.uk · 11d
We know prizes are bullshit! They’re just taste cosplaying as authority. So we stripped away the lie & left the contradiction standing. No prestige. Just cash. We'll pick our favourite poems & won't pretend we're doing anything else!
#TheBrokenSpineAward #ByPoetsForPoets #PoemsAbout #LiftToTheSky
Black-and-white graphic of a vintage typewriter seen from above. Torn paper strips sit in the typewriter reading “£1200 RAISED” and “WIN CASH” in bold lettering. Below, the hashtags “#TheBrokenSpineAward” and “#ByPoetsForPoets” are printed. The overall style is gritty, high-contrast, and zine-like.
February 8, 2026 at 3:10 PM
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markantonyowen.com
For #poemsabout #mouths ...
Biting her tongue My mother died leaving her tongue in my mouth: the chewed wound of it, ulcered by discretion. This eel she’d kept crated in its cage of teeth, floundering now in the shallows of my jaw. She bequeathed me her lifetime of things unsaid; shared so little with me that it’s struck me dumb. She left me to choke on the words she shuttered – bite down on her hidden truths, huge as my own.
February 6, 2026 at 8:10 AM
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merrildsmith.bsky.social
This was another difficult challenge from #PoemsAbout #Mouths. Thank you, as always, to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk
Poem: Bide the Birds The headless-chicken-world lurches and stumbles, excreted lies foul the blooded snow, the ice remains un-melted. Every night, a crimson mouth swallows the day-- we wake, hope for phoenixes rising in scarlet, gold, and blue laying fresh eggs in green, served sunny side up.
February 6, 2026 at 12:23 PM