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thepaulconnolly.bsky.social
Paul Connolly
@thepaulconnolly.bsky.social
17K followers 1.1K following 10K posts
Writer
Poetry: 100+ poems in Agenda, Stand, Poetry Salzburg, Chiron Review, IS&T etc
Poems on BBC
Charles Causley & (two) Bridport Prize shortlists
Magna Carta Comp (3rd)
Best of the Net Nominated (Lothlorien)
Prose: Orwell Prize & Bridport Novel longlists
Posts Replies Media Videos
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thepaulconnolly.bsky.social
Paul Connolly @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social · 7d
I am delighted that my #poem Devon Gothic is longlisted for the @walklistencreate.org WRITE ABOUT WALKING IN THE DARK competition. My huge thanks go to WLC & competition judges @marcellenewbold.bsky.social & Damaris West. You can read the poem in the link below 👇

#poetsonbluesky #poetrycommunity
Devon Gothic
write.walklistencreate.org
Reposted by Paul Connolly
bethosmond.bsky.social
Proud to have my poem Belemnite in this brilliant anthology for the campaign #Givepeatachance
get a copy here and raise money! www.mklitfest.org/digginginthe...
@poetsfortheplanet.bsky.social
@clareshawpoet.bsky.social @calebparkinpoet.bsky.social @betarish.bsky.social @jessmookherjee.bsky.social
Digging in the Dirt: Adventures in Ecopoetry - The Anthology | MK Lit Fest 2025
Digging in the Dirt: Adventures in Ecopoetry is an anthology of original ecopoetry written in response to prompts set by Clare Shaw, Caleb Parkin, Jess Mookherjee and Rishi Dastidar during an online e...
www.mklitfest.org
November 13, 2025 at 5:40 PM
Reposted by Paul Connolly
thepaulconnolly.bsky.social
Late afternoon but night falls like shutters. Down. Bang. That’s yer lot. Air has chill fingers of ageing, damp, deathly. Through what’s left of the clouds’ sallow grey-brown flesh, dark purple pours like worsening contusion, across which black voids then spread, tree & house-shaped, infinitely deep
November 13, 2025 at 5:51 PM
thepaulconnolly.bsky.social
Late afternoon but night falls like shutters. Down. Bang. That’s yer lot. Air has chill fingers of ageing, damp, deathly. Through what’s left of the clouds’ sallow grey-brown flesh, dark purple pours like worsening contusion, across which black voids then spread, tree & house-shaped, infinitely deep
November 13, 2025 at 5:51 PM
Reposted by Paul Connolly
davidfirn.bsky.social
When you're a Liverpool theatre and you need an absolute cert to subsidise your more experimental programme.
Hilary Mantel story imagining Margaret Thatcher’s assassination to be staged in Liverpool
Short story set in 1983, and published a year after the former prime minister’s death, considers ‘what happens when people feel they don’t have a voice’ says director John Young
www.theguardian.com
November 13, 2025 at 9:06 AM
Reposted by Paul Connolly
craftygreenpoet.bsky.social
All about jellyfish! My review of Juli Berwald's Spineless is now up on my blog. craftygreenpoet.blogspot.com/2025/11/spin...
Spineless by Juli Berwald
Subtitled "The Science of Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone" , this is a fascinating look at jellyfish.  Many people have negative...
craftygreenpoet.blogspot.com
November 13, 2025 at 10:19 AM
Reposted by Paul Connolly
victoriaspires.bsky.social
What a beautiful anthology from The Wee Sparrow Poetry Press, curated and co-edited by @marcellenewbold.bsky.social and Bronwen Evans. I was delighted to have a poem chosen alongside many wonderful poets.

Find out more about it here: www.theweesparrowpoetrypress.com/lines-of-com...
November 12, 2025 at 9:46 PM
Reposted by Paul Connolly
thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social
Gobsmacked that my poetic prose work "Retreat" has been chosen by editor Raymond Huffman to appear on the Front Page of Open Arts Forum in December. Thank you, Raymond. Here's a sneak preview:
Retreat By Paul Brookes - December 12, 2025 3 The sanctuary was hidden deep in the glaucous forest, a place where the air smelled of earth and sky. Every tree seemed to hold secrets, their ancient bark etched with claw-carved symbols and stories older than memory. The leaves whispered as the wind stirred them-pages turning, feather-scribed in some forgotten language. The sky above mirrored the movement below, clouds trailing like long strands of cirrus pages, delicate and ever-changing. I stood there, at the threshold of this living, breathing library, my mind as wild as the forest around me. Each step I took felt as if I was plunging deeper into its mystery, the soft moss beneath my feet absorbing the weight of my thoughts. The ground trembled ever so slightly, as though the earth itself was exhaling, and the trees swayed, their branches moving in darkling curves that caught fragments of light. The sun filtered down through the thick canopy, refracted by the leaves, and it seemed as though letters of fire danced in the air, twining around my thoughts. The wind stirred again, this time more forcefully, and I inhaled its cool breath. With it came ideas-wild, untamed, as though carried from distant places on gusts too strong to ignore. Each gust seemed to blow a new thought into my mind, a seed carried on the wind, ready to take root. But the thoughts were not calming; they were quick and sharp, like a stone skipped across the surface of water. My retreat was never the peaceful escape I longed for. Instead, it bouldered through me, as if a stone had been hurled into the depths of my being, sending ripples that spread outward, endlessly forward. The tranquility of the forest belied the turmoil inside. Every thought that stirred in my mind felt like a fire being kindled-a spark catching dry leaves. It burned through me, bright and consuming, remaking everything in its path. My thoughts, once scattered like dandelion seeds, now took shape, reforming into something new and unfamiliar. And yet, amidst the flames, there was creation. The destruction brought forth growth-fresh shoots of ideas, sprouting and unfurling in my head. The fire remade me, and the sanctuary was not what it seemed. It was no longer a place of quiet reflection, but of transformation, where the very chaos of thought became fertile ground. I looked around once more at the forest, at the cirrus clouds, the bark-bright trees, and the earth that felt alive beneath me. The sanctuary was not still. It moved with the same force that propelled my mind, a constant shift from one form to another, like clouds becoming rain or flame turning to ash. This place-my retreat-was never calm. It was always becoming, always remaking itself, just as I was. SELECTED BY Raymond Huffman IMAGE CREDIT: Isabela Martin
November 13, 2025 at 9:49 AM
Reposted by Paul Connolly
thepaulconnolly.bsky.social
Brilliant @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social open mic last night expertly hosted by @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social with @paulwritespoems.bsky.social on superb form as the featured poet. I recommend the Black Bough open mics to all poets on here. Welcoming, convivial and of the very highest quality
November 13, 2025 at 7:46 AM
Reposted by Paul Connolly
jumpingjulespoetry.bsky.social
Looking forward to hearing my interview and poem on BBC Upload tonight and Saturday night at 6pm with Rob Jelly. Thanks Rob!
November 13, 2025 at 8:59 AM
Reposted by Paul Connolly
paulwritespoems.bsky.social
Poets, are you ready?

Full details here: paulwritespoems.com/2025/09/08/t...
November 13, 2025 at 8:26 AM
Reposted by Paul Connolly
hool415.bsky.social
Death is now!
Dark words wonderfully illuminated by your flawless reading.
Just played it a second time Paul!
(Loving the new hair cut too!
🏆🏆 : One for the poem, one for the thatch!)
November 13, 2025 at 8:02 AM
Reposted by Paul Connolly
blackboughpoetry.bsky.social
Jabberwocky, read by Paul Connolly. @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social

poem by Lewis Carroll #poetry #spokenword #openmic
November 13, 2025 at 7:56 AM
Reposted by Paul Connolly
blackboughpoetry.bsky.social
Poet @eleanorholmes.bsky.social performing at our online #spokenword #openmic
November 12, 2025 at 11:34 PM
Reposted by Paul Connolly
markantonyowen.com
For @hool415.bsky.social's #workinglove #promptcombo this week, a new thing about new love. Inspired, I think, by those older couples you see in parks on office lunch breaks: acting like teenagers, rapt in each other, obviously falling in love – all anticipations visibly laced with their anxieties.
Why do only new lovers kiss? You see them everywhere: anxious teenaged lovers in their thirties, forties, fifties. Kissing with dry, garlicky mouths. Flush with wanting’s terrors. They promise eternity – that gift that needs no receipt.
November 13, 2025 at 7:50 AM
thepaulconnolly.bsky.social
Brilliant @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social open mic last night expertly hosted by @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social with @paulwritespoems.bsky.social on superb form as the featured poet. I recommend the Black Bough open mics to all poets on here. Welcoming, convivial and of the very highest quality
November 13, 2025 at 7:46 AM
Reposted by Paul Connolly
blackboughpoetry.bsky.social
@iantattum.bsky.social poet - at our #spokenword #openmic
November 12, 2025 at 11:42 PM
Reposted by Paul Connolly
blackboughpoetry.bsky.social
Poet @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social at our #openmic

#spokenword
November 12, 2025 at 11:36 PM
Reposted by Paul Connolly
blackboughpoetry.bsky.social
@wrenwoodwrites.bsky.social at our #openmic this evening

#spokenword
November 12, 2025 at 11:28 PM
Reposted by Paul Connolly
blackboughpoetry.bsky.social
Our feature writer at the #openmic this evening. Newcastle poet and blogger @paulwritespoems.bsky.social

#openmic #spokenword
November 12, 2025 at 11:15 PM
Reposted by Paul Connolly
blackboughpoetry.bsky.social
Our #openmic - rich, cerebral, inventive work tonight. Two poets new to online open mics who smashed it. Featured poet was Newcastle’s @paulwritespoems.bsky.social

#spokenword #poetry
@iantattum.bsky.social @eleanorholmes.bsky.social @sarahraybould.bsky.social @wrenwoodwrites.bsky.social
November 12, 2025 at 10:44 PM
Reposted by Paul Connolly
blackboughpoetry.bsky.social
At many of our online #openmics we're going to have some surprise feature poets.

This evening it's Paul Short @paulwritespoems.bsky.social Newcastle poet, who also moonlights as a book blogger on The Book Bag paulwritespoems.com
November 12, 2025 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by Paul Connolly
thepaulconnolly.bsky.social
I am also delighted to say that the link in the post below now comes with my recording of the poem. Thanks to @walklistencreate.org for uploading 🙏🙏🙏
thepaulconnolly.bsky.social Paul Connolly @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social · 7d
I am delighted that my #poem Devon Gothic is longlisted for the @walklistencreate.org WRITE ABOUT WALKING IN THE DARK competition. My huge thanks go to WLC & competition judges @marcellenewbold.bsky.social & Damaris West. You can read the poem in the link below 👇

#poetsonbluesky #poetrycommunity
Devon Gothic
write.walklistencreate.org
November 10, 2025 at 2:31 PM
Reposted by Paul Connolly
thepaulconnolly.bsky.social
I imagined a ghost. It didn’t exist & knew it didn’t. It knew it was impossible. The ghost wasn’t violent but very discreet & didn’t intrude on privacy. But it loved to haunt. It wanted to see how we handled things, specifically the fact that soon we’d also be impossible ghosts, haunting impossibly.
November 12, 2025 at 11:48 AM
Reposted by Paul Connolly
inventingreality.bsky.social
Meet these great indie historical fiction authors at the Historical Fiction Genre Indie Authors Starter Pack! If you wish to be included in the starter pack, reply here. #writingcommunity #historicalfiction #authorsky go.bsky.app/C22Jf3K
Historical Fiction Genre Indie Authors
Join the conversation
go.bsky.app
November 12, 2025 at 2:15 PM