#RogerRobinson’s ‘Gramps’ movingly explores the mystery at the heart of our dreams of visitation by dead kin:

When we get to building your work desk, you tell me
that when the desk is finished you will die. So I say,
Let us not build the desk. But you say, We must.

#GhostFurnitureCatalogue

The entire chain will be available soon in pamphlet form from #WhalebackCityPress:

whalebackcitypress.co.uk/about-2/

Meanwhile, join us for a Zoom launch on Dec 10th at 7.30. More details to follow, or message myself or @azjackson.bsky.social to place your advance order/express interest.

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Poems were posted online every fortnight; poets included Anne-Marie Balzer, Jemma Borg, @janeburn.bsky.social, Tishani Doshi, Steve Ely, @sophieherx.bsky.social, Glyn Maxwell, @helenmort.bsky.social, Emma Must, @calebparkinpoet.bsky.social, Jacob Polley, & @jsaphra.bsky.social

#EcoSonnetChain (2/3)

‘…instantly you stop hearing voices/My love, come then to/green, and sparkling water./make good the years’

#FionaBenson #GhostFurnitureCatalogue

Should you be gazing at a small screen, here’s the text from Fiona Benson’s collage in 2 parts:

‘survive the mothers,/dedicated collectors/of high-quality candles and chintz,/disentangle self/follow the salmon migration routes,/along the ironbound coast/draw out the stings/(shriek like the wind):’

Here's the 2nd poetry event this week, in which that
@azjackson.bsky.social reads some stuff & I get to too, while Dorothy Lawrenson thankfully provides music to counter the jawing:

facebook.com/events/s/pla...

It's in #TheFifeness, but I'm assured we ought to be able to escape afterwards.

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'Shouting from Cupboards', a title for my yet uncompleted collection.

#IainCrichtonSmith used to say writing poetry (in Scotland) was like yelling into a darkened room.

Tamsin Hopkins has an update on that metaphor:

When I came to this windowless place,
I knew exactly what I wanted to say.
But really it’s all just shouting in cupboards.

#GhostFurnitureCatalogue

@juliamarybird.bsky.social’s pin cushion ghost story is a series of tellings that haunt each other in the way families handle & hand on memories like heirlooms:

my grandma’s older sister…
cooked for Lord and Lady X and saw
or said she saw or felt a presence in
the kitchen…

#GhostFurnitureCatalogue

Among the much to admire in @tomjenksuk.bsky.social’s poem, I particularly like this phrase, which walks like a proverb and talks like a proverb and yet is not actually a proverb at all:

‘You are too old for exciting opportunities’ says Mum,
‘like a crow is too old to think it’s a flamingo.’

Young folks these days think they can shock us with their ribald table talk, but they forget that we were falling off tables approximately nine months before they were born, and we learned that lesson good.

#GhostFurnitureCatalogue (2/2)

So we were very pleased to include Jay Whittaker’s ‘Utility piece’, a moving meditation on loss from her award-winning collection, Wristwatch:

ghostfurniturecatalogue.wordpress.com/2025/09/30/j...

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