Dai George
@daigeorge.bsky.social
Poet, academic, other writings. Young and easy under the apple boughs. How to Think Like a Poet (Bloomsbury Continuum), out now
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Dai George
@daigeorge.bsky.social
· Nov 21
How to Think Like a Poet: The Poets That Made Our World and Why We Need Them a book by Dai George.
An entertaining guide to history's most influential and inspiring poets – from Homer and Sappho to Shakespeare and Frank O'Hara – and how they can teach us to better understand the world around us.How...
uk.bookshop.org
Been lurking and finding my feet, so thought the time was ripe for a little calling card. Here's a link to my latest book, HOW TO THINK LIKE A POET. A rethink of the canon, a chance to do some close reading. Fun for newbies and hardened poets alike x
uk.bookshop.org/p/books/how-...
uk.bookshop.org/p/books/how-...
Enjoying being on Substack - and probably clicking with it / finding my algorithm more there than here, if I'm honest - but man there are a lot of diatribes about the publishing industry, makes you wonder how we ever get anything done.
November 2, 2025 at 10:01 AM
Enjoying being on Substack - and probably clicking with it / finding my algorithm more there than here, if I'm honest - but man there are a lot of diatribes about the publishing industry, makes you wonder how we ever get anything done.
Unsettling realisation that, at the current rate, I am not allowed to buy any more books in my lifetime if I'm to make good on a self-promise that I would read everything on my to-read shelf + good shit on my parents' shelves before buying new gear.
October 20, 2025 at 1:24 PM
Unsettling realisation that, at the current rate, I am not allowed to buy any more books in my lifetime if I'm to make good on a self-promise that I would read everything on my to-read shelf + good shit on my parents' shelves before buying new gear.
I ate some cherries that were being saved for decorating cupcakes, and I can report that playfully citing William Carlos Williams does not help one's case.
October 4, 2025 at 12:56 PM
I ate some cherries that were being saved for decorating cupcakes, and I can report that playfully citing William Carlos Williams does not help one's case.
Feeling miserable about the rise of Reform and the far-right, and realised it was a self-centred feeling, in part, about what *I* stand to lose if they had their way. Brits need to start talking about migration as if we have skin in the game.
open.substack.com/pub/beyondme...
open.substack.com/pub/beyondme...
The Real Citizens of Nowhere
A cri de coeur about racist Britain
open.substack.com
September 27, 2025 at 8:11 AM
Feeling miserable about the rise of Reform and the far-right, and realised it was a self-centred feeling, in part, about what *I* stand to lose if they had their way. Brits need to start talking about migration as if we have skin in the game.
open.substack.com/pub/beyondme...
open.substack.com/pub/beyondme...
Reposted by Dai George
As of this week, I have a Substack. Would be great to have you along for the ride.
open.substack.com/pub/beyondme...
open.substack.com/pub/beyondme...
Beyond Mercy | Dai George | Substack
Books, ideas, political hopes - a workbook for the poems I may never write. Click to read Beyond Mercy, by Dai George, a Substack publication. Launched 2 days ago.
open.substack.com
August 30, 2025 at 7:03 PM
As of this week, I have a Substack. Would be great to have you along for the ride.
open.substack.com/pub/beyondme...
open.substack.com/pub/beyondme...
As of this week, I have a Substack. Would be great to have you along for the ride.
open.substack.com/pub/beyondme...
open.substack.com/pub/beyondme...
Beyond Mercy | Dai George | Substack
Books, ideas, political hopes - a workbook for the poems I may never write. Click to read Beyond Mercy, by Dai George, a Substack publication. Launched 2 days ago.
open.substack.com
August 30, 2025 at 7:03 PM
As of this week, I have a Substack. Would be great to have you along for the ride.
open.substack.com/pub/beyondme...
open.substack.com/pub/beyondme...
I mean, I really am
Be warned, I'm writing a long creative-critical verse essay called 'Homage to Brian Wilson'
June 18, 2025 at 8:23 PM
I mean, I really am
Be warned, I'm writing a long creative-critical verse essay called 'Homage to Brian Wilson'
June 18, 2025 at 9:16 AM
Be warned, I'm writing a long creative-critical verse essay called 'Homage to Brian Wilson'
Reposted by Dai George
Talking with a colleague about this. Planning to develop this into a paper / essay. Any suggestions for further reading?
A lot of 'diversity' work in education seeks to cultivate a sense of 'belonging'. But what if we instead considered prioritising justice and a more equitable sense of 'unbelonging' as our aims?
May 22, 2025 at 1:47 PM
Talking with a colleague about this. Planning to develop this into a paper / essay. Any suggestions for further reading?
What's your least favourite publishing cliché / euphemism? Mine's probably 'luminous prose', a sure sign I will find the book precious and boring, with ironically little va va voom in the prose.
May 17, 2025 at 12:47 PM
What's your least favourite publishing cliché / euphemism? Mine's probably 'luminous prose', a sure sign I will find the book precious and boring, with ironically little va va voom in the prose.
From Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Toddler
I do not know which to prefer,
The tantrum with the yoghurt
Or the tantrum with the choo choo,
The toddler going apeshit
Or just after.
I do not know which to prefer,
The tantrum with the yoghurt
Or the tantrum with the choo choo,
The toddler going apeshit
Or just after.
May 12, 2025 at 8:28 PM
From Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Toddler
I do not know which to prefer,
The tantrum with the yoghurt
Or the tantrum with the choo choo,
The toddler going apeshit
Or just after.
I do not know which to prefer,
The tantrum with the yoghurt
Or the tantrum with the choo choo,
The toddler going apeshit
Or just after.
Reposted by Dai George
Obviously things have got dramatically worse in the US recently, and I don't want to diminish that, but I've been at *so many* conferences in the UK on topics like empire, humanitarianism and development where multiple speakers from the Global South have been denied visas or held at the border
I just attended a conference in the US. We had one speaker detained and two others turned away at the border.
There are great conferences and science in the US, but with the way things are right now, it’s too risky to attend.
April 14, 2025 at 10:10 AM
Obviously things have got dramatically worse in the US recently, and I don't want to diminish that, but I've been at *so many* conferences in the UK on topics like empire, humanitarianism and development where multiple speakers from the Global South have been denied visas or held at the border
Deathly dull content but I recently bought a block of mild cheddar for the 2yo, worrying abt the salt content of the usual Cornish crunchers we have in the house, and WHAT THE HELL IS THIS STUFF. Weird lactic playdough, never once laid hands on it till now.
April 14, 2025 at 12:08 PM
Deathly dull content but I recently bought a block of mild cheddar for the 2yo, worrying abt the salt content of the usual Cornish crunchers we have in the house, and WHAT THE HELL IS THIS STUFF. Weird lactic playdough, never once laid hands on it till now.
You make me dizzy, Peter Gizzi
April 13, 2025 at 6:28 PM
You make me dizzy, Peter Gizzi
What's the best book to read about the expansion and (sub)urbanisation of London? Something that tells me how Finchley Road went from being fields to city in the 19th C. Growth of the railroads and the rise of Metroland - all that.
April 2, 2025 at 3:10 PM
What's the best book to read about the expansion and (sub)urbanisation of London? Something that tells me how Finchley Road went from being fields to city in the 19th C. Growth of the railroads and the rise of Metroland - all that.
Reposted by Dai George
Also this 😅
March 25, 2025 at 6:16 PM
Also this 😅
I had a bad review in the TLS a few months back. Read it for the first time today and gotta admit it's knocked me. Ah well - important to acknowledge these things. Here it is, for those with access.
www.the-tls.co.uk/literature/p...
www.the-tls.co.uk/literature/p...
www.the-tls.co.uk
March 25, 2025 at 5:00 PM
I had a bad review in the TLS a few months back. Read it for the first time today and gotta admit it's knocked me. Ah well - important to acknowledge these things. Here it is, for those with access.
www.the-tls.co.uk/literature/p...
www.the-tls.co.uk/literature/p...
Reposted by Dai George
In unreasonable times, art cannot be expected to appear in reasonable forms in reasonable speech acts in league with the official language when there is nothing official about language and there are no boundaries to what can be uttered officially official language itself a way of kidnapping meaning.
March 24, 2025 at 6:08 AM
In unreasonable times, art cannot be expected to appear in reasonable forms in reasonable speech acts in league with the official language when there is nothing official about language and there are no boundaries to what can be uttered officially official language itself a way of kidnapping meaning.
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept.
March 22, 2025 at 8:13 PM
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept.
Reposted by Dai George
The ‘can machines do creative writing’ thing is mostly a distraction from the use of the machines to go through text and images to cancel grants and put people on deportation lists
March 13, 2025 at 10:34 AM
The ‘can machines do creative writing’ thing is mostly a distraction from the use of the machines to go through text and images to cancel grants and put people on deportation lists
What are your favourite history books? History books with spark, flair, literary panache - history that eschews the 'three major factors in the rise of the Medici were xyz. To start with x...' style of writing that I find such a snooze and highly prevalent.
March 13, 2025 at 10:39 AM
What are your favourite history books? History books with spark, flair, literary panache - history that eschews the 'three major factors in the rise of the Medici were xyz. To start with x...' style of writing that I find such a snooze and highly prevalent.
This deeply fascistic power move scares the hell out of me. It isn't my country, there's a limit to what I can do, but it can't be allowed to stand.
nymag.com/intelligence...
nymag.com/intelligence...
What We Know About the Arrest of Mahmoud Khalil
DHS agents detained Khalil, a green card-holding Palestinian activist who took part in the Gaza protests at Columbia University.
nymag.com
March 10, 2025 at 10:14 PM
This deeply fascistic power move scares the hell out of me. It isn't my country, there's a limit to what I can do, but it can't be allowed to stand.
nymag.com/intelligence...
nymag.com/intelligence...
Reposted by Dai George
Poem by Suzanne Buffam
March 6, 2025 at 1:41 PM
Poem by Suzanne Buffam