Jeremy Wikeley
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jwikeley.bsky.social
Jeremy Wikeley
@jwikeley.bsky.social
✍ A Poetry Notebook ⤵️

https://jwikeley.substack.com/
And very much looking forward to it too!
A fascnating piece by Jeremy Wikely, who will be joining the PLS in Hull on 6th Dec to mark the anniversary of Larkin's death (hopefully that's not 'solemn-sinister'!)
Solemn-sinister wreath-rubbish open.substack.com/pub/jwikeley...
Solemn-sinister wreath-rubbish
Philip Larkin and the politics of forgetting
open.substack.com
November 9, 2025 at 2:28 PM
Reposted by Jeremy Wikeley
A friend and I wrote to Larkin from 1960s New Zealand, quite baffled by the poem. He wrote back, explaining the various references very straightforwardly, and entirely without condescension. Pretty impressive.
November 7, 2025 at 7:47 AM
“It’s both funny and serious. The speaker’s a shit. That’s always serious.” Philip Larkin joins the culture wars. jwikeley.substack.com/p/solemn-sin...
Solemn-sinister wreath-rubbish
Philip Larkin and the politics of forgetting
jwikeley.substack.com
November 7, 2025 at 6:56 AM
Reposted by Jeremy Wikeley
A taste of my forthcoming book, thanks to @badlilies.bsky.social - www.badlilies.uk/graeme-richa...
Graeme Richardson — Bad Lilies
Three poems by Graeme Richardson
www.badlilies.uk
October 31, 2025 at 4:16 PM
Reposted by Jeremy Wikeley
Someone - I think it was @jwikeley.bsky.social – pointed out a while ago how different post-war English poetry might look if Douglas had lived.
The sublime talents of the wartime poet and writer Keith Douglas captured both the harrowing nature of conflict and the spirit of an England that once was, but is no more.

Keith Douglas, an Englishman at war | Bryan Appleyard

engelsbergideas.com/notebook/kei...
Keith Douglas, an Englishman at war
The sublime talents of the wartime poet and writer Keith Douglas captured both the harrowing nature of conflict and the spirit of an England that once was, but is no more.
engelsbergideas.com
October 28, 2025 at 11:42 AM
New post: why children's books are the most important genre, plus another run out for my bit on @questingvole.bsky.social's The Haunted Wood (now out in paperback): jwikeley.substack.com/p/the-end-of...
The end of childhood reading
An old piece, and some new thoughts
jwikeley.substack.com
October 14, 2025 at 3:20 PM
Reposted by Jeremy Wikeley
Still Life with Pottery and Two Bottles - November 1884
https://botfrens.com/collections/46/contents/3109183
October 10, 2025 at 8:06 AM
What, if anything, does To Autumn have to say about the history of rural labour? I went walking with Keats...
jwikeley.substack.com/p/walking-wi...
Walking with Keats
To Autumn as a democratic landscape
jwikeley.substack.com
October 9, 2025 at 8:22 AM
Reposted by Jeremy Wikeley
"Is it dusk yet?" ask the Minervan owls impatiently, itching to spread their wings.

Photo of Nouvelle-Aquitaine clock tower by Bianco Da Vinci
September 21, 2025 at 7:42 AM
What is, or was, the middle-distance poem? Where did it go? And why are there so many trains involved? substack.com/home/post/p-...
The Middle-Distance Poem: An Elegy
What was it? Where did it go?
substack.com
September 21, 2025 at 7:33 AM
Poetry friends, Hampshire friends, everyone further afield!

WPF is remixing the canon ft. brilliant poets like Fiona Benson, Richard Scott & @naush.bsky.social and activities for all.

10–12 Oct plus more before

I’ll be helping out, come say hello 💫

🔗 www.winchesterpoetryfestival.org/wpf25friday
Winchester Poetry Festival 2025 - Friday
Details and booking for events taking place on the Friday of Winchester Poetry Festival 2025
www.winchesterpoetryfestival.org
September 18, 2025 at 8:36 AM
New from me in this week's Spectator. It's about decluttering.
August 22, 2025 at 4:20 PM
Reposted by Jeremy Wikeley
“Once #AnimalFarm made him famous, & solvent, for the first time in his life, #Orwell immediately moved to the Hebrides. His diaries there are filled with rapt but unsentimental observations of animals, often ending with him killing and eating them.”

engelsbergideas.com/notebook/ani...
August 16, 2025 at 12:57 AM
Reposted by Jeremy Wikeley
This 80th anniversary of Animal Farm essay by @jwikeley.bsky.social is excellent, makes a good case of it being Orwell's masterpiece engelsbergideas.com/notebook/ani... (pairs well w/an essay of mine on the book's relevance for thinking about China & Hong Kong www.asiancha.com/wp/article/j... )
Animal Farm, Orwell's true masterpiece
Animal Farm works at a deeper level than politics. It is an allegory about human nature, and George Orwell's greatest work.
engelsbergideas.com
August 14, 2025 at 8:55 PM
"The book in which George Orwell is most himself."

I'm over at @engelsbergideas.bsky.social today, making the case for a much-neglected novella called... Animal Farm.

engelsbergideas.com/notebook/ani...
Animal Farm, Orwell's true masterpiece
Animal Farm works at a deeper level than politics. It is an allegory about human nature, and George Orwell's greatest work.
engelsbergideas.com
August 15, 2025 at 9:35 AM
Reposted by Jeremy Wikeley
‘Sea-fever’ -a poem I’ve long disliked. It was read out, tediously and laboriously, with interjections, by my middle school head teacher in assembly every year for some reason. This has removed some of the ick.
I must down to the see again...

...or is there a missing word there? I've written about 'Sea-Fever' and a wonderful discussion in Carol Rumens's Poem of the Week. jwikeley.substack.com/p/the-long-t...
The wind's song: why 'Sea-Fever' is the gift that keeps on giving
On John Masefield's 'long trick'
jwikeley.substack.com
August 14, 2025 at 11:28 AM
"Leadbetter’s subject is poetry itself. His belief in its potential is both rare and contagious."

I am back in the T, writing in praise of Gregory Leadbetter's 'infernal garden'. Awesome, eerie and just out from @ninearchespress.bsky.social.
The best poetry books of 2025 so far
This year’s must-have books include a spectacular collection from Deryn Rees-Jones and an innovative sequence of sonnets by Leo Boix
www.telegraph.co.uk
August 11, 2025 at 3:18 PM
Absurd, grotesque and completely unsustainable.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Palestine Action protest arrests rise to more than 500
Police say the majority of arrests were for displaying placards in support of the banned group.
www.bbc.co.uk
August 11, 2025 at 9:34 AM
This is such a great idea: a whole ensemble of voices reading Larkin's The Less Deceived, which is 70 this year.

It's also the first and last time I will appear in the same production as Cate Blanchett.
August 10, 2025 at 6:04 PM
I must down to the see again...

...or is there a missing word there? I've written about 'Sea-Fever' and a wonderful discussion in Carol Rumens's Poem of the Week. jwikeley.substack.com/p/the-long-t...
The wind's song: why 'Sea-Fever' is the gift that keeps on giving
On John Masefield's 'long trick'
jwikeley.substack.com
August 8, 2025 at 9:57 AM
I've written about The Bean Eaters (a masterpiece), lists and list poems.
substack.com/home/post/p-...
Twinklings and twinges
On 'The Bean Eaters', lists and list poems
substack.com
July 23, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Reposted by Jeremy Wikeley
2025 Reading 40: The Little Review No. 1, ed. Tristram Fane Saunders. I picked this up for a fiver from by the till at my local bookstore. I'll always give a new literary journal a go. This one was, frankly, a delight. It's a poetry journal, but promiscuous in its interests both in form and content.
July 13, 2025 at 8:36 PM
Reposted by Jeremy Wikeley
The rasp of a chainsaw triggers a meditation on permanence and change in Kent's Oak by @jwikeley.bsky.social

www.fictionable.world/stories/kent...

Image: josh AD

#books #reading #writing #fiction #ShortStories #translation #comics #podcast
June 27, 2025 at 4:08 PM