Paul Robichaud
@pjrobichaud.bsky.social
Literature, myth, folklore • Stories of the Stones: Imagining Prehistory in Britain, Ireland, & Brittany (Reaktion, 2026) • Pan: the Great God’s Modern Return • Poems in NewPoetry.ca, The South Shore Review, and The Ekphrastic Review • Professor of English
Pinned
Paul Robichaud
@pjrobichaud.bsky.social
· Sep 28
If you live in the UK, you can now pre-order 'Stories of the Stones' directly from Reaktion Books or your favourite bookseller. Publication date is 1 February, 2026!
Pre-order here: reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/stories...
Pre-order here: reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/stories...
One of my English great-grandfathers, Charles Pedley Browne, who served in the Great War as a sapper in the 123rd (Toronto) Battalion of the Commonwealth Expeditionary Force. Born in Coventry in 1883, he emigrated to Canada in 1905. 🇬🇧🍁 #RemembranceDay
November 11, 2025 at 12:08 PM
One of my English great-grandfathers, Charles Pedley Browne, who served in the Great War as a sapper in the 123rd (Toronto) Battalion of the Commonwealth Expeditionary Force. Born in Coventry in 1883, he emigrated to Canada in 1905. 🇬🇧🍁 #RemembranceDay
Reposted by Paul Robichaud
Y Gop in #Flintshire, the second-largest prehistoric mound in Europe. Like its much bigger cousin Silbury Hill, it contains no burials but unlike Silbury it may mark their location: in a cave below the mound #Neolithic and Bronze Age skeletons were found, showing 1000s of years of use.
#TombTuesday
#TombTuesday
November 11, 2025 at 9:24 AM
Y Gop in #Flintshire, the second-largest prehistoric mound in Europe. Like its much bigger cousin Silbury Hill, it contains no burials but unlike Silbury it may mark their location: in a cave below the mound #Neolithic and Bronze Age skeletons were found, showing 1000s of years of use.
#TombTuesday
#TombTuesday
Capstone of the Er Grah tumulus at Locmariaquer, Brittany, completed c. 3,300 BCE. #TombTuesday
📷 June, 2023
📷 June, 2023
November 11, 2025 at 11:32 AM
Capstone of the Er Grah tumulus at Locmariaquer, Brittany, completed c. 3,300 BCE. #TombTuesday
📷 June, 2023
📷 June, 2023
Reposted by Paul Robichaud
#MosaicMonday - The Eros and Pan Mosaic from Villa Romana del Casale in Sicily. The mosaic depicts a wrestling match between the gods Pan and Eros. Dated 4th century AD.
November 10, 2025 at 6:47 PM
#MosaicMonday - The Eros and Pan Mosaic from Villa Romana del Casale in Sicily. The mosaic depicts a wrestling match between the gods Pan and Eros. Dated 4th century AD.
Reposted by Paul Robichaud
A reader told me she was asked to take off her Hellebore “Wind in the Willows” jumper before entering Westminster Abbey. The reason given was that it depicts the devil and might offend people. The reader explained it was the Greek god Pan, but the security guard didn’t backtrack. Satanic panic 2025.
November 10, 2025 at 4:22 PM
A reader told me she was asked to take off her Hellebore “Wind in the Willows” jumper before entering Westminster Abbey. The reason given was that it depicts the devil and might offend people. The reader explained it was the Greek god Pan, but the security guard didn’t backtrack. Satanic panic 2025.
Shout-out to all the students still writing papers the old fashioned way; reading them feels like reaching an oasis of humanity in a desert of AI-generated slop.
November 10, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Shout-out to all the students still writing papers the old fashioned way; reading them feels like reaching an oasis of humanity in a desert of AI-generated slop.
'A young poet once told me, you get
one exclamation mark your whole career.'
one exclamation mark your whole career.'
November 10, 2025 at 3:14 PM
'A young poet once told me, you get
one exclamation mark your whole career.'
one exclamation mark your whole career.'
Pan was a pastoral god, but he was also a god of the hunt. He is sometimes depicted wielding the lagobolon, a club used to hunt hares and rabbits, as in this Roman bronze from the 1st century.
November 10, 2025 at 1:05 PM
Pan was a pastoral god, but he was also a god of the hunt. He is sometimes depicted wielding the lagobolon, a club used to hunt hares and rabbits, as in this Roman bronze from the 1st century.
Reposted by Paul Robichaud
#FolkloreSunday #AutumnVibes
'Down near Blackberry way
A soft lilt came calling me
The leafy sigh of autumnal poetry
Sweetly, languidly, a gentle melody
Pan's pipes on the breeze
Far off away in the golden trees.' (words N.A/art Elijah Cox)
'Down near Blackberry way
A soft lilt came calling me
The leafy sigh of autumnal poetry
Sweetly, languidly, a gentle melody
Pan's pipes on the breeze
Far off away in the golden trees.' (words N.A/art Elijah Cox)
November 9, 2025 at 11:45 PM
#FolkloreSunday #AutumnVibes
'Down near Blackberry way
A soft lilt came calling me
The leafy sigh of autumnal poetry
Sweetly, languidly, a gentle melody
Pan's pipes on the breeze
Far off away in the golden trees.' (words N.A/art Elijah Cox)
'Down near Blackberry way
A soft lilt came calling me
The leafy sigh of autumnal poetry
Sweetly, languidly, a gentle melody
Pan's pipes on the breeze
Far off away in the golden trees.' (words N.A/art Elijah Cox)
Reposted by Paul Robichaud
This is my painting 'Sun Henges', watercolour and gold ink on recycled cotton rag paper. It is one of several new works inspired by folk art and ancient megaliths that are now available for sale on my Etsy shop here: shorturl.at/HDzSI
#StandingStoneSunday #Art
#StandingStoneSunday #Art
November 9, 2025 at 8:58 AM
This is my painting 'Sun Henges', watercolour and gold ink on recycled cotton rag paper. It is one of several new works inspired by folk art and ancient megaliths that are now available for sale on my Etsy shop here: shorturl.at/HDzSI
#StandingStoneSunday #Art
#StandingStoneSunday #Art
Reposted by Paul Robichaud
When you suddenly realise you've been saying hello to all the villagers without changing back into human form.
November 9, 2025 at 1:05 PM
When you suddenly realise you've been saying hello to all the villagers without changing back into human form.
Looking down a row of the alignments at Kermario, near Carnac, in Brittany. The name ‘Kermario’ means ‘Place of Death.’ #StandingStoneSunday
November 9, 2025 at 12:31 PM
Looking down a row of the alignments at Kermario, near Carnac, in Brittany. The name ‘Kermario’ means ‘Place of Death.’ #StandingStoneSunday
A letter from my great-great grandfather in Airdrie to my great-grandmother in Toronto telling her he has received the memorial scroll and King’s Penny for her brother, Pte. Robert Stevenson Dines, killed in Italy serving with the Gordon Highlanders, age 22, in May 1918. 🏴🍁 #Remembrance
November 9, 2025 at 11:44 AM
A letter from my great-great grandfather in Airdrie to my great-grandmother in Toronto telling her he has received the memorial scroll and King’s Penny for her brother, Pte. Robert Stevenson Dines, killed in Italy serving with the Gordon Highlanders, age 22, in May 1918. 🏴🍁 #Remembrance
Reposted by Paul Robichaud
'I would please the hapless faun
Buried under the sleepy ground
With mirthful songs before the dawn.
His shouting days with mirth were crowned
Still I dream he treads the lawn
Walking ghostly in the dew
Pierced by my glad singing through
My songs of old earth's dreamy youth.' W.B Yeats art unknown
Buried under the sleepy ground
With mirthful songs before the dawn.
His shouting days with mirth were crowned
Still I dream he treads the lawn
Walking ghostly in the dew
Pierced by my glad singing through
My songs of old earth's dreamy youth.' W.B Yeats art unknown
November 8, 2025 at 10:14 PM
'I would please the hapless faun
Buried under the sleepy ground
With mirthful songs before the dawn.
His shouting days with mirth were crowned
Still I dream he treads the lawn
Walking ghostly in the dew
Pierced by my glad singing through
My songs of old earth's dreamy youth.' W.B Yeats art unknown
Buried under the sleepy ground
With mirthful songs before the dawn.
His shouting days with mirth were crowned
Still I dream he treads the lawn
Walking ghostly in the dew
Pierced by my glad singing through
My songs of old earth's dreamy youth.' W.B Yeats art unknown
A very occasional reminder that ‘Pan: the Great God’s Modern Return,’ published by Reaktion Books, is available in paperback through your favorite bookseller.
November 8, 2025 at 4:01 PM
A very occasional reminder that ‘Pan: the Great God’s Modern Return,’ published by Reaktion Books, is available in paperback through your favorite bookseller.
‘Out of the vortex, rifling the air it came—bright,
brass-shod, Pandoran; with all-filling screaming the howl-
ing crescendo’s up-piling snapt. The universal world,
breath held, one half second, a bludgeoned stillness.’ — David Jones, ‘In Parenthesis’ (1937) #BookWormSat
🎨 David Jones
brass-shod, Pandoran; with all-filling screaming the howl-
ing crescendo’s up-piling snapt. The universal world,
breath held, one half second, a bludgeoned stillness.’ — David Jones, ‘In Parenthesis’ (1937) #BookWormSat
🎨 David Jones
November 8, 2025 at 12:04 PM
‘Out of the vortex, rifling the air it came—bright,
brass-shod, Pandoran; with all-filling screaming the howl-
ing crescendo’s up-piling snapt. The universal world,
breath held, one half second, a bludgeoned stillness.’ — David Jones, ‘In Parenthesis’ (1937) #BookWormSat
🎨 David Jones
brass-shod, Pandoran; with all-filling screaming the howl-
ing crescendo’s up-piling snapt. The universal world,
breath held, one half second, a bludgeoned stillness.’ — David Jones, ‘In Parenthesis’ (1937) #BookWormSat
🎨 David Jones
Really like the new Florence + the Machine album.
November 7, 2025 at 9:11 PM
Really like the new Florence + the Machine album.
Reposted by Paul Robichaud
A little reminder about this wonderful event, which I will be acting as host for!
Join us online at 7pm on Tuesday 25 November for the launch of A Letter to the Dead by Lynette Roberts.
Editors Patrick McGuiness and Charles Mundye will hold an evening of reading and discussion around the new collection.
For information and tickets, see here:
www.carcanet.co.uk/events/a-let...
Editors Patrick McGuiness and Charles Mundye will hold an evening of reading and discussion around the new collection.
For information and tickets, see here:
www.carcanet.co.uk/events/a-let...
A Letter to the Dead by Lynette Roberts: Carcanet Online Launch
Join us to celebrate the online book launch of A Letter to the Dead: Collected Poems by Lynette Roberts, hosted by Francesca Brooks.
www.carcanet.co.uk
November 7, 2025 at 3:36 PM
A little reminder about this wonderful event, which I will be acting as host for!
‘In cutting literature programs, universities like my former institution are dismantling the intellectual infrastructure that enables young people, and particularly the least advantaged, to become critical subjects capable of engaging with the all-too-many systems of power around them.’
Literature Is Not a Vibe: On ChatGPT and the Humanities | Los Angeles Review of Books
Rachele Dini discusses OpenAI’s “A Machine-Shaped Hand” and an academic sector in crisis.
lareviewofbooks.org
November 7, 2025 at 1:36 PM
‘In cutting literature programs, universities like my former institution are dismantling the intellectual infrastructure that enables young people, and particularly the least advantaged, to become critical subjects capable of engaging with the all-too-many systems of power around them.’
Reposted by Paul Robichaud
It’s William Stukeley’s birthday 🎂 His landscape views are often just as interesting as the drawings of monuments - here’s his Prospect of Kits Coty House in Oct 1722
November 7, 2025 at 8:35 AM
It’s William Stukeley’s birthday 🎂 His landscape views are often just as interesting as the drawings of monuments - here’s his Prospect of Kits Coty House in Oct 1722
If the workplace has been ruined I'm pretty sure it's because of corporate greed and, in the case of higher education, the intrusion of corporate values into a space that should be dedicated to research, teaching, and learning.
November 6, 2025 at 5:38 PM
If the workplace has been ruined I'm pretty sure it's because of corporate greed and, in the case of higher education, the intrusion of corporate values into a space that should be dedicated to research, teaching, and learning.
That time of the academic year when I start contacting students to recommend dropping the course to avoid an F on their transcript is not my favourite, but I can't conjure a grade out of nothing.
November 6, 2025 at 1:53 PM
That time of the academic year when I start contacting students to recommend dropping the course to avoid an F on their transcript is not my favourite, but I can't conjure a grade out of nothing.
‘There was a sense of intolerable loveliness, of brimming life, of rapture. The thousand faces lifted like a cloud. They heard the piping close. And so He came.’ — Algernon Blackwood, ‘The Touch of Pan’ (1917)
🎨Arnold Böcklin, ‘Idyll’ (detail), 1875.
🎨Arnold Böcklin, ‘Idyll’ (detail), 1875.
November 6, 2025 at 11:50 AM
‘There was a sense of intolerable loveliness, of brimming life, of rapture. The thousand faces lifted like a cloud. They heard the piping close. And so He came.’ — Algernon Blackwood, ‘The Touch of Pan’ (1917)
🎨Arnold Böcklin, ‘Idyll’ (detail), 1875.
🎨Arnold Böcklin, ‘Idyll’ (detail), 1875.