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Clare Best

@clarebest.bsky.social

470 followers 270 following 18 posts

reading, looking, listening carefully; paying attention; writing clarebest.co.uk also @cbestphd.bsky.social posting bits and pieces around my doctoral research #poetry #memoir #lifewriting #teachingwriting #CSA #OUPGR #opera #libretto #materialculture

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Clare Best @clarebest.bsky.social · Dec 4

15 years since HappenStance published ‘Treasure Ground’ - my first poetry pamphlet.

On 11 Dec it’ll be 18 years since my risk-reducing bilateral mastectomies, wh inspired ‘Excisions’ (Waterloo Press 2011) & ‘Breastless’ (Pighog 2011).

Gratitude: a powerful emotion. I declare it here, today. 🙏🏻

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Finished Creatures Poetry Magazine @finishedpoetry.bsky.social · Aug 1

Submissions are now open for issue nine. The theme is Trespass: rights and wrongs; encroachment and colonisation; faults and forgiveness. Please see the website (link in bio) for information and guidelines. Window closes August 31st. 🕊 xx

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Clare Best @clarebest.bsky.social · Jul 30

#home

Clare Best @clarebest.bsky.social · May 23

Gorgeous miniature binding by Gabrielle Fox of my poem ‘The bookbinder’ - what a gift!
#finebookbinding #miniaturebooks

Clare Best @clarebest.bsky.social · Apr 4

buzz buzz 💚

Reposted by Clare Best

North Sea Poets @northseapoets.bsky.social · Mar 31

New post on #Substack from @johnglenday.bsky.social

Robert Frost's Eyebrows – John Glenday on words, syllables and cadence.

#NorthSeaPoets #PoetryCommunity

A description of John Glenday's latest North Sea Poets Substack against a green background.

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David Bowie News @davidbowienews.bsky.social · Mar 9

Competition - Win copies of new book 'Bowie Land - Walking In The Footsteps of David' by Peter Carpenter.

Competition – Win copies of new book ‘Bowie Land – Walking In The Footsteps of David’ by Peter Carpenter

From Beckenham to Berlin, Peter Carpenter’s captivating tribute to David Bowie takes the reader on a mesmerising meander through the places that played a significant role in the music icon&#8…

www.davidbowienews.com

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Clare Best @clarebest.bsky.social · Mar 24

little brushes of larch 💚

Reposted by Clare Best

Scottish Poetry Library @byleaveswelive.bsky.social · Mar 18

North Sea Poets is shaping up to be a vital new collaborative poetry project. Writing on their #Substack at northseapoets.substack.com is superb.

How could it not be when NSP is written/run by Kathleen Jamie, Niall Campbell, Don Paterson, Karen Solie, John Glenday, Lisa Brockwell, Lesley Harrison.

North Sea Poets @northseapoets.bsky.social · Mar 17

New post on #Substack 📰

The book all poets should read (but almost none have)

@lisabrockwell.bsky.social reflects on a book that changes how we think of poetry 📚

#NorthSeaPoets #Poetry #PoetryCommunity

A description of Lisa Brockwell's substack post about Margaret Magnus' Gods of the Word. The description is set against a photo of a book with a teal cover in amongst purple flowers.

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Lily Dunn @lilydunn.bsky.social · Feb 28

My next book, INTO BEING: will be published by MUP in October and I can now share the cover - it is part memoir, part teaching manual for those of you who love writing. It is one of the only books in the UK to focus on the craft of #memoir. Pre-order manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526179258/

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Longbarrow Press @longbarrowpress.bsky.social · Feb 26

Special offer from Longbarrow Press: any 3 hardbacks for £32. Includes collections by Steve Ely, Angelina D'Roza, Rob Hindle, Peter Riley, Nancy Gaffield, Mark Goodwin, Matthew Clegg, Fay Musselwhite, 'The Footing' anthology, and more

longbarrowpress.com/current-publ...

Ten Longbarrow hardbacks, arranged diagonally, spines facing outwards.

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Clare Best @clarebest.bsky.social · Feb 26

Yesterday made a ⚡️ trip to Lewes to hear Neil Gower talk for LewesLitSoc about a life’s work with graphic art, books, maps, + his own writing.

So moving to see Neil’s art for ‘The Missing List’ among the images projected. I love what he created & I’m so happy to have his painting on my study wall.

Clare Best @clarebest.bsky.social · Feb 22

I’m reading Mountainish atm and loving it 🙏🏻

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Clare Best @clarebest.bsky.social · Feb 21

My review of Robert Hamberger’s latest collection – for The Friday Poem

open.substack.com/pub/thefrida...

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A. E. Stallings @aestallings.bsky.social · Feb 20

Tomorrow!

Faculty of English, University of Oxford @engfac.bsky.social · Feb 20

TOMORROW (21 Feb) - please join us for the next Professor of Poetry lecture by A.E. Stallings @aestallings.bsky.social. This is a public lecture and all are welcome! No booking required.

When? 5.30pm on 21 Feb
Where? Examination Schools, Oxford

#Cavafy #poetrylovers #Oxfordevents #PoetrySky

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Clare Shaw @clareshawpoet.bsky.social · Feb 14

Wishing you a happy mid February, with the help of the five-year-olds of Keswick.

kimmoore30.substack.com/p/love-and-o...

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Clare Best @clarebest.bsky.social · Feb 15

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Clare Best @clarebest.bsky.social · Feb 13

Good to meet you here Sarah. I’ll be posting more of this kind of thing (and on my research) over @cbestphd.bsky.social

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Clare Best @clarebest.bsky.social · Feb 13

Yes, a 3D poem!

Reposted by Clare Best

John McCullough @mrjohnmccullough.bsky.social · Feb 12

Love continues. Poem by Robert Hershon (1936-2021) originally published in Poetry Northwest, Autumn 2000.

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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · Feb 12

A single word can be a lie. For example, journalists are still calling what Musk and his child army have been doing an operation in pursuit of government efficiency.... www.meditationsinanemergency.com/to-use-their...

To Use Their Language Is to Endorse Their Lies

Every crisis is in part a storytelling crisis, and the current one here in the US is also a language crisis. How we use the language and how we listen for lies that are in single words and phrases as ...

www.meditationsinanemergency.com

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Clare Best @clarebest.bsky.social · Feb 13

this is my mother’s cloth tape measure, and the embroidered felt case (complete with tiny button and button loop!) that she made as a schoolgirl in the mid-1930s… a wonderful small reminder of an age of handmade detail in everyday objects – bringing so much pleasure still 😌

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Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla.bsky.social · Feb 10

This is what should be on every front page right now. What's happening in the US right now is an illegal power grab by a private citizen. IT'S A COUP.

It's a digital coup. It's Musk who's leading it. The consequences are terrifying. And it's coming for us next.
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open.substack.com/pub/broligar...

IT IS A COUP

This is what should be on every front page in 150 point banner headlines. All I have is this Substack but I lay it beneath your feet and pray to a higher power that I'm wrong.

open.substack.com

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Kit de Waal @kitdewaal.com · Feb 9

The Bridport Prize is offering two fully funded writer residencies in Dorset for writers from The Midlands and/or The North West of the UK who are working class and/or 60+

From Sunday 22 to Friday 27 June 2025. Writers must be available for the whole period.

Details in link.

Please share :)

New! Fully funded writer residencies Working class and/or 60+ - Bridport Prize

bridportprize.org.uk

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Bad Lilies @badlilies.bsky.social · Feb 8

Things feel quite grim in the world. Poetry, as with much else, is battered by the elements: the doers struggle against the odds, while our thinkers are befuddled. But you know what? Bad Lilies returns later this month and we start typesetting TOMORROW. 😎

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Clare Best @clarebest.bsky.social · Feb 8

🙏🏻 - just seen this! so lovely to see you and grand to read in Lewes again 😌