Matt Clegg
LightNews LightNews
eyesfront.bsky.social
Matt Clegg
@eyesfront.bsky.social
170 followers 220 following 180 posts
Poet, pedestrian, pedagogue. Nature connection. Place writing. Tsu jan. Muga. Atarashi. Digital ascetic. Appstinence. Books include: Lost Between Stations, West North East, The Navigators, & Cazique - all from Longbarrow Press: https://longbarrowpress.c
Posts Replies Media Videos
Pinned
eyesfront.bsky.social
Matt Clegg @eyesfront.bsky.social · Sep 15
Sadly, I don't currently have good enough tech to get age-verification through a picture, so I'm unable to use my 'chat' facility. Apologies to those who are trying to message me.
eyesfront.bsky.social
If one habit unites the leaders, inventors, scientists and artists who have forged our civilisation it is reading. Serious readers are over-represented in almost every area of human achievement.

jmarriott.substack.com/p/the-dawn-o...
The dawn of the post-literate society
And the end of civilisation
jmarriott.substack.com
October 26, 2025 at 12:51 PM
eyesfront.bsky.social
Staff were left in tears and there was a "real sadness in the room" when more than 200 University of Derby workers were called to a redundancy meeting earlier this week. It comes after the university announced proposals which could see around 265 staff lose their jobs...

www.msn.com/en-gb/educat...
MSN
www.msn.com
October 21, 2025 at 8:54 AM
eyesfront.bsky.social
A union has said it is balloting for strike action after the University of Derby announced plans that could see more than 200 members of staff made redundant.

The BBC understands the redundancy proposals involve 265 full-time equivalent job losses.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Union ballots for strike action over cuts at the University of Derby
The BBC understands the redundancy proposals involve 265 full-time equivalent job losses.
www.bbc.co.uk
October 18, 2025 at 3:49 PM
eyesfront.bsky.social
On the 'opportunity cost' of Smartphones, 'behavioural contagion', & the new societal norms they produce: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad-s...
The ugly cost of smartphones
YouTube video by The Market Exit
www.youtube.com
October 15, 2025 at 7:36 AM
Reposted by Matt Clegg
uniformbooks.bsky.social
John Bevis, 'Cloud Study'; Dymo tape edition, 1981.
“There is always a danger that the use of any system of names based on types shall lead to the neglect of everything not typical.”—Arthur W. Clayden, Cloud Studies, 1905.
Two white cardboard boxes on a wooden background, with a rolled black Dymo tape label and white text.
October 13, 2025 at 8:38 AM
Reposted by Matt Clegg
poetclare.bsky.social
Climate change though. Absolutely insane lack of panic about this www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Planet’s first catastrophic climate tipping point reached, report says, with coral reefs facing ‘widespread dieback’
Unless global heating is reduced to 1.2C ‘as fast as possible’, warm water coral reefs will not remain ‘at any meaningful scale’, a report by 160 scientists from 23 countries warns
www.theguardian.com
October 13, 2025 at 7:52 AM
Reposted by Matt Clegg
theguardian.com
Voters' voices are being shut out of British politics. Your Party has a radical plan to change that | Jeremy Corbyn
Voters' voices are being shut out of British politics. Your Party has a radical plan to change that | Jeremy Corbyn
At our conference in November we will use a jury service-type model to allow members to discuss and decide policy, strategy and even the name of our party, says Your Party co-leader Jeremy Corbyn
www.theguardian.com
October 13, 2025 at 10:27 AM
eyesfront.bsky.social
'... all going to nowhere,
make no mistake...'

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlYt...
Beth Gibbons - Floating On A Moment (Later... with Jools Holland)
YouTube video by BBC Music
www.youtube.com
October 13, 2025 at 10:33 AM
Reposted by Matt Clegg
junoryleejournalism.com
David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)
SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems... SIMON: What? SHAPIRO: ...Or saying... SIMON: You imagine that? SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over. SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level. SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this. SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.
October 9, 2025 at 4:42 AM
Reposted by Matt Clegg
rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
‘Seventieth Birthday’ - #RSThomas
(Between Here and Now, Macmillan)
#Bardd #Barddoniaeth #Cerdd
#Poet #Poetry #Poem
Text of poem - Seventieth Birthday. Made of tissue and H20, and activated by cells firing - Ah, heart, the legend of your person ! Did I invent it, and is it in being still? In the competition with other women your victory is assured. It is time, as Yeats said, is the caterpillar in the cheek's rose, the untiring witherer of your petals. You are drifting away from me on the whitening current of your hair. I lean far out from the bone's bough, knowing the hand I extend can save nothing of you but your love.
October 12, 2025 at 7:05 AM
Reposted by Matt Clegg
nemoloris.bsky.social
I thought this John Berryman poem, exhumed from an archive by Shane Macrae and published in the TLS, was very fine.
October 11, 2025 at 7:24 PM
Reposted by Matt Clegg
oldnorthroad.bsky.social
Tony Harrison, poet
1937-2025
The last stanzas of Tony Harrison’s poem v, first published in 1985: Next millennium you'll have to search quite hard to find out where I'm buried but I'm near the grave of haberdasher Appleyard, the pile of HARPs, or some new neonned beer. Find Byron, Wordsworth, or turn left between one grave marked Broadbent, one marked Richardson. Bring some solution with you that can clean whatever new crude words have been sprayed on. If love of art, or love, gives you affront that the grave I'm in's graffitied then, maybe, erase the more offensive FUCK and CUNT but leave, with the worn UNITED, one small v. Victory? For vast, slow, coal-creating forces that hew the body's seams to get the soul. Will Earth run out of her 'diurnal courses' before repeating her creation of black coal? But choose a day like I chose in mid-May or earlier when apple and hawthorn tree, no matter if boys boot their ball all day, cling to their blossoms and won't shake them free. If, having come this far, somebody reads these verses, and he/she wants to understand, face this grave on Beeston Hill, your back to Leeds, and read the chiselled epitaph I've planned: Beneath your feet's a poet, then a pit. Poetry supporter, if you're here to find how poems can grow from (beat you to it!) SHIT find the beef, the beer, the bread, then look behind.
September 27, 2025 at 8:11 AM
Reposted by Matt Clegg
simoninsuffolk.bsky.social
Sad to hear of the death of Tony Harrison at the age of 88. He was perhaps the last surviving major English poet of the 20th Century. I posted this on his birthday last year:

x.com/SimoninSuffo...
September 27, 2025 at 10:27 AM
Reposted by Matt Clegg
rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
‘Arriving’ - #RSThomas
(Between Here and Now, Macmillan)
#Cyrraedd #Arriving
#Bardd #Barddoniaeth #Cerdd
#Poet #Poetry #Poem
Text of poem - Arriving. A maze, he said, and at the centre the Minotaur awaits us. There are turnings that are no through road to the fearful. By one I came travelling it like a gallery of the imagination, pausing to look at the invisible portraits of brave men. Their deeds rustled like dry leaves under my tread. The scent of them was the dust we throw in the eyes of the beast.
October 1, 2025 at 7:21 AM
eyesfront.bsky.social
Initial Illumination, by Tony Harrison

poetryarchive.org/poem/initial...
Initial Illumination - Poetry Archive
Farne cormorants with catches in their beaks shower fishscale confetti on the shining sea. The first bright weather here for many weeks for my Sunday G-Day train bound for Dundee, off to St Andrew’s t...
poetryarchive.org
October 1, 2025 at 11:02 AM
eyesfront.bsky.social
nside the Tony Blair Institute: Larry Ellison’s Money, NHS Data, and Democracy at Risk

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JHO...
Inside the Tony Blair Institute: Larry Ellison’s Money, NHS Data, and Democracy at Risk
YouTube video by Democracy for Sale
www.youtube.com
September 29, 2025 at 5:35 AM
Reposted by Matt Clegg
steveeely.bsky.social
Three places left on this guided walk around Ted Hughes's national service landscape. 11.00-3.00, Saturday 4th October. www.eventbrite.com/e/ted-hughes...
September 28, 2025 at 7:10 PM
Reposted by Matt Clegg
rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
‘The Empty Church’ - #RSThomas
(Frequencies, Macmillan)
September 27, 2025 at 7:44 AM
eyesfront.bsky.social
RIP Tony Harrison: the first poet from my home city I read. I remember my first girlfriend calling me downstairs when she saw the re-showing of 'V' in the late 80s. 'There's a poet on TV! He's from Leeds!' The School of Eloquence is his masterpiece, & The Loiners is underprized.
September 27, 2025 at 6:47 PM
Reposted by Matt Clegg
sherrillstroschein.bsky.social
And so everyone needs IDs?
Are they actually saying this?
What?
Starmer says battle with Reform is fight for nations soul
September 26, 2025 at 8:04 PM
eyesfront.bsky.social
Nearly half of UK families excluded from modern digital society, study finds

Exclusive: Lack of online skills and access creates digital divide that amplifies other exclusions, says report

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
Nearly half of UK families excluded from modern digital society, study finds
Exclusive: Lack of online skills and access creates digital divide that amplifies other exclusions, says report
www.theguardian.com
September 26, 2025 at 7:45 PM
Reposted by Matt Clegg
rbreich.bsky.social
trickle down economics
trickle down economic
trickle down economi
trickle down econom
trickle down econo
trickle down econ
trickle down eco
trickle down ec
trickle down e
trickle down
trickle dow
trickle do
trickle d
trickle
trickl
trick
September 17, 2025 at 9:15 PM
Reposted by Matt Clegg
rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
Available for a while on BBC Sounds…
saveredlandlibr.bsky.social Save Redland Library @saveredlandlibr.bsky.social · Sep 16
4pm TODAY on @BBCRadio4

Love’s Moment: RS Thomas and Mildred Eldridge

Often portrayed as a hostile & difficult figure, RS Thomas was also a poet of deep sensitivity. Gwyneth Lewis explores his unusual marriage to the painter Mildred Elsie Eldridge.
BBC Radio 4 - Artworks, Love’s Moment: RS Thomas and Mildred Eldridge
Gwyneth Lewis explores the unusual marriage of poet RS Thomas and artist Mildred Eldridge.
www.bbc.co.uk
September 16, 2025 at 9:27 PM
eyesfront.bsky.social
Can't help feel that Labour's recent strategizing has shifted the Overton Window against their own interests & those of their core voters. The Morgan McSweeney approach seems to melt principles, fog long-term vision, & set up perfect conditions for backlash. It worsens cynicism.
September 17, 2025 at 3:07 PM
eyesfront.bsky.social
I look forward to the peace
conferences of the future
when lies, hidden behind speeches,
shall have their smiles blown away
by the dove’s wings, fanning in silence.

RS Thomas, from ‘One Day’
September 16, 2025 at 7:25 PM