Jeremy Wikeley
@jwikeley.bsky.social
180 followers 200 following 96 posts
✍ A Poetry Notebook ⤵️ https://jwikeley.substack.com/
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jwikeley.bsky.social
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
Reposted by Jeremy Wikeley
jwikeley.bsky.social
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
Reposted by Jeremy Wikeley
ianduhig.bsky.social
"Is it dusk yet?" ask the Minervan owls impatiently, itching to spread their wings.

Photo of Nouvelle-Aquitaine clock tower by Bianco Da Vinci
jwikeley.bsky.social
NB if you don't mind following me back, I will DM with another 'coincidence' that's been bugging me (different poet).
jwikeley.bsky.social
Remarkable! It is just possible that it's the obvious (far too obvious) image. But that is probably too charitable.
jwikeley.bsky.social
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
jwikeley.bsky.social
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
jwikeley.bsky.social
New from me in this week's Spectator. It's about decluttering.
Reposted by Jeremy Wikeley
sdp.bsky.social
“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...
Reposted by Jeremy Wikeley
jwassers.bsky.social
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
Reposted by Jeremy Wikeley
northamptonian.bsky.social
‘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.
jwikeley.bsky.social
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
jwikeley.bsky.social
Different times, different times...
jwikeley.bsky.social
"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
jwikeley.bsky.social
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.
jwikeley.bsky.social
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
jwikeley.bsky.social
Belatedly, thank you
Reposted by Jeremy Wikeley
jonathangibbs.bsky.social
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.
A small yellow paperback with its title bottom right (The Little Review) and its issue and price top left (No. 1 / £5). The back cover, with a partial table of contents and contributor list:

A story by Rilke in English for the first time p.11
Into the hills with RS Thomas p.63
K Patrick on sex & desire p.106
The filth on Sam Rivierés laptop p.116
Betjeman & Bishop: speed demons p.118
A bad oyster with Diane Seuss p.122
NEW WRITING BY: Maria Stepanova, Luke Kennard, Mona Arshi, Alex Wong, Karen Solie, Eric Yip, Holly Hopkins, David Wheatley, Fran Lock, Timothy Donnelly, Anja Konig, Ira Lightman, Vona Groarke, John McCullough, Tamar Yoseloff & more