John Self

john-self.bsky.social

17 October 2026 13:23

"It’s a measure of the transformative power of Paramaditha’s writing that, despite the horrors in the book, the overall feeling is of exuberance, of energy and of life." Me on Intan Paramaditha's Night of a Thousand Hells, about a family of suicide bombers and the mess they leave behind:

John Harvey

johnbharveywriter.bsky.social

09 October 2026 08:38

Muffled voices carrying faintly from the farthest bank Clouds slowly swallow the horizon till only the ghost of a tower block remains A slow fall of rain freckling the back of my hand from Summer Notebook, Nov '21

Dave Wakely

davewakely.bsky.social

07 October 2026 13:38

A poem just published by @livewirepoetry.org, with many thanks to them. Dedicated to my late mother-in-law (who lived nearby), and with all due apologies to Edward Thomas. #poetry #adlestrop www.instagram.com/p/DeMT2isAogw/

John Harvey

johnbharveywriter.bsky.social

01 October 2026 06:07

@parktheatrelondon.bsky.social Very enjoyable, very well staged & performed play ‘Holy Fool’ about Shostakovich and his clashes with Stalin and state censorship …

John Self

john-self.bsky.social

01 October 2026 06:06

You can read v. (I forgot the title is lower case) here in the LRB, where it was first published in 1985: "These Vs are all the versuses of life from LEEDS v. DERBY, Black/White and (as I’ve known to my cost) man v. wife, Communist v. Fascist, Left v. Right..."