@cormacculkeen
Poet, writer, devourer of books. Amused/ bemused at the state of modern life. Fond of collecting malapropisms. Founding Editor of Ragaire literary magazine. Chipping away at a novel and second poetry collection. Prizes kindness.
Really grateful to chat about Zappa with the @jeffreystarr.com podcast, including whether his satire was successful and his political legacy. And it's a rare video podcast appearance from me! Check it out! "Frank Zappa's America" is out now via @lsupress.bsky.social!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUyG...
“And if you need a real shot in the arm to get you laughing and smiling again, just remember that I could trip down a flight of stairs in my own ultra-plush luxury high-rise this very night and shatter my skull right there. Isn’t that great?”
John Carpenter's The Thing is a Christmas movie. So there.
Nice analysis of AI’s current writing style.
It most certainly is. Sorry British public, but you're bang out of order.
Folks, Ragaire is open for submissions for Issue 5! Send us your best poems, short stories and essays! We can't wait to read them!
Oops! This is what happens when your little niece grabs your phone without you noticing. I haven't had a fit or anything.
H jngd the fdhnnvdssr
one of the biggest mistakes of the past 20 years is the idea that everyone has something interesting to say and should get to say it
Good morning and on this 'Blue Friday.'
If you are able, please do buy your books from bricks and mortar bookshops or: Bookshop.org.uk
They pay all their taxes and don't waste money on phallic space dreams.
@thebookseller.com
Repeat: I will not allow Liverpool FC to ruin my mood on my holiday.
You know what? It might be time to put the Beatles away, at least if this article and what's coming down the pipe is anything to go by. There are other bands. There are other artists. Stop with the nostalgia.
“Forget the myths the media has created about the White House. The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.”
1972/2025
Carl Sagan, writing in 1995, warned that soon America would be ruled by illiterate elites wielding “awesome technological powers,” and that most people, their brains broken by screens, would be unable to resist. We are living in the nightmare that Sagan foresaw.
The diarrhoea is real.
What a day. Two poems in the latest splendid edition of Causeway, and then three poems in the equally splendid Autumn issue of Southlight that I was completely unaware had been accepted. I might put them up in due course. Grab copies, they're great publications.
#poetrymagazines
For those asking for background - I was in Sudan twice this year and wrote about it
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...
I'll tell you something. You can tell a lot about a person if they're left alone with a sheet of bubble wrap.
‘That ballroom looks pretty cool though, eh dad?’
‘Shut up, son’
Having not watched anything in TV land for the longest time, I gotta say Task, with Mark Ruffalo, is fab. It's like a Russell Banks or Larry Brown novel. Tense and violent and often unexpectedly moving.
Tired but buzzing. I won second prize in the Frances Browne Poetry Competition 2025 for my poem, Meteor. I'm a happy chappie!
Well, it's official. After our paper last year (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....), the Slender-billed Curlew is officially declared Extinct today.
Scientists dream of describing new species, not writing their obituary and epitaph, knowing that they are gone forever #ornithology
What's clever about the old Irish carved turnip heads is they capture perfectly the makers' disgust at the commercialisation of Halloween.
Very, very sad to learn of Brian Patten's death today. Gargling With Jelly changed my life when I was 11, and his poems always got to me at various points in life. Thank you.
This joint press conference makes me want to take a baseball bat to the television. Absolutely sickening.
“Poets are the ones who can describe the guts of life. We have to use the language so demandingly, just to minimally preserve what makes us human. And you have to practice.”
-- C.D. Wright
