Many thanks to the poets who took part in the #EcoSonnetChain:
#LindaFrance, #EmmaMust, @calebparkinpoet.bsky.social, #AnnSophieBalzer, @janeburn.bsky.social, #TishaniDoshi, #JemmaBorg, @jsaphra.bsky.social, #JacobPolley, @sophieherx.bsky.social, @helenmort.bsky.social, #SteveEly, & #GlynMaxwell.
#LindaFrance, #EmmaMust, @calebparkinpoet.bsky.social, #AnnSophieBalzer, @janeburn.bsky.social, #TishaniDoshi, #JemmaBorg, @jsaphra.bsky.social, #JacobPolley, @sophieherx.bsky.social, @helenmort.bsky.social, #SteveEly, & #GlynMaxwell.
August 18, 2025 at 11:45 AM
Many thanks to the poets who took part in the #EcoSonnetChain:
#LindaFrance, #EmmaMust, @calebparkinpoet.bsky.social, #AnnSophieBalzer, @janeburn.bsky.social, #TishaniDoshi, #JemmaBorg, @jsaphra.bsky.social, #JacobPolley, @sophieherx.bsky.social, @helenmort.bsky.social, #SteveEly, & #GlynMaxwell.
#LindaFrance, #EmmaMust, @calebparkinpoet.bsky.social, #AnnSophieBalzer, @janeburn.bsky.social, #TishaniDoshi, #JemmaBorg, @jsaphra.bsky.social, #JacobPolley, @sophieherx.bsky.social, @helenmort.bsky.social, #SteveEly, & #GlynMaxwell.
Poems were posted online every fortnight; poets included Anne-Marie Balzer, Jemma Borg, @janeburn.bsky.social, Tishani Doshi, Steve Ely, @sophieherx.bsky.social, Glyn Maxwell, @helenmort.bsky.social, Emma Must, @calebparkinpoet.bsky.social, Jacob Polley, & @jsaphra.bsky.social
#EcoSonnetChain (2/3)
#EcoSonnetChain (2/3)
November 21, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Poems were posted online every fortnight; poets included Anne-Marie Balzer, Jemma Borg, @janeburn.bsky.social, Tishani Doshi, Steve Ely, @sophieherx.bsky.social, Glyn Maxwell, @helenmort.bsky.social, Emma Must, @calebparkinpoet.bsky.social, Jacob Polley, & @jsaphra.bsky.social
#EcoSonnetChain (2/3)
#EcoSonnetChain (2/3)
On Valentine’s Day #LindaFrance began our #EcoSonnetChain for which 14 poets each wrote a sonnet linked by last & 1st lines.
She said, ‘Our chain aims to embody the Amazonian ethic of mutirão – collective action based on the understanding everything is connected to everything else.’
(1/3)
She said, ‘Our chain aims to embody the Amazonian ethic of mutirão – collective action based on the understanding everything is connected to everything else.’
(1/3)
November 21, 2025 at 3:05 PM
On Valentine’s Day #LindaFrance began our #EcoSonnetChain for which 14 poets each wrote a sonnet linked by last & 1st lines.
She said, ‘Our chain aims to embody the Amazonian ethic of mutirão – collective action based on the understanding everything is connected to everything else.’
(1/3)
She said, ‘Our chain aims to embody the Amazonian ethic of mutirão – collective action based on the understanding everything is connected to everything else.’
(1/3)
Kathleen McPhilemy’s excellent podcast, ‘Poetry Worth Hearing’, featuring the launch of our #EcoSonnetChain, is now up on Spotify, Audible, and YouTube, introduced by #LindaFrance and featuring readings from almost all participants:
open.spotify.com/episode/1FeZ...
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies
open.spotify.com/episode/1FeZ...
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies
Spotify – Web Player
open.spotify.com
January 28, 2026 at 12:44 PM
Kathleen McPhilemy’s excellent podcast, ‘Poetry Worth Hearing’, featuring the launch of our #EcoSonnetChain, is now up on Spotify, Audible, and YouTube, introduced by #LindaFrance and featuring readings from almost all participants:
open.spotify.com/episode/1FeZ...
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies
open.spotify.com/episode/1FeZ...
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies
Here’s #LindaFrance’s generous and thought-provoking post on the #EcoSonnetChain on her Substack. As she says:
‘Our chain has a cinematic quality – each individual sonnet a scene, directed by another eye.’
open.substack.com/pub/lindafra...
‘Our chain has a cinematic quality – each individual sonnet a scene, directed by another eye.’
open.substack.com/pub/lindafra...
Holy Corona!
...It's an eco-sonnet chain
open.substack.com
September 1, 2025 at 10:23 AM
Here’s #LindaFrance’s generous and thought-provoking post on the #EcoSonnetChain on her Substack. As she says:
‘Our chain has a cinematic quality – each individual sonnet a scene, directed by another eye.’
open.substack.com/pub/lindafra...
‘Our chain has a cinematic quality – each individual sonnet a scene, directed by another eye.’
open.substack.com/pub/lindafra...
Here’s an essay from eco-sonneteer, #JemmaBorg, which argues:
‘Poetry can get past all the kinds of barriers we set up within and between ourselves and between us and what we’ve historically called nature – that which we are embedded in.’
poetsfortheplanet.org.uk/what-do-we-m...
#EcoSonnetChain
‘Poetry can get past all the kinds of barriers we set up within and between ourselves and between us and what we’ve historically called nature – that which we are embedded in.’
poetsfortheplanet.org.uk/what-do-we-m...
#EcoSonnetChain
What do we mean by hope? – Poets for the Planet
poetsfortheplanet.org.uk
August 7, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Here’s an essay from eco-sonneteer, #JemmaBorg, which argues:
‘Poetry can get past all the kinds of barriers we set up within and between ourselves and between us and what we’ve historically called nature – that which we are embedded in.’
poetsfortheplanet.org.uk/what-do-we-m...
#EcoSonnetChain
‘Poetry can get past all the kinds of barriers we set up within and between ourselves and between us and what we’ve historically called nature – that which we are embedded in.’
poetsfortheplanet.org.uk/what-do-we-m...
#EcoSonnetChain
Sophie’s sonnet, #10 in the sequence, brings together the toll of species loss and the parallel threat to social cohesion posed by gentrification by posing the interesting question: what do we mean by ‘common’?
#EcoSonnetChain #NewBootsAndPantisocracies @sophieherx.bsky.social
(3/4)
#EcoSonnetChain #NewBootsAndPantisocracies @sophieherx.bsky.social
(3/4)
June 20, 2025 at 10:09 AM
Sophie’s sonnet, #10 in the sequence, brings together the toll of species loss and the parallel threat to social cohesion posed by gentrification by posing the interesting question: what do we mean by ‘common’?
#EcoSonnetChain #NewBootsAndPantisocracies @sophieherx.bsky.social
(3/4)
#EcoSonnetChain #NewBootsAndPantisocracies @sophieherx.bsky.social
(3/4)
Now that it’s complete, we’d like to thank #LindaFrance for everything she’s done to make the #EcoSonnetChain such a success - it’s our best one yet, and that’s entirely down to her selection and editing nous.
If you’d like to check it out in…
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies (1/3)
If you’d like to check it out in…
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies (1/3)
August 18, 2025 at 9:00 AM
Now that it’s complete, we’d like to thank #LindaFrance for everything she’s done to make the #EcoSonnetChain such a success - it’s our best one yet, and that’s entirely down to her selection and editing nous.
If you’d like to check it out in…
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies (1/3)
If you’d like to check it out in…
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies (1/3)
We completed the #EcoSonnetChain with #GlynMaxwell’s masterful post-apocalyptic fantasia which takes us from 28 Days Later to Catch-22 in less than 14 lines via Python and David ‘all-time low’ Bowie…
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies (1/2)
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies (1/2)
August 16, 2025 at 12:32 PM
We completed the #EcoSonnetChain with #GlynMaxwell’s masterful post-apocalyptic fantasia which takes us from 28 Days Later to Catch-22 in less than 14 lines via Python and David ‘all-time low’ Bowie…
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies (1/2)
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies (1/2)
Very pleased to announce that the final sonnet in our #EcoSonnetChain is by a certain #GlynMaxwell, and it certainly ends the chain with wit, style and… well, see for yourself how/if we escaped our certain fate:
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/08/14/e...
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/08/14/e...
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies
Eco Sonnet #14 – Glyn Maxwell
We’ve made the Earth our mortar, greed our pestle.No one made us do that, no one made usperiod. Not a bang or whimper – a rustleand a bewildered unbelieving doofusplayed by Cillian Murphy in his sc…
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com
August 14, 2025 at 9:38 AM
Very pleased to announce that the final sonnet in our #EcoSonnetChain is by a certain #GlynMaxwell, and it certainly ends the chain with wit, style and… well, see for yourself how/if we escaped our certain fate:
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/08/14/e...
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/08/14/e...
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies
Eco Sonnet # 3 is by @calebparkinpoet.bsky.social and it's alive! It's alive!
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/03/13/e...
#EcoSonnetChain
(3/14)
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/03/13/e...
#EcoSonnetChain
(3/14)
Eco Sonnet Chain # 3 – Caleb Parkin
The thing is beginning to unraveland has come unmoored from its base.Pilfered components a tatty tangleof leathery appendage, exoskeletal casing.First thing, you log the changes overnight:the way t…
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com
March 13, 2025 at 6:22 PM
Eco Sonnet # 3 is by @calebparkinpoet.bsky.social and it's alive! It's alive!
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/03/13/e...
#EcoSonnetChain
(3/14)
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/03/13/e...
#EcoSonnetChain
(3/14)
Number Seven in our #EcoSonnetChain (curated by #LindaFrance) is a tremendous paean to new growth by #JemmaBorg:
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/05/08/e...
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/05/08/e...
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies
Eco Sonnet Chain #7 – Jemma Borg
Time sifting through our fingers, a thrum of light: sublimeelegies of the blackthorn profuse with blossomson bare, dark stems – April’s snow! So the humble shine.And the willows are daw…
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com
May 8, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Number Seven in our #EcoSonnetChain (curated by #LindaFrance) is a tremendous paean to new growth by #JemmaBorg:
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/05/08/e...
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/05/08/e...
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies
Here’s the first in #NewBootsAndPantisocracies’ new #EcoSonnetChain - posted on #ValentinesDay because these are all love poems - written by #LindaFrance, a great advocate and exponent of eco-poetry as well as a fine poet.
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/02/14/e...
(1/14)
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/02/14/e...
(1/14)
Eco Sonnet Chain, 1: Linda France
Whatever you do, do not try to save the world but consider the possibility that the world is here to save you. (Báyò Akómoláfe) next door’s dogs are barking at the wind.the wind barks back. on days…
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com
February 14, 2025 at 4:33 PM
Here’s the first in #NewBootsAndPantisocracies’ new #EcoSonnetChain - posted on #ValentinesDay because these are all love poems - written by #LindaFrance, a great advocate and exponent of eco-poetry as well as a fine poet.
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/02/14/e...
(1/14)
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/02/14/e...
(1/14)
Get your link to the #EcoSonnetChain launch!
We tried sending by bobolink (but they flew away); we approached the wraith of Link Wray (he wouldn’t say); we even left the link on Lincoln Cathedral (in a mystery play).
In the end we thought: just ask folks to just ask @azjackson.bsky.social!
We tried sending by bobolink (but they flew away); we approached the wraith of Link Wray (he wouldn’t say); we even left the link on Lincoln Cathedral (in a mystery play).
In the end we thought: just ask folks to just ask @azjackson.bsky.social!
Just under a week to go till we launch the Eco Sonnet Chain - if you're interested in coming (and I hope you are!) we'll send you a Zoom link...please message me!
December 4, 2025 at 10:11 AM
Get your link to the #EcoSonnetChain launch!
We tried sending by bobolink (but they flew away); we approached the wraith of Link Wray (he wouldn’t say); we even left the link on Lincoln Cathedral (in a mystery play).
In the end we thought: just ask folks to just ask @azjackson.bsky.social!
We tried sending by bobolink (but they flew away); we approached the wraith of Link Wray (he wouldn’t say); we even left the link on Lincoln Cathedral (in a mystery play).
In the end we thought: just ask folks to just ask @azjackson.bsky.social!
“…Our Wandsworth teacher told us
how to tell ‘the black bib male sparrer’
from ‘the laidee one’, in her once common, now rare
south London chant... She’d yell from out
her Clapham grave to hear of sparrers in decline.
‘Parrakeets! You what?’”
@sophieherx.bsky.social #EcoSonnetChain (4/4)
how to tell ‘the black bib male sparrer’
from ‘the laidee one’, in her once common, now rare
south London chant... She’d yell from out
her Clapham grave to hear of sparrers in decline.
‘Parrakeets! You what?’”
@sophieherx.bsky.social #EcoSonnetChain (4/4)
June 20, 2025 at 10:11 AM
“…Our Wandsworth teacher told us
how to tell ‘the black bib male sparrer’
from ‘the laidee one’, in her once common, now rare
south London chant... She’d yell from out
her Clapham grave to hear of sparrers in decline.
‘Parrakeets! You what?’”
@sophieherx.bsky.social #EcoSonnetChain (4/4)
how to tell ‘the black bib male sparrer’
from ‘the laidee one’, in her once common, now rare
south London chant... She’d yell from out
her Clapham grave to hear of sparrers in decline.
‘Parrakeets! You what?’”
@sophieherx.bsky.social #EcoSonnetChain (4/4)
…let’s just hope we’re not quite there yet, if ‘there’ is this vision from Westminster Bridge:
And on Westminster Bridge his brimming sobs
reveal the Earth has pretty much fuck-all
to show more fair, ne’er saw he, never felt
a calm so deep, he’d better find his folks…
#EcoSonnetChain (2/2)
And on Westminster Bridge his brimming sobs
reveal the Earth has pretty much fuck-all
to show more fair, ne’er saw he, never felt
a calm so deep, he’d better find his folks…
#EcoSonnetChain (2/2)
August 16, 2025 at 12:33 PM
…let’s just hope we’re not quite there yet, if ‘there’ is this vision from Westminster Bridge:
And on Westminster Bridge his brimming sobs
reveal the Earth has pretty much fuck-all
to show more fair, ne’er saw he, never felt
a calm so deep, he’d better find his folks…
#EcoSonnetChain (2/2)
And on Westminster Bridge his brimming sobs
reveal the Earth has pretty much fuck-all
to show more fair, ne’er saw he, never felt
a calm so deep, he’d better find his folks…
#EcoSonnetChain (2/2)
Our tenth eco sonnet just alighted on a nearby branch and it’s by @sophieherx.bsky.social. What’s common and what’s no longer so? Birds and language and identity - each under seemingly equal threat:
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/06/19/e...
#EcoSonnetChain #NewBootsAndPantisocracies
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/06/19/e...
#EcoSonnetChain #NewBootsAndPantisocracies
Eco Sonnet #10 – Sophie Herxheimer
It’s bad because we don’t know what will happen.The bush is singing and it shakes with sparrows.Say a sparrowhawk hurls in and decimatesthe flock. Those that live chirp on. Are their shrieksrelief …
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com
June 19, 2025 at 11:58 AM
Our tenth eco sonnet just alighted on a nearby branch and it’s by @sophieherx.bsky.social. What’s common and what’s no longer so? Birds and language and identity - each under seemingly equal threat:
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/06/19/e...
#EcoSonnetChain #NewBootsAndPantisocracies
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/06/19/e...
#EcoSonnetChain #NewBootsAndPantisocracies
We posted @janeburn.bsky.social’s elegy for the extinct golden toad, no.5 in our #EcoSonnetChain, on Thursday as usual/ever, but circumstances dictated that we didn’t get round to sharing here till now:
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/04/10/e...
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/04/10/e...
Eco Sonnet Chain #5 – Jane Burn
She knows herself, although we’ve ceased to sing her name,and it, unspoken, becomes an oubliette –she falls from memory, this cloud forest jewel,her species erased from the book of the world.The gh…
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com
April 12, 2025 at 10:58 AM
We posted @janeburn.bsky.social’s elegy for the extinct golden toad, no.5 in our #EcoSonnetChain, on Thursday as usual/ever, but circumstances dictated that we didn’t get round to sharing here till now:
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/04/10/e...
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/04/10/e...
This week’s #EcoSonnetChain post is by #SteveEly and it is a big, beautiful and (appropriately) terrifying thing:
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/07/17/e...
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/07/17/e...
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies
Eco Sonnet #12 – Steve Ely
Visit the post for more.
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com
July 18, 2025 at 10:57 AM
This week’s #EcoSonnetChain post is by #SteveEly and it is a big, beautiful and (appropriately) terrifying thing:
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/07/17/e...
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/07/17/e...
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies
‘Ghazal Week’ continues in the mandorla formed by the Venn diagram containing #TheGhostFurnitureCatalogue (where, on Monday, we posted the ‘Table Football Ghazal’ by @azjackson.bsky.social) and #NewBootsAndPantisocracies (where, yesterday, we posted this as Sonnet 13 in the #EcoSonnetChain).
August 1, 2025 at 3:44 PM
‘Ghazal Week’ continues in the mandorla formed by the Venn diagram containing #TheGhostFurnitureCatalogue (where, on Monday, we posted the ‘Table Football Ghazal’ by @azjackson.bsky.social) and #NewBootsAndPantisocracies (where, yesterday, we posted this as Sonnet 13 in the #EcoSonnetChain).
The 6th link in our #EcoSonnetChain has now made, and it’s a dazzling meditation on memory, sisterhood, and the scale of geological time by #TishaniDoshi:
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/04/24/e...
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies
@bloodaxebooks.bsky.social
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/04/24/e...
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies
@bloodaxebooks.bsky.social
Eco Sonnet Chain #6 – Tishani Doshi
Fall to the ground. Weep, for the darkness has come.Sister, you and I walk the Rio Grande Rift, down-droppedvaults of red-brown rocks, turquoise river and its hum.Up, quick. Remember the flame tree…
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com
April 24, 2025 at 12:11 PM
The 6th link in our #EcoSonnetChain has now made, and it’s a dazzling meditation on memory, sisterhood, and the scale of geological time by #TishaniDoshi:
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/04/24/e...
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies
@bloodaxebooks.bsky.social
newbootsandpantisocracies.wordpress.com/2025/04/24/e...
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies
@bloodaxebooks.bsky.social
It seems appropriate that Karen Macfarlane’s détournement of #JFK not only fits #Trumpo’s topsy-turvy world view, but that, as we run this series of #ExecutiveDisobediences in parallel with the #EcoSonnetChain, her poem is a sort of inverted sonnet.
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies
May 16, 2025 at 10:20 AM
It seems appropriate that Karen Macfarlane’s détournement of #JFK not only fits #Trumpo’s topsy-turvy world view, but that, as we run this series of #ExecutiveDisobediences in parallel with the #EcoSonnetChain, her poem is a sort of inverted sonnet.
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies
Here’s @janeburn.bsky.social opening the 2nd quatrain of our #EcoSonnetChain corona:
She knows herself, although we’ve ceased to sing her name,
and it, unspoken, becomes an oubliette –
she falls from memory, this cloud forest jewel,
her species erased from the book of the world.
She knows herself, although we’ve ceased to sing her name,
and it, unspoken, becomes an oubliette –
she falls from memory, this cloud forest jewel,
her species erased from the book of the world.
April 12, 2025 at 10:59 AM
Here’s @janeburn.bsky.social opening the 2nd quatrain of our #EcoSonnetChain corona:
She knows herself, although we’ve ceased to sing her name,
and it, unspoken, becomes an oubliette –
she falls from memory, this cloud forest jewel,
her species erased from the book of the world.
She knows herself, although we’ve ceased to sing her name,
and it, unspoken, becomes an oubliette –
she falls from memory, this cloud forest jewel,
her species erased from the book of the world.
Yes, these projects are closely involved with each other, but no, we did not pre-arrange this - sometimes, when you’ve been waiting for a ghazal for long enough, two just happen to come along at the same time.
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies #EcoSonnetChain #GhostFurnitureCatalogue
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies #EcoSonnetChain #GhostFurnitureCatalogue
August 1, 2025 at 3:44 PM
Yes, these projects are closely involved with each other, but no, we did not pre-arrange this - sometimes, when you’ve been waiting for a ghazal for long enough, two just happen to come along at the same time.
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies #EcoSonnetChain #GhostFurnitureCatalogue
#NewBootsAndPantisocracies #EcoSonnetChain #GhostFurnitureCatalogue
Every now and then - and now, fittingly, at #Midsummer - our various projects align and a thin thread of light can be seen to link them. So every other Thursday we post a sonnet from our third chain, and a furniture poem from #GhostFurniturePoetry…
#EcoSonnetChain #NewBootsAndPantisocracies (1/4)
#EcoSonnetChain #NewBootsAndPantisocracies (1/4)
June 20, 2025 at 10:05 AM
Every now and then - and now, fittingly, at #Midsummer - our various projects align and a thin thread of light can be seen to link them. So every other Thursday we post a sonnet from our third chain, and a furniture poem from #GhostFurniturePoetry…
#EcoSonnetChain #NewBootsAndPantisocracies (1/4)
#EcoSonnetChain #NewBootsAndPantisocracies (1/4)