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brighton_skye

@brighton_skye

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Highly commended, published poet & writer.
Shortlisted for Canterbury’s Poet of the Year 2026
Featured on B&H busses
Writing for @lilithslairsapphic

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So so thrilled to have now been shortlisted for Canterbury Festival’s Poet of the Year for my poem Sex With Dead People/Pomegranate.

I never thought I’d get longlisted, so to have been shortlisted has blown me away.

I’m so proud of my little poem and can’t wait to share it with you when I can.

Credit for this image goes to @uri_cavari and for @rebeccacormackart for asking me to model her stunning and impactful jewellery.
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KEYWORDS: poet poetry shortlisted writer competition Kent Brighton Canterbury by @brighton_skye

Honoured to have my poem Dead Wake, commended in the South Downs Poetry Competition.

Dedicated to my beloved Simon, from his PK. I have no doubt he had a hand in the judging process. Thank you for believing in my writing long before I could.

I shall share my highly commended poem soon. 🖤

Dead Wake

I mourned you a
decade
before you died.
Slept in your indent,
now raised round
stricken bones. Still clinging
to the catch in your voice
in that one recorded call.
The lilies were long dry,
hung,
quartered.
Sympathies moved next door.
For ten years, I lived for
heart
stop
moments
when mirage took your form.
When I heard the news, it felt
late,
almost passé.
Walked your wake
arrogant.
After all, I had practice
—only to find grief
a renewable source. by @brighton_skye

I’ve never been very good at keeping up with a personal Instagram. I tend to favour whichever business pages I’m building/running at the time.

I’ve always been so passionate about what I’m doing that I let it become the biggest part of my personhood.

In the past, this has resulted in major losses of identity with big work changes. Oh, what a whirlwind it’s all been…one day I’ll write a memoir!

However, I’ve been working so hard in private on my own work, my life’s work, my writing, and I realised I should probably have a place to share that.

And what better way to crawl back to this Instagram than with this picture of me in my wonderful, award-winning friend’s work, which aims to create conversation around the objectification of women.

Thank you @rebeccacormackart for asking me to model and allowing me to be a small part of your own journey.

Soon, I’ll be sharing two of my poems, Today I Am Not a Writer and Dead Wake, which were awarded Highly Commended and Commended respectively in the 2026 Binsted Prize, South Downs Poetry Competition.

#writer #poet #poetsofinstagram #writersofinstagram #highlycommended by @brighton_skye

This year has been a year of two halves. Some incredible wins alongside devastating losses.

At some point I’ll tell you more about it all.

The last fortnight alone has seen an A+E visit, major health wobbles, finally getting to the end of 600 submissions for the new voices of Lilith’s Lair (a step forward I hope is going to majorly impact the business), half-term and holidays, work on a film set and receiving actual real life money from a publishing company for something I wrote.

YES, IT’S THE FIRST TIME AND I TOOK A SCREENSHOT OF THE NOTIFICATION WHICH I MAY OR MAY NOT FRAME.

So, so thrilled to let you all know that in 2027, my dystopian short story I Swim will be available to buy ‘anywhere you buy your books’. 😭

Let’s hope there’s more of these steps forward in 2027, and a few less of the wobbles along the way.

I can’t wait to tell you more x by @brighton_skye

Happy October 🎃

Have I done literally anything with the new Substack I created? You can bet your bottom dollar I have…not!

But I have been writing. Currently in a stand off with a poem about reincarnation and writing a short story for a Fem Noir call out for a horror anthology - I felt inspired.

And I’ve been trying

and trying

to make pie. by @brighton_skye

What an incredible experience to have been shortlisted for Canterbury Festivals Poet of the Year.

I’m so grateful to the three judges for what they saw in my work and for their comments on my poem.

A huge congratulations to all longlisted, shortlisted and winning poems, all so so deserved.

An anthology of these poems is now available to buy from the Canterbury Festival website. by @brighton_skye

Another birthday week done, I can’t believe I have an 8 year old!

And not just any 8 year old. An 8 year old who came out as ‘goth’ earlier this year, chose going to Camden over a kids party and spent his birthday money on new clothes from Cyberdog and about 1000 spikey bracelets.

His favourite present was the tattoo arm coverings I got him 🤣

You keep doing you buddy! 🖤 by @brighton_skye

Feel utterly blessed that my poem No Good Time to Be a Poet has been Highly Commended by the Shelley Memorial Project Poetry Competition!

Writing this poem was…an experience. It was the first poem I wrote for a specific competition with its own theme.

I stumbled on the competition late so was writing to a very strict deadline. However, I cannot be responsible for what themes inspire from me and for the theme ‘liberation’ I was apparently compelled to write an entire dystopian short story 🫠

It was my first time writing a full narrative poem and trying to fit it into 40 lines (most poetry competitions have a 40 line limit) nearly killed me 😆

With so much story, I leaned into rhyme to distinguish it further from prose and liked the juxtaposition of the simple rhymes and sing-song form with the darker dystopian themes of the poem.

Since receiving it back, I’ve given it some breathing room and edited parts of it I felt needed more work.

A massive thank you to the judge for seeing it’s potential 🥹

Thank you to @melaniebellwrites for reading an early draft of this poem in a writing sesh and giving me some feedback 🙏

And to my pops for being my protagonist! by @brighton_skye

Pip.

Upon seeing how the core, split open on one side was still pink, I wanted to save it.
Although

the rest was mulch. What had appeared soft-solid, liquifying beneath flicker-light finger
grip.

I tried the usual sources of course. Searching a small square of light in the darkness.
Asking,

Can something good ever come from what is rotten? Pressed into palm, the part I
could

still believe in and travelled to the furthest garden on the map, hoping the earth less
contaminated.

Soothed the burn of words
never gotten.

Took a fistful of dirt

and swallowed it. by @brighton_skye

Cat yoga 🐈 by @brighton_skye

Green No Longer Suits Me

She drags two cases through the hotel lobby, plush buttocks swinging to the rhythm –mine laden with an all-you-can-eat breakfast.

Her fingers reach for button, mine pine for freedom.
Secretly, I want to clip it,

I used to sway with the breeze too, once, could keep up with the seedlings.

Want to hold her by leaf until she listens,
but what good would it do?

Didn’t the wind always whisper what I wasn’t?
Even as I danced for it.
Exhausted.

Before I learned how to root into the earth

And let a billow pass me by.

#poem #poetry #poetsofinstagram #writer by @brighton_skye

Gestation

It grows in stillness, turning everything to slow laboured breath. Weeks drag into swollen months, limbs stretching tender skin with waiting. Groaning with fullness, promise presses, heavy and weighted and moaning. And just as we willed it, the sky is split

in two, we dance drenched

as wilted summer

takes to bed.

#poetry #poetsofinstagram #brightonpoet #writer #poet by @brighton_skye