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J. R. Carpenter

@jrcarpenter

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artist. writer. PLA licensed mudlark. books: @shearsmanbooks @pamenarpress @brokensleepbooks @pennedinthemargins @longbarrowpress @uniformbooks

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shore thing — my new poetry pamphlet about mudlarking on the River Thames was published by Ottawa-based above/ground press today, with cover art by @theorumsby. if anyone in the UK wants to buy a copy directly from me to save on overseas postage, that can be arranged. £5 including postage. for a very up close view of the Thames foreshore.

orders from elsewhere in the world are best made through above/ground press, run by @rob_mclennan_writer https://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2026/05/new-from-aboveground-press-shore-thing.html

I am an underling. a shore thing.

scanning. eying. sliding. overing.

chalk cobble. and flint nodule.

pebble. pebble. pebble. gravel.

pebble. gravel. oyster shell. brick.

brick. brick. brick. until click.

the blue of something.

smoothed by hand.

#mudlarking #smallpress #poetry #riverthames by @jrcarpenter

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5 months ago

p a u s e — my new poetry collection — is available for order directly from @brokensleepbooks .

In p a u s e. J. R. Carpenter turns the simple act of going for a walk into a radical practice of attention. Written over the course of a year of daily encounters with kisiskâciwanisîpiy (the North Saskatchewan River) as it runs through amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton) in Treaty 6 Territory, this long poem listens closely to water and weather, birds and trees, mudstone and ice, while never forgetting that no geology, no language, and no river are neutral.

Written in short, breath-like fragments, p a u s e. drifts between field note, love poem, and land acknowledgement, refusing settled as a genre. Fossils, wildfire haze, trumpeter swans, city traffic, and pandemic loneliness all pass through its pages, as the poem keeps returning to one insistent question: what happens when we treat noticing as a form of care, and listening as a way of giving something back.

see @brokensleepbooks for more details: https://www.brokensleepbooks.com/product-page/j-r-carpenter-p-a-u-s-e

#pause #ecopoetry #smallpress #walking #attention #kisiskâciwanisîpiy #amiskwacîwâskahikan #treaty6 #yeg by @jrcarpenter

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10 months ago

Measures of Weather. my next poetry collection. a long time in the making. finally coming out in February 2025. which is suddenly weirdly soon. with gorgeous blurbs from Peter Jager, @alyciap_ & @cherry_melancholic — if anyone wants to review, please get in touch with me and/or the publisher @shearsmanbooks — likewise, invite us to your spring readings, festivals, and so on.
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the last few photos show recent weather out my study window.
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#weather #measuresofweather #poetry #ecopoetry #smallpress #publishing #books #bookstagram #rainbow #bluesky #skyscape #view by @jrcarpenter

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2 years ago

this mesolithic flint core flake was taken in for recording by the Portable Antiquities Scheme last week. it is a tool, or the beginnings of one, made by human hands 6000-4000 years ago, or so. after the last ice age, but before farming was really a thing. and found again on the Thames foreshore a wee while back.

a license is required to mudlark on the Thames foreshore

#mudlark #mudlarking #mesolithic #flintknapping #riverthames taken in London by @jrcarpenter

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a day ago

it’s always a pleasure reporting mudlarking finds to @findsorguk at Kirkstall Abbey, a 40 minute walk from my house along the Leeds-Liverpool canal. the road to Leeds used to run right through the ruins of the nave of the church. you can still see places where passers-by scratched their initials on the stone pillars. my FLO took in 13 items for recording today, including 3 pieces of worked flint. #mudlarking #mudlarkingfinds #kirkstallabbey #westyorkshire taken in Kirkstall Abbey by @jrcarpenter

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6 days ago

LEEDS!
We are celebrating Tom Branfoot's poetry debut with a book launch party at HPBC on 23rd Oct. Tom will be joined by guest readers J.R. Carpenter @jrcarpenter and David Dobson @david_dobson_.

Hyde Park Book Club, Leeds @hydeparkbookclub
Friday 23 October, 7-10pm
£6.99 entry, redeemable towards book purchase (ticket link in bio)

Tom Branfoot's debut poetry collection explores nature during a time of political crisis, drawing its title from the Middle English use of 'volatile' to name birds and other winged creatures. Pulling apart what it means to dwell, habitat loss appears synonymous with eviction, and birds become fellow travellers in our precarious present. by @jrcarpenter

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8 days ago

it’s been a strange summer. in between travel. heat here. heat there. and drought. cabbage butterflies. lupin aphids. lavender. and roses. now it’s rainbow season again. back to work again. first of the tomatoes. come lately. and the last of the nasturtiums. not pictured. #gardening #measuresofweather #backtoachool #leeds taken in Leeds UK by @jrcarpenter

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10 days ago

we find thousands of aglets on the Thames foreshore, small metal tips affixed to the end of ribbons or laces to keep them from fraying and to aid in threading laces through holes. this same basic technique has been around for thousands of years. last weekend I found a modern metal aglet in the graveyard above Whitby where Lucy becomes a vampire in Stoker’s Dracula. the second photo shows an aglet found on a recent night lark on the Thames, about 400 years older but otherwise. the same. #mudlarking #aglet #whitby #dracula taken in Whitby Abbey by @jrcarpenter

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14 days ago

are you fossiling? a booming voice. I’ve heard all morning. an angler. in hip waders. calling a racing dog to heel. and failing. to curb. such enthusiasm. brimming. over a wide shelf. of shale bedrock. laid bare. by tide. now turning. the booming voice. now directed at me. up in the ironstone boulders. aye, I say, bracing. for the onslaught. of show off. men. in love with explanation. accost me with factoids. once or twice a tide. but once we’ve established. we’ve got the same rocks in our pockets. this exchange turns into a sharing of deep local information. I fall into step with the angler and another older fellow, who regales me with tall tales of local fossil finds. pronouncing ichthyosaur itchy-sore. saying, I can say it how I wants cause I’ve got one, he says. fair enough. we are the only three wellies wearers for miles. walking orthogonal to the long diagonals. to each their own technique. for fishing in the fissures. for fossilised sea creatures and their relatives, the rather more recent. where the tide pools. where the shale breaks. I grew up farming and fishing. inshore. lobstering, in season. so long ago. and long gone now. I don’t often think of it. but I reckon. that explains a thing or two. #fossils #fossilhunting #beachcombing #tidepools #northyorkshire taken in Saltwick Bay by @jrcarpenter

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16 days ago

we tend to think of erratics as massive boulders. displaced by glaciers. or I do, anyway. because there was one on the farm I was born on. and another at my grandmother’s house, which was in another country. confusing for a kid. erratics come in all sizes. see that slope at the top of the cliff? that’s glacial till. a loose jumble of mud, rock, and gravel picked up from elsewhere in the last glaciation and then dumped here when the glaciers retreated. this rock I’m holding fell down out of the till. fossilised coral in lower carboniferous limestone on a jurassic beach. 150 million year gap there. as a migrant, I find this very relatable. #fossils #fossilhunting #erratic #northyorkshirecoast taken in Saltwick Bay by @jrcarpenter

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16 days ago

oh just a little gentle breaking rocks open with a hammer session before going back to teaching. this ammonite is Jurassic, Upper Toarcian, around 175 million years old. #fossilhunting #fossils #jurassic #ammonite #northyorkshirecoast taken in Whitby by @jrcarpenter

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17 days ago

resting cliff face. except, I don’t seem to know what rest is. on the go all summer. what I love is searching. so I’m always researching. which is also my job. so that’s confusing. hence the excess. of annual leave. I’m supposed to be using. everyone else in Whitby seems to understand holiday. even the fossils are in motion. Jurassic tides rippled sandy beaches. the occasional tree. or massive fern. fell in the water. worms, shrimps, and diverse bivalves churned up seabed sediments to recycle nutrients. belemnites were squid-like creatures. that out-swam their skeletons. ammonites were also squid-like. a sharp beak. and tentacles. all that motion. set in stone. the word rest comes from French, rester, to stay. which is to say. rest. and all the rest of it. #holidays #fossils #jurassiccoast #whitby #northyorkshire taken in Whitby by @jrcarpenter

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19 days ago