Life Immediately

Born in London in 1993, Lily Blacksell grew up there and on the Isle of Wight. She studied English with Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham and has an MFA in poetry from Columbia University, where she was a teaching fellow. Lily was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best New Poets 2017 whilst living in the US. In 2022, she was shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize and the Oxford Poetry Prize. She was longlisted for the 2024 National Poetry Competition. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Review, Poetry Wales, BOMB Magazine, Boston Review, Bath Magg, Magma, and elsewhere. She runs a poetry and music night called Canon Fodder which she hosts at The Social in London and at Glastonbury Festival. By day, and very often evening, Lily programmes events at The Conduit in Covent Garden, and has previously worked for Southbank Centre and the Royal Society of Literature. She has also taught courses for the Poetry School. She has published two pamphlets, There's No Such Thing (ignition press, 2018) and Stressed, Tested (Rough Trade Books, 2022), with her first book-length collection, Life Immediately, published by Bloodaxe in 2026.

Riotous, creatively quixotic, both funny and deadly serious, Lily Blacksell's poetry is the result of a hyperintelligent imagination striving to find a voice that is as various and playful as the self. A voice 'presenting the play of my skull, intact', which has the marvellous effect of relighting the known world.

• 9 Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye10 Better Things11 Bring Down the Birds12 Hang On14 The Pangs15 Barrels Upright16 Will I Ever18 Compliments Please19 The Ballad of Standing a Chance21 Seamus Heaney’s Eyes Were Small But I Knew a Seamus Whose Eyes Were Bulging22 The One About the Woman Overboard24 Loose Lips25 Hand Claps26 Noontime Newtown28 More Where That Came From29 Ulysses31 Mistral32 Well Done, Emma34 Fear Yourself35 The Causeway37 An Unsuitable Landing Place38 Rude and Natural40 One Day, Maybe Next Week43 The Hell with It44 If You’re Thinking What I’m Thinking47 Lamp Poem48 Even On This Hill50 Royal Jelly52 Toft Barn Dream53 Thus To Be Shifted from One Person to Another54 Four Donkeys in a Paddock56 Mr Right Is Hot Responsibly58 Long Walks in the Dark and Handsome60 Show the Ferret to the Egg62 Pigeon Coo Farm63 Far Be It from Me64 Our Landlady of the Lord Louis68 Frog69 How Can I Make It Taste of Something?70 Glastonbury71 And Then, Let’s Call Her Chloe, Turned Up73 Withying74 Nice and Straight and Tall75 Bounty77 Now You Listen to Me79 I Cannot Expect You to Understand Me Without Examples