“Make sure you tell the people you love that you love them. Loudly and often. You never know when it might be too late.” - Tom Hiddleston Life is short. In the end, you will wish you published your poetry, or took more photos that take your breath away, or told people you love how much they matter.
When I write Pawsitive News, that's my way of telling you how much I care about you, with the good things I want you to know (before it's too late). It's also how I write poetry.
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MIT students meet to write poetry.A literature professor at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) discovered his students quietly meet outside class to write poetry.Joshua Bennett, Distinguished Chair of the Humanities and a literature professor at MIT, reported:"One of the highlights of my first three years as a literature professor at MIT—and indeed, of my 15-year career as an educator—has been the recent discovery that some of my students, past and present, formed an arts collective: The People’s Poetry. It began, I was told, with the first class I taught at the institute. Several students in the course Reading Poetry: Social Poetics created their own group chat, and eventually started meeting outside of class to write together. Every time I taught a new course, their membership grew."These engineers and scientists in training, from across the world, were gathering to compose and critique poems outside the classroom.In the midst of a technological revolution, while taking on a notoriously difficult courseload, why have they chosen to devote their time to the ancient art of making poems?These kinds of questions are not unprecedented at the institute. In the early 1960s, the reading series Poetry From M.I.T. explored the relationship between a strong technical education and the pursuit of the good and the beautiful. In service of this larger inquiry, the series organizers invited renowned writers such as Robert Penn Warren, Denise Levertov, and Richard Wilbur to campus to share their work."My students bring some version of this exploration into the classroom with striking consistency—most vividly in their observations of how it feels to use poetry to work through our obsessions, our dreams, in times like these. And at a place like this, no less: an elite research university where they spend most of their time working on projects that feel orthogonal to that sort of labor."What if the secret to thriving in an AI-saturated world is not doubling down on what machines do best, but doubling down on what only humans can do?"In a world where AI can generate fluent text in milliseconds, poetry remains gloriously inefficient," says Dr Semih Kumlik, speaker on AI innovation and transformation. "For leaders navigating AI-driven transformation, this is a wake-up call. The future of work won’t belong only to those who code faster, automate deeper, or predict better. It will belong to those who can also create meaning, hold nuance, and honor the inefficiencies that make us human."Matthew Phillon, author of The Indestructibles and Dungeon Crawlers series, shared his experience at a local author event. Despite people using AI to work on their books, he found "the authors were talking about their deep, first-hand research and the sloppy magic that comes from writing organically and the audience was so engaged. Readers don't want some digital turd you had a glorified chatbot spit out. They want real, engaging stories. So as hopeless as it all feels, there's a little kernel of hope for you." |
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[AD] 111 poems & my own. I'd never shown anyone before. I ripped out a piece of my heart from a life-changing chapter in my life. This book was THE place for a poem I wrote. Rhythm: Poetry for Your Soul is a powerful women’s poetry anthology gathering the voices of 111 women from around the world. This unique collection weaves together stories of resilience, empowerment, love, grief, healing, and transformation. Within these pages, you’ll find poems that whisper with tenderness, verses that roar with raw honesty, and lines that ignite with passion and truth. 111 women. 111 voices. Each poem carries its own rhythm, together creating a tapestry of women’s empowerment poetry that speaks directly to the heart. This is more than a book, it is a movement of voices rising together. Rhythm: Poetry for Your Soul invites you to pause, reflect, and connect with the timeless power of words that heal, empower, and inspire. A book born from sisterhood, spirit, and the rhythm within us all… |
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Ireland’s basic income for artists made permanent.Ireland's Basic Income for the Arts (BIA) provided an unconditional payment of €325 weekly to help over 2,000 artists, actors and musicians to help the creative industries in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic (started 2022). The Irish government has announced the basic income payment would be made permanent, with 2,000 additional recipients to be admitted in 2026 – possibly extended to 2,200 if the budget allows. Rodney Owl, who was on the initial pilot, told Big Issue that the Basic Income for Artists (BIA) has allowed him to “take risks” with his career. “For years I had been a working musician playing in pub bands, but always struggling, having to take every gig offered, suitable or not, just to get by,” the musician, from Connemara in County Galway said. “I neglected my original work due to pure necessity, no time off or down time to create new work. The BIA changed all that almost overnight.” Owl explained the weekly payments have allowed him to focus on his own music, meaning he “released two albums and two EPs in the three years I’ve been on it”, explaining that “previously I’d released one album in 10 years, and never had the time or resources to pursue that creative impulse properly.” He added that, as well as being able to focus on his own music, he was also able to put together bands and pay other musicians and artists for their services thanks to the scheme. Does it work? Yes! After analysing the results, the government found a striking return on investment; creatives reported better mental health, more consistent creative output, and greater economic stability. The Cost-Benefit Analysis (Alma Economics) study found: For every €1 spent on the Basic Income for Artists scheme, €1.39 was returned by artists through taxes and revenue. Also, recipients’ arts-related income increased by more than €500 a month on average. The scheme generated €100m in “social and economic benefits” to Ireland’s economy. And, people who received BIA “spend on average 11 weekly hours more on their creative practice; and are 14% more likely to have completed new works in the previous six months, on average, completing 3.9 pieces of work more than the control group”.
"Our evaluation found that the pilot caused a shift from employment outside the arts to work within the sector, and significantly strengthened artists’ professional autonomy and development, as well as their psychological wellbeing. Recipients increased time and investment in artistic practice, produced more work, and engaged more with the public. They also experienced increased income from their practice and reduced financial strain." Will it work elsewhere? Maybe! Other countries have expressed interest in replicating similar schemes; officials from Australia, Wales, South Korea, Canada, Norway, Lithuania, Estonia and have sought briefings on the scheme. “There have been many basic income schemes around the world in the 21st century, but virtually all of them have been discontinued upon the ending of their pilot phase,” said Dr Andrew White, senior lecturer in culture, media and creative industries at King’s College London. “As all societies face the possible threats to jobs and livelihoods by AI, many policymakers and researchers will be watching the progress of the Irish government’s permanent basic income scheme.” Jonny Douglas, co-founder of UBI Lab Network which advocates for a universal basic income (UBI), said that the expansion of the scheme is “fantastic news”, adding, “now, more than ever, we need to be demonstrating and understanding how basic income can help people. “UBI Lab Arts is exploring a basic income pilot for musicians in the UK, and national creative trade unions already support UBI. The results from the Irish Artists Basic Income pilot, once again, highlight the need to do more of this in the UK.”
“I would imagine quite a few states will now take notice of this, financially it’s a no-brainer as the stats clearly show,” added Owl. “It’s very difficult to argue with the benefits to society as a whole as well as the artists involved. Art creates revenue, and no government can ignore that now.” |
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Readers take over New York subwayReading Rhythms - a reading party, not a book club! - invited people to a pop-up reading takeover of the New York subway on World Book Day, April 19th 2025. From 96th Street to Coney Island, over 50 readers traded phones for their books and took over the subway - watch the calmest, coziest carriage on Q! "We threw a reading party on the subway," says Ben Bradbury, co-founder of Reading Rhythms. "We travelled from the top of Manhattan all the way down to Coney Island in Brooklyn. Imagine the shock on people’s faces clambering into a subway car only to see the entire carriage reading!" Reading Rhythms is a series of welcoming reading parties designed to make it easy for people to gather and read socially. They invite people to bring any book and facilitate silent reading periods, 1:1 breakouts and group discussions on the threads of the books everyone is engaging with. The previous year, Reading Rhythms celebrated 100 floors up at Edge NYC’s skydeck for World Book Day. They have now spread worldwide, creating spaces where you can disconnect, read, and meet amazing people who love books as much as you do.
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