The things themselves

So this is a bit spooky. All week I had in mind these marvellous final words from Lucille Clifton’s poem…

Twist and reek

For several weeks before Christmas I had these words from Ian McMillan’s peerless ‘Stone, I Presume’ rattling around my head.…

Happy new year, everyone. I am interrupting my current series of Lifesaving Lines post to encourage you to watch a…

Just a few hours left of 2021. Time to reflect on what this year has been. Until a week or…

Call the Midwife What I like in a man: not showing desperate – though that’s what he was. Old enough…

During December 2019 I blogged a series of poems to celebrate the season of Advent. Some of these were about…

Two great lines for the price of one (it is Christmas, after all) this week, from Marie Howe’s extraordinary poem…

I have been thinking a lot about the poetry of Julia Darling this week. Her work became essential to me…

Thank you to everyone who has commented to me either publicly or in private about my new series of blog…