I walked into the middle of a Ted Hughes poem the other week. An early morning dog walk, like any…
Archive
Lifesaving Lines: The Trees, by Philip Larkin
Early May. Sitting in the bay window upstairs at Cricklewood revising for finals. My pink vest and purple jeans phase.…
More places of hope
I said here a couple of years ago that Natalie Jabbar’s blog of curated poems each April is like a…
Lifesaving Lines: Edge, by Sylvia Plath
But first came Plath. After Ursuala Le Guin, the only female author we studied (OK – Jane Austen). Her name…
Lifesaving Lines: Spring, by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Our tiny minds blown by ‘The Wreck of the Deutschland’, ‘Spelt From Sibyl’s Leaves’ and ‘As Kingfisher’s Catch Fire’, we…
John Foggin’s review of The Afterlife
John Foggin has been kind enough to review The Afterlife on his blog. You can read the full review here.…
Lifesaving Lines: The Bluet, by James Schuyler
On a spring day as far from ‘late in dour October’ it would be harder to imagine, James Schuyler’s The…
Book news for 2023
I am delighted to announce that Blue Diode have accepted my new poetry manuscript and will publish my sixth collection,…
Lifesaving Lines: The Death of Fred Clifton, by Lucille Clifton
So this is a bit spooky. All week I had in mind these marvellous final words from Lucille Clifton’s poem…
Lifesaving Lines: Stone, I Presume, by Ian Mcmillan
For several weeks before Christmas I had these words from Ian McMillan’s peerless ‘Stone, I Presume’ rattling around my head.…
The Anti-Refugee Bill explained
Happy new year, everyone. I am interrupting my current series of Lifesaving Lines post to encourage you to watch a…
Not exactly good riddance
Just a few hours left of 2021. Time to reflect on what this year has been. Until a week or…
Call the Midwife
Call the Midwife What I like in a man: not showing desperate – though that’s what he was. Old enough…
Advent poems
During December 2019 I blogged a series of poems to celebrate the season of Advent. Some of these were about…
Lifesaving Lines: What the Living Do, by Marie Howe
Two great lines for the price of one (it is Christmas, after all) this week, from Marie Howe’s extraordinary poem…
Lifesaving Lines: Indelible, Miraculous, by Julia Darling
I have been thinking a lot about the poetry of Julia Darling this week. Her work became essential to me…
Lifesaving Lines
Thank you to everyone who has commented to me either publicly or in private about my new series of blog…
Lifesaving Lines: Autumn, by Roo Borson
We have a lot of windows. I sit next to them at this time of the year thinking, Just five…