The Way Things Work is by admitting or opening away. This is the simplest form of current: Blue moving…
Archive
UCU Strike Poems 5 – Day of Song, Day of Silence, by Ada Limón
Day of Song, Day of Silence The strange crying sounds of the peacocks on the private school grounds…
UCU Strike Poems 4 -Things I Learned at University, by Kate Bingham
Things I Learned at University How to bike on cobblestones and where to signal right. How to walk through doors…
UCU Strike Notebook
A passerby comes up to my group and hands us a brown paper bag. ‘It’s full of flat whites,’ she…
UCU Strike Poems 3 – Calling Him Back from Layoff, by Bob Hicok
Calling Him Back from Layoff I called a man today. After he said hello and I said hello came a…
UCU Strike Poems 2 – Invisible Work, by Alison Luterman
Invisible Work Because no one could ever praise me enough, because I don’t mean these poems only but the unseen…
UCU Strike Poems 1 – What Work Is, by Philip Levine
What Work Is We stand in the rain in a long line waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work. You…
Late February notebook
Aesthetics of Creating Something This doesn’t just happen: It happens to you. Kenneth Koch, from One Train, p.64 ∞ ‘Even…
On Being Chipper
There were just a few of us in the room, gathered round a table. I had been invited to…
February notebook
‘The whole culture is telling you to hurry, while the art tells you to take your time. Always listen to…
The how of it
I was having a coffee with a new writer friend the other day. Not having known each other for…
End of January notebook
Blind panic when the anthology I am in arrives. The hunt, ever more despairing, for my poem, certain that they…
Late January notebook
[…] you write because you know them not because you understand them because you don’t you are…
Mid-January notebook
Barely any bird-life since the gales. A robin’s song this morning, from behind the curtains. And yesterday one tiny blue…
January notebook
Two successes I can claim as a parent: they both love music and football (even if one of them supports…
A new nativity monologue -An Angel
An Angel His people spoke to our people, contracts were exchanged, and the gig was on. Hush hush,…
What you read in 2017
Dear Friends Here are the blog posts which you read most often in 2017, according to my WordPress stats: …
Not a ‘thin’ year for poetry
It was one of those throwaway remarks made by one writer, male, to another, ditto, in one of those books…
