Recently I have featured prose writing by various writers, reshaping them in the form of found poems. Annie Dillard on…
Archive
What it’s like to be human, by Mark Strand
If every head of state and every government official spent an hour a day reading poetry we’d live in…
Mark Strand on reading poetry -a found poem
Sometimes poems aren’t literal representations of anything. Sometimes a poem just exists as something else in the universe that you…
What drives you?
‘What drives you?’ ‘I’ve only just woken up!’ I say to the book. ‘Don’t care. It’s morning. Work to be…
Needing to be liked
‘You know what your main problem is,’ the book says. ‘Needing to be liked.’ ‘That’s a good thing, isn’t it?’…
What we talk about when we talk about writing
The more I talk about writing with students, teachers, colleagues and other writers, the less I am sure that we…
The art of noticing, and then creating, a conversation with Seth Godin
We need to re-think marketing as a story that either does or does not resonate with us. Do…
Interview with the book
‘Aren’t you going get the phone?’ I say. ‘It won’t be for me.’ With a little groan the book…
The vision thing
Here is how it happens. The vision is, sub specie aeternitatis, a set of mental relationships, a coherent series of…
The risk of failure
‘What do you think?’ I say to the book. It has held on to my poem for a week, and…
The safety net of approval
Even though it is sweltering, the book is wearing its dinner jacket. Its legs are stretched out, feet on my…
The book is fifty blog posts old
The adventures of the book have now clocked up fifty blog posts. Here is a list of all of them,…
But I’m a poet
The book is in its gardening clothes. ‘I’m going out,’ it says. ‘You’ve let the lawn go again.’ ‘You can’t…
What a waste
‘I don’t know if I can do this any more.’ ‘Do what?’ the book says. ‘This.’ ‘Sit around waiting for…
Addicted to the news
‘Listening to the cricket again?’ says the book. ‘I think I’ll join you.’ ‘What do you mean, ‘again’?’ I say.…
Hugo Williams
In the summer of 1986, when he was poetry editor of New Statesman and not long after Writing Home had…
The next book
‘That thing you mentioned the other day,’ the book says. ‘Is it true?’ ‘What thing?’ I say. ‘About there being…
The ambition thing
‘How have you been?’ says the book. ‘Fine,’ I say. ‘You?’ ‘Tired,’ says the book. ‘I’m tired.’ ‘Me too,’ I…