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 adventures of the book have now clocked up fifty blog posts. Here is a list of all of them,…

The book is in its gardening clothes. ‘I’m going out,’ it says. ‘You’ve let the lawn go again.’ ‘You can’t…

‘I don’t know if I can do this any more.’ ‘Do what?’ the book says. ‘This.’ ‘Sit around waiting for…

‘Listening to the cricket again?’ says the book. ‘I think I’ll join you.’ ‘What do you mean, ‘again’?’ I say.…

In the summer of 1986, when he was poetry editor of New Statesman and not long after Writing Home had…

‘That thing you mentioned the other day,’ the book says. ‘Is it true?’ ‘What thing?’ I say. ‘About there being…

‘How have you been?’ says the book. ‘Fine,’ I say. ‘You?’ ‘Tired,’ says the book. ‘I’m tired.’ ‘Me too,’ I…

I do not stammer, but some of my earliest memories of speaking at school (‘What are eight sevens, Wilson?’) are…

A Rainy Morning A young woman in a wheelchair, wearing a black nylon poncho spattered with rain, is pushing…

August 1914 What in our lives is burnt In the fire of this? The heart’s dear granary? The much we…

Jack Palance: Do you know what the secret of life is? Billy Crystal: No, what? Jack Palance: This [he…

By Any Other Name First, he called her My Little Aubergine as if she was…

You say “drone” and I think of bagpipes refrigerators aeroplanes I think of bees a male bee in a colony…

Advertisement (after Tim Dooley) State-approved cookery books in every emporium of food. Information concerning lipids in dayglow font between…

A speech given at the NATE annual conference, June 2014 My early poetic experiences were not ‘poetic’ at…

I think I am probably in love with silence, that other world. And that I write, in some way, to…