My stammer

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

Lifesaving Poems: Ted Kooser’s ‘A Rainy Morning’

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…

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied Who told me time would ease me of my pain! I…

I am delighted to welcome Katherine Venn to continue our series on overlooked poets. Alice Major Alice Major, decorated author…

One of the joys of working on the Teachers as Writers project is that I get to steal. As…

my way is in the sand flowing between the shingle and the dune the summer rain rains on my…

This isn’t about numbers, but my relationship with them. It isn’t about giving you a figure. (By the time you…

I am delighted to have Slow Weather, a new poem published at London Grip New Poetry

On certain afternoons I am certain it has come back. A twinge in my right side, where the pain…

I had begun the poem after work one day, on a pad of work-related notes. Get in, get out, I…

When the Arvon student is put in posession of that creative self, which was hitherto inaccessible, two things, in particular,…