On Discovering My Voice

I am at a thing. Canals are there. Sunlight on them, the last tourists, a shifting of the seasons. ‘Soon…

Seth Godin: V is for Vulnerable

Yesterday I listened to a dialogue between Debbie Millman and Seth Godin on art-making, resistance, anxiety, how the internet has changed…

Heaven on Earth Now that it is night, you fetch the wash from outer space, from the frozen…

because of the words and because of the books because of the woman in the anorak at the swimming baths…

It’s hard to describe. One day your are fine, not quite the same (age will do this to you), then…

I am delighted to have a new poem, Some More Strategies for the End of the World, published today at…

Though you may disappear, you’re not forgotten here And I will say to you, I will do what I can…

The book and I are passing each other messages through a third party. Neither of us bothers with the niceties…

Nine years ago today I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the white blood cells. Even though I have…

Days Each one is a gift, no doubt, mysteriously placed in your waking hand or set upon your forehead moments…

Hamlet The buzz subsides. I have come on stage. Leaning in an open door I try to detect from…

I am visiting the book. We have already been through a lot together, including the part where I killed it and…

The Secret Two girls discover the secret of life in a sudden line of poetry. I who don’t know the…

Reading Arthur W. Frank’s astonishing At the Will of the Body recently has given me pause to reflect on the relationship…

Dear Arthur Frank I’m writing to say thank you for your extraordinary book At the Will of the Body. It is…

I have murdered my darling. Like a bird of a certain blue vintage, it is ex, dead, kaput, finished. The…

One of my personal, private highlights of last year’s Aldeburgh Poetry Festival was a Sunday morning breakfast hosted by The…

I found two blog posts especially moving in the aftermath of last week’s attacks in Paris, both by the same…