I first met Lawrence Sail at a private view at a gallery just outside Exeter. My family and I…
Archive
When one poet rescues another poet
I came across Hubert Moore’s fantastic book of poems The Hearing Room (Shoetstring, 2006) via my friend and neighbour Lawrence Sail. In…
Lifesaving Poems: John Burnside’s ‘A Private Life’
I found John Burnside‘s ‘A Private Life’ in a poetry magazine some years ago. I wasn’t much interested in…
Lifesaving Poems: Yorifumi Yaguchi’s Praying Mantis
Readers who have followed my Lifesaving Poems series will know by now that there isn’t and wasn’t a plan about…
Lifesaving Poems: James Schuyler’s ‘June 30, 1974’
June 30, 1974for Jane and Joe HazanLet me tell youthat this weekend Sundaymorning in the countryfills my soulwith tranquil joy:the…
On Saying Goodbye to Primary PGCE Students
For the last nine years at the end of the first week in July I have been saying goodbye to…
Mogwai vs. chemotherapy
On headphones in the day case ward and in my kitchen late at night, Mogwai’s New Paths to the Helicon,…
Why I miss Robert Rehder
It is odd to speak of missing someone you never met, but this is how I feel about the American…
Review of Riddance in Magma 56
Andrew Neilson has reviewed Riddance in Magma poetry magazine. He describes it as a ‘a moving, often harrowing, book, while also…
Luke Allnutt on ‘battling’ cancer
Readers of this blog will know of my antipathy to the martial language often used in the culture to describe…
Chemo reading
I wrote here recently about losing my ambition as a writer. In case readers are in any doubt, the stuff…
The art of Jörn Cann
This is Jörn Cann. He was my ward doctor at the haematology unit where I was treated for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma…
Why it’s called Love for Now
Love for Now did not begin with an idea but an illness. As I have written elsewhere, there wasn’t a plan. I…
The Write Team: Creative Writers in Schools
The Bath Festivals‘ Write Team was a creative writing project designed to develop pupil confidence and engagement in their learning. The…
Losing my ambition
Towards the end of my treatment for cancer in 2006 I had one of the most profound conversations of my…
Review of Love for Now and Riddance
Tomorrow the Church Times publishes a combined review of my memoir of cancer Love for Now and Riddance, my…
Lifesaving Poems: Billy Collins’s ‘Morning’
In February, 1999 I was sitting in a car park with Naomi Jaffa when she asked me what I…
The ‘rollercoaster ride’ of cancer: an Interview with James Landale
It was great to hear the BBC’s Deputy Political Editor James Landale’s interview about his experience of treatment for cancer…
Lifesaving Poems 