A year ago I went to hear Clare Best read from her extraordinary book Excisions (Waterloo Press, 2011). Clare … More
Author: Anthony Wilson
I am a lecturer, poet and writing tutor. I work in teacher and medical education at the University of Exeter. My anthology Lifesaving Poems was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2015. In 2012 I published Riddance (Worple Press), a collection of poems, and Love for Now (Impress Books), a memoir, about my experience of cancer. The Wind and the Rain, my sixth collection of poems, is available now from Blue Diode Publishing. My current research project, funded by the Foyle Foundation, is Young Poets' Stories: https://youngpoetsstories.com/. This blog is archived by the British Library.
Lifesaving Poems: Kate Clanchy’s ‘Timetable’
Timetable We all remember school, of course: the lino warming, shoe bag smell, expanse of polished floor. It’s where we … More
Lifesaving Poems: Evangeline Paterson’s ‘Literary Portrait’
I met Evangeline Paterson once, in the early Nineties, at a workshop in London. Rupert Loydell suggested I went as … More
Lifesaving Poems: Laura Apol’s ‘The Switch’
Laura Apol’s ‘The Switch’ is a witty poem which explores the tension between primal, and sometimes unforeseen, forces and the … More
Lifesaving Poems: Emily Riall’s ‘Duty Psychiatrist’
Emily Riall will be a new name to many readers of this blog. She was a fine young poet … More
Lifesaving Poems: Alison Mosquera’s ‘Tamoxifen’
Earlier this year I ran a Poetry School course about poetry and health called Written on the Body. It was … More
Lifesaving Poems: Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin’s ‘Swineherd’
Swineherd When all this is over, said the swineherd, I mean to retire, where Nobody will have heard about … More
Lifesaving Poems: Esther Morgan’s ‘Avocados’
I heard Michael Symmons Roberts give a magisterial reading from his book Drysalter recently. It was exemplary on so many levels, not … More
Lifesaving Poems: Adrienne Rich’s ‘In the Wake of Home’
In 1991 I made the decision to teach part-time so that I could put poetry more at the centre of … More
Lifesaving Poems: Rose Cook’s ‘A Poem for Someone Who is Juggling Her Life’
A Poem for Someone Who is Juggling Her Life This is a poem for someonewho is juggling her life.Be still … More
Lifesaving Poems: Christopher North’s ‘The Dog’
Occasionally the entrance of a poem into your life is a combination of a series of tiny events, each of … More
Lifesaving Poems: Adrian Mitchell’s ‘Goodbye’
As I said the other day, Geoffrey Summerfield’s Worlds is one of the most important books in my life. As I … More
Lifesaving Poems: Riddle 7 (The Exeter Book)
Sometime in 1997 I went to hear Kevin Crossley-Holland give a reading at Exeter Central Library. I’d heard he was … More
Lifesaving Poems: Dave Smith’s ‘Reading the Books Our Children Have Written’
I once heard Stephen Knight say ‘If I am reading well then I am writing well.’ It was a Q … More
Lifesaving Poems: Edwin Morgan’s ‘One Cigarette’
One CigaretteNo smoke without you, my fire.After you left,your cigarette glowed on in my ashtrayand sent up a long thread … More
Lifesaving Poems: Robert Lowell’s ‘Epilogue’
I became interested in Robert Lowell’s poetry because of the criticism of Seamus Heaney. I had tried reading him before, … More
Lifesaving Poems: Ted Hughes’s ‘Wind’
Wind This house has been far out at sea all night,The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,Winds stampeding the … More
Lifesaving Poems: Tom Paulin’s ‘A Lyric Afterwards’
‘A Lyric Afterwards’ was the poem in which I finally got Tom Paulin. I had been given a tape of him … More
Lifesaving Poems 