Skip to content

Lifesaving Poems

  • About Me
  • Linked In
  • Tumblr
  • RSS
  • Instagram

Essential poems for hard times

  • Home
  • Blog
    • Lifesaving Poems Series
    • Lifesaving Lines
    • The Book
    • Found Poems
    • Open Letters
    • Aldeburgh Poetry Festival Blogs
    • Guest Blog Posts
    • The Year of Living Deeply
    • Advent Poems
    • UCU Strike Poems
    • Palestine Advent
  • Books
    • The Wind and the Rain
    • The Afterlife
    • Deck Shoes
    • Lifesaving Poems
    • Riddance
    • Love for Now
  • Poems
    • Listen
  • Reviews
  • Events
  • Research
  • Contact
  • Awesome Poets

Author: Anthony Wilson

I am a poet and writing tutor. For 24 years I worked 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, was published in 2023 by Blue Diode Press. Plymbridge, a new pamphlet, is available now from Worple Press. My final research project, funded by the Foyle Foundation, was Young Poets' Stories: https://youngpoetsstories.com/. This blog is archived by the British Library.

Together we can beat war as a metaphor for cancer

  If there is one difference I hope to make with Love for Now book it is to challenge the overwhelming … More

Blood Cancer, Cancer, Cancer as a battle, Chemotherapy, Family, Health, Love for Now, Lymphoma, NHL, non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, Radiotherapy, Remission, Riddance, Together we can beat war as a metaphor for cancer

Lifesaving Poems: Mark Strand’s ‘A Morning’

A MorningI have carried it with me each day: that morning I tookmy uncle’s boat from the brown water coveand … More

Hopkins, Life Lessons, Lifesaving Poems, Mark Strand, Poems, Poetry, Poets, Presence, Rupert Loydell, Seamus Heaney, Solitude, Tomas Transtromer

Cancer, I found no poetry in you

I was formally diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system, on Valentine’s Day, 2006. I was 42. … More

Blood Cancer, Cancer, Cancer Memoir, Chemotherapy, Love for Now, Lymphoma, Memoir, NHL, non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, Radiotherapy, Remission, Riddance, Writing

When Your Friend is Diagnosed with Cancer

If you have a friend who is diagnosed with cancer, the best thing to do in terms of what to … More

Advice, Blood Cancer, Cancer, Cancer Advice, Chemotherapy, Diagnosis, Love for Now, Lymphoma, NHL, non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, Radiotherapy, Remission, Riddance, What to say to friends with cancer

How I Wrote Love for Now

There wasn’t a plan. On January 1, 2006 I woke up with a sharp pain on my right side. I … More

Blood Cancer, Cancer, Chemotherapy, Love for Now, Lymphoma, non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, Radiotherapy, Remission, Riddance

Why I wrote Love for Now

I began writing Love for Now, my journal-memoir of diagnosis and treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2006, one week before I … More

Blood Cancer, Cancer, Chemotherapy, Health, Jorn Cann, Love for Now, Lymphoma, Mary Jacobs, NHL, non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, Radiotherapy, Remission, Riddance, War Metaphor

Remembering Jörn Cann

To all who knew him, it was a tragedy,one year ago, to lose the life-force that was Jörn Cann. I … More

Blood Cancer, Cancer, Chemotherapy, Diagnosis, Heamatology, Jorn Cann, Journal, Love for Now, NHL, non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, Riddance

Lifesaving Poems: CK Williams’s ‘Kin’

Kin“You make me sick!” this, with rancor, vehemence, disgust—again, “You hear me? Sick!”with rancor, vehemence, disgust again, with rage and … More

Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, CK Williams, Connie Bensley, Education, Lifesaving Poems, Michael Laskey, Naomi Jaffa, Poems, Poetry, Poets, The Poetry Trust, Writing in Education

On Smiths Knoll

Yesterday was a good day and a sad say. A good day because Smiths Knoll, the poetry magazine edited by … More

Joanna Cutts, Michael Laskey, Poems, Poetry, Poetry Magazines, Poets, Roy Blackman, Smiths Knoll

Lifesaving Poems: Raymond Carver’s ‘Prosser’

ProsserIn winter two kinds of fields on the hillsoutside Prosser: fields of new green wheat, the slipsrising overnight out of … More

Fires, John Gardner, Northwood, On Writing, Poems, Poetry Lifesaving Poems, Poets, Prosser, Raymond Carver, Writing

Lifesaving Poems: Don Coles’s ‘Photograph in a Stockholm Newspaper for March 13, 1910’

Photograph in a Stockholm Newspaper For March 13, 1910Here is a family so little famoustheir names were not recorded. They … More

Arc Publications, Canadian Poets Online, Don Coles, Kafka, Lifesaving Poems, Martin Stannard, Munch, Poems, Poetry, Poets

The First 50 Lifesaving Poems

  I began writing the Lifesaving Poems posts in June 2011, back when I was using Posterous for this blog. … More

Education, Lifesaviing Poems, Poems, Poetry, Poets, Reading

Lifesaving Poems: Derek Mahon’s ‘Everything is Going to be All Right’

Everything is Going to be All Right How should I not be glad to contemplatethe clouds clearing beyond the dormer … More

Cancer, Derek Mahon, Duncan Kramer, Durutti Column, Emily Riall, John Gardner, Lifesaving Poems, Poems, Poetry, Poets, Raymond Carver, The Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry

Lifesaving Poems: Naomi Jaffa’s ‘Some of the Usual’

Some of the UsualStanding in the kitchen before breakfast, not including some of the usual —what to buy in Budgens … More

Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, Daily Mail, Five Leaves Publications, Kenneth Koch, Lifesaving Poems, Naomi Jaffa, Poems, Poetry, Poets, Smiths Knoll, The North, The Poetry Trust, The Rialto, Today Programme

Lifesaving Poems: Peter Carpenter’s ‘Nightwatchman’

Nightwatchmanan elegyMouth set. So far, noughtnot out, having dabbed atthe spinner who’d been giving itsome air. Hands soft – taking … More

Cricket, Cricket Poems, Cricket Poetry, Elegy, Lifesaviing Poems, Peter Carpenter, Poems, Poetry, Poets, Smith Doorstop, The Arvon Foundation

On Riddance

Riddance is published today. It is my fourth full-length collection of poems and my third with Worple Press. You can … More

Blood Cancer, Cancer, Julia Darling, NHL, non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, Peter Carpenter, Poems, Poetry, Riddance, Worple Press

Lifesaving Poems: James Tate’s ‘I am a Finn’

I Am a Finn I am standing in the post office, about to mail a package back to Minnesota, to … More

Ann Sansom, Emergency Kit, James Tate, John Ashbery, Lifesaving Poems, Peter Carpenter, Poems, Poetry, Poets, The Arvon Foundation, Totleigh Barton

Lifesaving Poems: Seamus Heaney’s ‘Night Drive’

Night Drive The smells of ordinarinessWere new on the night drive through France;Rain and hay and woods on the airMade … More

Door into the Dark, Heaney Night Drive, Lifesaving Poems, Lifesaving Poetry, Night Drive, Night Drive Seamus Heaney, Poems, Poetry, Poets, Seamus Heaney, Seamus Heaney Night Drive

Posts navigation

Older posts
Newer posts

BLOG SERIES

  • Lifesaving Poems Series
  • Lifesaving Lines
  • The Book
  • Open Letters
  • Aldeburgh Poetry Festival Blogs
  • Guest Blog Posts
  • The Year of Living Deeply
  • Advent Poems
  • Awesome Poets
  • UCU Strike Poems
  • Palestine Advent

ANTHONY WILSON

  • Biog
  • Books
  • Poems
  • Events
  • Research
  • Contact

Sign up with your email address to receive the latest post in your inbox.

Join 8,553 other subscribers

Search this site

Create a website or blog at WordPress.com
  • Subscribe Subscribed
    Lifesaving Poems
    Join 8,146 other subscribers

    Have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.

  • Lifesaving Poems
    View site in Reader
    Manage subscriptionsSign upLog in
    Report this content
    Collapse this bar
Loading Comments...