The first thing I do when a new copy of The North, Rialto or Smiths Knoll lands on the doormat … More
Author: Anthony Wilson
Lifesaving Poems: Peter Carpenter’s ‘Nightwatchman’
I met Peter Carpenter in the summer of 2001 at the Arvon Foundation’s Totleigh Barton writing centre. I was at … More
On Riddance
Riddance is published today. It is my fourth full-length collection of poems and my third with Worple Press. You can … More
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
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
12 Ways to Practice Writing Poems
I have just come back from the Greenbelt Festival where I was delighted to give a talk about writing poetry … More
On Radiotherapy
This week six years ago I began the course of radiotherapy which was to mark the final chapter of my … More
Lifesaving Poems: Mandy Sutter’s ‘Caring for the Environment’
In 1991 I made the decision to spend more of my time concentrating on the thing that fulfilled me the … More
Lifesaving Poems: Ian McMillan’s ‘On The Impossibility of Staying Alive’
On the Impossibility of Staying Alive They have found a new moon; it stands on my shoulder. They call it … More
Lifesaving Poems: Thom Gunn’s ‘Autobiography’
AutobiographyThe sniff of the real, that’swhat I’d want to get how it feltto sit on ParliamentHill on a May eveningstudying … More
Lifesaving Poems: Michael Laskey’s ‘Bike’
Now that we in Britain have started to think of ourselves as the greatest cycling nation since dinosaurs roamed the … More
Riddance
On Valentine’s Day, 2006, I was was formally diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system. Riddance is … More
Lifesaving Poems: Rutger Kopland’s ‘I Cavalli di Leonardo’
I was sad to read yesterday via Twitter that the leading Dutch poet Rutger Kopland has died, aged 77. He … More
Lifesaving Poems: Robert Pinsky’s ‘Song of Reasons’
It is nearly twenty years since I bought Peter Sansom’s Writing Poems. Among that wonderful book’s many delights I found … More
Originally posted on Lifesaving Poems:
In my last blog post I wrote about the influence of social contexts upon one’s…
Originally posted on Lifesaving Poems:
‘If he had been Spanish then maybe he would bave been valued more.’ -Xavi Hernandez (Spain…
Originally posted on Lifesaving Poems:
For the last nine years at the end of the first week in July I have…
Life After Chemo
The oddest phase of my experience of cancer six years ago was the period of time after my chemotherapy treatment … More