People often ask me who The Book is, or what it is, or which book or project of mine it represents.
With respect, that is not exactly the right question.
The Book is an approximation of the various neuroses, obsessions, ideas, rantings and hobby horses that I find myself entertaining when gazing out of the window, sitting in meetings, answering emails or generally wasting time worrying about the creative work I know I should be getting round to quite soon.
Sometimes The Book is me speaking. Sometimes it is someone I have met, a poet, perhaps, or other creative person or object or experience whose ideas or work has inspired or provoked me in some way.
Sometimes The Book is none of these things. Sometimes it is a fiction, made up, on a whim, out of the unconscious music that is above and below the earth and which locks us all in its tender embrace. Or not.
One thing I do know: just when I think I am done with The Book, it sneaks up on me and begins yattering in my ear again.
Here is a list of the entire series of blog posts detailing my conversations with The Book, starting with the most recent:
A beautiful thing
Nothing
Angry
An American
The Irish poet
Spirally
Are you afraid?
No one is watching
Coming home
Craving silence
Blue: What 2018 taught me
Influence
Intimacy
Everyone who matters
Truly, Madly, Deeply
Tenderness
Sleep, mostly
Escape to the Chateau
The world expert on John Ashbery
Kind of ashamed
The New York Times bestseller list
Cooking in a Bedsitter
The empty house
I can’t work with you any more
Reading Wallace Stevens
Ten new poems
Your worst book
Waving the white flag
Losing touch
Are you lonely?
Waiting to be found out
All the poets on Twitter
Hectic
It’s gone
OK to talk about cancer
The echo chamber
What people say they have been up to on Twitter
The way I felt when I first heard Public Enemy
Moral ethics
No one you know
The point is the silence
Gazing out of someone else’s window
I hope your new book is a disaster
Starting a new book
The back of an envelope thing
Not to forget
Only the imperfections
More than a metaphor
The wedding speech
I want to disappear
Influence
Looking for Ted Hughes
Hanging out the washing
The Little Prince
The preciousness of things
Running a bath
Guarding the threshold
What drives you?
Needing to be liked
Interview with the book
The vision thing
The risk of failure
The safety net of approval
But I’m a poet
What a waste
Addicted to the news
The next book
The ambition thing
Cut-up
Tearing up the book
Buggering about on the internet
‘I’m your new book!’
Goodbye
The return of the book
The parable of the book (free eBook)
Nothing to say
The new book
Excuses
Poets in the audience
We’re done
What the internet thinks
You will never be ready
Letting go
Terrible work
Being Very Funny on Twitter
Something’s come up
Under the fingernails
Adventures with the book
Talking about cutting
Wake up!
There isn’t a plan
Autobiography
Did you miss me?
The other book
Jealous
The T-shirt idea
The damage of haste
In the bookshop
Signs of life
You could quit
The lullaby
Identical pizza crusts
The Milkmaid
Peace offering
Lost for words
Ordering drinks in Spanish
Packing to leave
In the waiting room
Leaving the house
Going for coffee
Visiting hours
Murdering my darling
Hated by the book
Lifesaving Poems 