Lifesaving Poems: Jane Kenyon’s ‘Let Evening Come’

Let Evening Come Let the light of late afternoon shine through chinks in the barn, moving up the bales as … More

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 … More

Love for Now did not begin with an idea but an illness. As I have written elsewhere, there wasn’t a plan. I … More

Tomorrow the Church Times publishes a combined review of my memoir of cancer Love for Now and Riddance, my … More

I wrote recently about poets who disappear from view, specifically Susannah Amoore, from Faber’s Poetry Introduction 6. My point is far … More

Sometimes people, including poets, ask me how my writing is going. The difference between a poet and a non-poet asking … More

Nine days after I was told that my chemotherapy treatment was not working in April 2006 the doctors discovered the … More

As I say in my previous blog post, I owe my knowledge of ‘8.06 p.m. June 10th 1970’ to the … More

Today is the seventh anniversary of my diagnosis with non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (NHL), an aggressive cancer of the lymphatic system. I … More

The Next Big Thing I have been been tagged by poet and blogger Abegail Morley to answer set questions relating to my memoir … More

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: 4,329 films were submitted … More

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

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

Herod With Wikileaks in the headlines you could say the timing was perfect. Three Iraqi profs in … More

Below is a summary of some recent research on progress in pupils’ poetry writing and teachers’ metaphors of poetry writing … More

I began writing this poem in 1996 in response to the election of a BNP councillor in Tower Hamlets, the … More

The Ring for Pete and Ana James And if I said a part of me leapt from a … More

To My Cancer When you left me I did not say goodbye. I kissed you then carried you outside. You … More