When I knew I had cancer

  Seven years ago today, the date in the photograph above was the day I knew had cancer. By this … More

The Next Big Thing: some questions about Love for Now

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On Riddance

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

On Radiotherapy

This week six years ago I began the course of radiotherapy which was to mark the final chapter of my … More

Life After Chemo

The oddest phase of my experience of cancer six years ago was the period of time after my chemotherapy treatment … More

Lifesaving Poems: Yves Bonnefoy’s ‘Let a Place be Made’

Let a Place be Made Let a place be made for the one who draws near,the one who is deprived … More

More Chelsea Than Sunderland

More Chelsea Than Sunderlandfor Humphrey PottsYour doctor’s line predicting your survival tickled mewatching Terry lift the trophy before the World … More

The Quiet Room

Six years ago today I was told I wasn’t going to die. Those weren’t the words my consultant used, but … More

Lifesaving Poems: Patrick Kavanagh’s ‘Wet Evening in April’

Wet Evening in AprilThe birds sang in the wet treesAnd as I listened to them it was a hundred years … More

On hearing the word ‘discharge’ for the first time

I never thought I would actually get to hear the word ‘discharge’ at the haematology unit where I was treated for non-Hodgkin’s … More

7 things I have learned about cancer

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

On waiting to be diagnosed with cancer

Six years ago I began writing the journal which has become my forthcoming memoir of my experience of cancer. It … More