An interview with Poetry Spotlight

This is the opening question and answer to an interview with Paul Clyne of Poetry Spotlight, published today. To read … More

Lifesaving Poems: Fleur Adcock’s ‘The Soho Hospital for Women (IV)’

The Soho Hospital for Woman (IV) I am out in the supermarket choosing – this very afternoon, this day … More

As I have said before, there wasn’t a plan. Which does not mean I don’t feel the luckiest man alive … More

The Sofas, Fogs, and Cinemas I have lived it, and lived it, My nervous, luxury civilisation, My sugar-loving nerves have … More

The central organising principle of Lifesaving Poems is that each poet is represented by a single poem. There are poets you … More

Lifesaving Poems has arrived Well, it has finally arrived. The anthology which began life as a blog, which began life as … More

Cups They know us by our lips. They know the proverb about the space between us. Many slip. They … More

I am at a thing. Canals are there. Sunlight on them, the last tourists, a shifting of the seasons. ‘Soon … More

I have so much to be grateful for in 2014. The year began in one of my temporary fits … More

Here are the most read Lifesaving Poems of 2014. For the first time I have been able to compare last … More

On the Saturday afternoon of the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, Festival Director Naomi Jaffa conducted an interew with Adélia Prado, and … More

I first heard Thomas Lux’s poems before I read them. In the autumn of 2000 I was sent a tape … More

She started as a name. There I was, following my nose, minding my own business, trying to ignore all instincts … More

Photograph © Bloodaxe Books Ltd I am delighted to announce that my Lifesaving Poems series of blog posts has now become … More

I am driving to a thing. Not a famous thing, an out of the way thing. A classroom, perhaps. … More

Groundsmen The pile of cuttings puts on dreadful weight, swelters in the season, and leaks treacle. Beside it, the … More

Seth Godin says in The Icarus Deception that however many good reviews you are lucky to get for your work, it … More

Earlier this year I ran a Poetry School course about poetry and health called Written on the Body. It was … More

In 1991 I made the decision to teach part-time so that I could put poetry more at the centre of … More

In September 2006 my treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma came to an end. I was not told I was officially in … More

A couple of weeks after I finished my radiotherapy treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in October 2006 I bought Jane Kenyon’s … More