UCU Strike Notebook 2

Monday: people are starting to recognise each other on my picket line. They exchange news of how the strike is … More

UCU Strike Poems 7 -Try to Praise the Mutilated World, by Adam Zagajewski

Try to Praise the Mutilated World Try to praise the mutilated world. Remember June’s long days, and wild strawberries, drops … More

The Way Things Work is by admitting or opening away. This is the simplest form of current: Blue moving … More

Day of Song, Day of Silence The strange crying sounds of the peacocks on the private school grounds … More

Things I Learned at University How to bike on cobblestones and where to signal right. How to walk through doors … More

A passerby comes up to my group and hands us a brown paper bag. ‘It’s full of flat whites,’ she … More

Calling Him Back from Layoff I called a man today. After he said hello and I said hello came a … More

Invisible Work Because no one could ever praise me enough, because I don’t mean these poems only but the unseen … More

What Work Is We stand in the rain in a long line waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work. You … More

In support of crowdfunding our new anthology of poems, No One You Know, with Unbound, Sue Dymoke and I are … More

This is The Power and Potential of Poetry , the talk I gave today at the Somerset Literacy Network annual conference. … More

Every September is the same. I pack a bag for work, set off into the still warm sunshine, and wonder … More

I was on the phone to a writer friend the other week. In itself this is a rare occurrence: normally … More

I found myself in the position of giving feedback to some writers recently. The writers were teachers who had signed … More

On Not Being Anthony Wilson I haven’t always been Anthony Wilson. For a long time I wasn’t even Anthony. … More

I was having a coffee with a new writer friend the other day. Not having known each other for very … More

Smith Objectionable, mercurial, fierce, wise, bandaged, solitary and irresistible, Phil Smith and I were not close. Only in our … More

One of the more interesting paradoxes of analysing the interviews of professional writers during the Teachers as Writers (TaW) … More