Lifesaving Lines: The Death of Fred Clifton, by Lucille Clifton

So this is a bit spooky. All week I had in mind these marvellous final words from Lucille Clifton’s poem … More

Lifesaving Lines: Stone, I Presume, by Ian Mcmillan

For several weeks before Christmas I had these words from Ian McMillan’s peerless ‘Stone, I Presume’ rattling around my head. … More

As Planned After the first glass of vodka you can accept just about anything of life even your own mysteriousness … More

and (Dear James) it occurs to me now, just thinking out loud, that in a way Kenneth and Frank actually were … More

Being together so much and talking so much and writing poems and showing them to each other so much … More

Joan Mitchell looks to be the only artist of her generation, man or woman, who produced a big, abstract, painterly … More

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

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

I heard Michael Symmons Roberts give a magisterial reading from his book Drysalter recently. It was exemplary on so many levels, not … More

The funniest thing you will ever read about Elizabeth Bishop (or teaching, or anything else) is Mark Halliday‘s essay Moose … More

Here is a revelation: I did not always adore the work of Frank O’Hara. I had pause to consider why … More