Lifesaving Poems: On Hugo Williams and Douglas Dunn

I can remember exactly where I was when I first read these poems. It was on the balcony of the … More

Kenneth Koch’s Melancholy

I saw the sign above on a wall during a visit I recently made to a school to talk to … More

I found this poem in a collection of poems called The Matter of This World in a second hand … More

I was astonished to find in an old diary today that by 8 March 2006, less than one month after … More

With Only One Life Hold with both hands The tray of every day And pass in turn Along this … More

One of the things I love about my job is that I get to co-construct projects with other people. One of … More

The Picnic It is the picnic with Ruth in the spring. Ruth was third on my list of seven girls … More

Ann Gray and I were chatting the other day. We were trying to decide how long we had known each … More

In 2002 I heard WN Herbert read ‘The Black Wet’ at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival. This is not remarkable in itself, you might say, and … More

This has already been a memorable year, for I have seen my old friend Cliff Yates twice, both at poetry-related … More

I was very sad to read yesterday that the American poet Robert Rehder died in 2009. I had no idea. He … More

I will forever be grateful to Emma Metcalfe from the Bath Festivals’ Write Team for recommending to me Mandy Coe’s … More

I first read Moniza Alvi’s wonderful ‘I Would Like to be a Dot in a Painting by Miro’ in … More

A very special thing happened this week: a large delivery of poetry pamphlets fromHappenstance Press arrived. It included the wonderful No … More

In my last blog post I wrote about the importance of following one’s nose in terms of developing a taste … More

In my last blog post I wrote about the influence of social contexts upon one’s reading, specifically that of … More

The most recent addition to my list of Lifesaving Poems is ‘Prayer’ by Marie Howe. I read it for the first time … More

Alone I One evening in February I came near to dying here. The car skidded sideways on the ice, out … More