Concluding this mini-series of poems I shared in my reading at the Greenbelt festival last weekend, here is Prayer by Marie … More
Category: Lifesaving Poems
Lifesaving Poems: WN Herbert’s ‘The Black Wet’
Continuing in this mini-series of poems I shared in my reading at the Greenbelt festival last weekend, here is The … More
Lifesaving Poems: Sharon Olds’s ‘Looking at Them Asleep’
Continuing in this mini-series of poems I shared in my reading at the Greenbelt festival last weekend, here is Looking … More
Lifesaving Poems: Michael Laskey’s ‘Bike’
It was a huge privilege to share poems in workshops I gave at the Greenbelt festival last weekend. Here is … More
Lifesaving Poems: Ann Gray’s ‘mercifully ordain that we may become aged together’
It was such a privilege to read from the cornucopia of talent assembled in Lifesaving Poems at the Greenbelt Festival over … More
Lifesaving Poems: Christopher Southgate’s ‘High Fidelity’
To celebrate the appearance of my dear friend Christopher Southgate at this year’s Greenbelt Festival, I am republishing my Lifesaving … More
The back of an envelope thing
‘An amazing stillness this morning. A sense of impending exhaustion in the air. There was one robin as I went … More
Hugo Williams
In the summer of 1986, when he was poetry editor of New Statesman and not long after Writing Home had … More
Lifesaving Poems: Ted Kooser’s ‘A Rainy Morning’
A Rainy Morning A young woman in a wheelchair, wearing a black nylon poncho spattered with rain, is pushing … More
Lifesaving Poems: Isaac Rosenberg’s ‘August 1914’
August 1914 What in our lives is burnt In the fire of this? The heart’s dear granary? The much we … More
Lifesaving Poems: Tania Hershman’s ‘By Any Other Name’
By Any Other Name First, he called her My Little Aubergine as if she was … More
Lifesaving Poems: Josephine Corcoran’s You say “drone”
You say “drone” and I think of bagpipes refrigerators aeroplanes I think of bees a male bee in a colony … More
Lifesaving Poems: Edna St. Vincent Millay’s ‘Time does not bring relief’
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied Who told me time would ease me of my pain! I … More
Lifesaving Poems: Samuel Beckett’s ‘my way is in the sand flowing’
my way is in the sand flowing between the shingle and the dune the summer rain rains on my … More
Lifesaving Poems: Langston Hughes’s ‘The Negro Speaks of Rivers’
The Negro Speaks of Rivers I’ve known rivers: I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the … More
Lifesaving Poems: Pablo Neruda’s ‘The Dead Woman’ (La Muerta)
The Dead Woman If suddenly you do not exist,if suddenly you no longer live,I shall live on. I do not … More
Lifesaving Poems: Kenneth Rexroth’s ‘The Advantages of Learning’
The Advantages of Learning I am a man with no ambitions And few friends, wholly incapable Of making a … More
An interview with Poetry Spotlight
This is the opening question and answer to an interview with Paul Clyne of Poetry Spotlight, published today. With thanks … More
Lifesaving Poems 