Recently, my relationship with Wednesdays has changed. It’s quite a long story, and one I don’t want to trouble you … More
Category: Naomi Jaffa
Laskey
Some writers influence you through the pull of their imagination on your work, opening up new worlds as you read … More
Guest blog post: On moving on, by Dean Parkin
I have been sorting. I have been chucking. It’s been the recurring theme over the last eighteen months. I cleared … More
What you read in 2015
This blog would be nothing without its readers. Thank you to everyone who stopped by, made a comment or a … More
Guest blog post: Endings and Legacies, by Naomi Jaffa
In terms of my poetry world, 2015 has turned out to be a year of endings and legacies. The Poetry … More
Naomi Jaffa on the legacy of The Aldeburgh Poetry Festival
Don’t miss tomorrow’s guest blog post by Naomi Jaffa, in which she reminisces about two of her favourite poets from … More
Why do it?
because of the words and because of the books because of the woman in the anorak at the swimming baths … More
Another look at Lux’s ‘An Horatian Notion’
One of my personal, private highlights of last year’s Aldeburgh Poetry Festival was a Sunday morning breakfast hosted by The … More
Influences: my first reader
My first reader was a man called Fergus. A friend of a flatmate at university, I never got to … More
Poetry highlights of 2014
I have so much to be grateful for in 2014. The year began in one of my temporary fits … More
Why we need Aldeburgh
Dan O’Brien began by saying he wasn’t really a poet, but a ‘moonlighting playwright’. Selima Hill took out her glasses, … More
Mostly all the time nearly everything
Everyone who enters the stage begins by saying thank you * That silence * Mostly nearly all the time * … More
An interview with Adélia Prado
On the Saturday afternoon of the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, Festival Director Naomi Jaffa conducted an interew with Adélia Prado, and … More
On generosity
By the time you read this I will be far away from here. It has not happened yet, but I … More
Aldeburgh and silence
Mark Doty had it. And John Hartley Williams. And Esther Morgan. And Roy Blackman, introducing Mark Doty talking about Whitman. … More
Aldeburgh Poetry Festival Blog Posts
Below is a collection of my blog posts for the 2014 Aldeburgh Poetry Festival. I will update it as I … More
Coming home to Aldeburgh
A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. Robert Frost … More
Gratitude
I’m grateful to you, you see. I wanted to tell you. –Raymond Carver (‘For Tess’) A kind, wise man once … More