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

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

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

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