Lifesaving Poems: Alison Mosquera’s ‘Tamoxifen’

Earlier this year I ran a Poetry School course about poetry and health called Written on the Body. It was … More

Lifesaving Poems: Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin’s ‘Swineherd’

Swineherd When all this is over, said the swineherd, I mean to retire, where Nobody will have heard about … More

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

In 1991 I made the decision to teach part-time so that I could put poetry more at the centre of … More

A Poem for Someone Who is Juggling Her Life This is a poem for someonewho is juggling her life.Be still … More

Occasionally the entrance of a poem into your life is a combination of a series of tiny events, each of … More

As I said the other day, Geoffrey Summerfield’s Worlds is one of the most important books in my life. As I … More

Sometime in 1997 I went to hear Kevin Crossley-Holland give a reading at Exeter Central Library. I’d heard he was … More

I once heard Stephen Knight say ‘If I am reading well then I am writing well.’ It was a Q … More

One CigaretteNo smoke without you, my fire.After you left,your cigarette glowed on in my ashtrayand sent up a long thread … More

I became interested in Robert Lowell’s poetry because of the criticism of Seamus Heaney. I had tried reading him before, … More

Wind This house has been far out at sea all night,The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,Winds stampeding the … More

‘A Lyric Afterwards’ was the poem in which I finally got Tom Paulin. I had been given a tape of him … More

I love watching poets having fun. Think of Don Paterson shooting the breeze with Bill Herbert in the South Bank … More

Ann Sansom is one of my all-time favourite people, poets or normal, ever. I count myself fortunate to have worked … More

This is What I Wanted to Sign Off With You know what I’m like when I`m sick: I’d sooner curse … More

W.H. Auden once said that writers should always be honest, even about their prejudices. So here is my confession: when … More

When I speak to trainee primary school teachers about their views of poetry I am often struck by their divergent … More