Category: Poems

Lawrence Sail’s love

  I first met Lawrence Sail at a private view at a gallery just outside Exeter. My family and I … More

When one poet rescues another poet

I came across Hubert Moore’s fantastic book of poems The Hearing Room (Shoetstring, 2006) via my friend and neighbour Lawrence Sail. In … More

Lifesaving Poems: Yorifumi Yaguchi’s Praying Mantis

Readers who have followed my Lifesaving Poems series will know by now that there isn’t and wasn’t a plan about … More

Why I miss Robert Rehder

It is odd to speak of missing someone you never met, but this is how I feel about the American … More

Review of Riddance in Magma 56

  Andrew Neilson has reviewed Riddance in Magma poetry magazine. He describes it as a ‘a moving, often harrowing, book, while also … More

Chemo reading

I wrote here recently about losing my ambition as a writer. In case readers are in any doubt, the stuff … More

Review of Love for Now and Riddance

  Tomorrow the Church Times publishes a combined review of my memoir of cancer Love for Now and Riddance, my … More

Lifesaving Poems: Billy Collins’s ‘Morning’

  In February, 1999 I was sitting in a car park with Naomi Jaffa when she asked me what I … More

When poets don’t appear

I have been thinking a lot recently about the career trajectory of poets, including my own, whose work briefly becomes visible … More

On disappearing

I wrote recently about poets who disappear from view, specifically Susannah Amoore, from Faber’s Poetry Introduction 6. My point is far … More

When poets disappear

Some of my favourite poetry books of all time are anthologies. Not the headline selections everybody has (and has to … More

Lifesaving Poems: Gerard Manley Hopkins’s ‘No worst, there is none’

I treated myself to Seth Godin‘s newish book The Icarus Deception recently. It is both dense and light, profound and easy to … More