Writing prompts (blog post ending with a line by Shawna Lemay) (LentBlog29)

after Shawna Lemay Write a poem about the rain. Or the wind. Write about what you learned at university. … More

Lifesaving Poems: Philip Larkin’s ‘Going’

Going There is an evening coming in Across the fields, one never seen before, That lights no lamps. Silken … More

Here are my most frequently-read blog posts of 2018, according to my WordPress stats. First, from the Lifesaving Poems … More

As I was saying the book that I bought and then did not read and which caught my eye recently is Now … More

So in an effort to live deeply and not widely, amongst other things I have been looking at the shelves … More

Below Zero We are at a party that doesn’t love us. At last the party lets its mask drop and … More

The Curtain Falls Suddenly a life is over – Ends with such serious charades The Dean makes lame quips … More

As promised last week, here is my presentation of the paper I co-wrote with Sue Dymoke in which we argue on … More

Listening to the wonderful array of speakers at the Foyle Young Poets symposium on Monday, I tried to think back … More

‘Even the poetic world is social’ (Bakhtin, 1981, 300). This time next week, Saturday 23 June, I will be presenting … More

Poem Without Sleep All the things that could happen to the baby came to me last night as I … More

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

My first reader was a man called Fergus. A friend of a flatmate at university, I never got to … More

Reading Frank O’Hara in the Hospital 1 The IV drips its slow news. So long, lean and turbulent morning! … More

In a Church No, no time for this the outside clamours to be heard, the books, you see, … More

Towards the end of my treatment for cancer in 2006 I had one of the most profound conversations of … More

I went home the other day. I mean home-home, where I was born, and where my parents still live. … More

Diving into the Wreck First having read the book of myths, and loaded the camera, and checked the edge of … More