An artist needs not so much an audience, as to feel a need to answer, a promise to respond. Robert … More
Category: Poetry
Inside Lifesaving Poems 4
I have been moving. Not moving house, moving within it. Stuff has come with me, some of it has vanished … More
Open letter to Peter Sansom on reading Careful What You Wish For
Dear Peter Cover-to-cover and back-to-back twice, as I do, once before sleeping, then between zeds on a train woken to Tickets, … More
Inside Lifesaving Poems 3
As I have said before, there wasn’t a plan. Which does not mean I don’t feel the luckiest man alive … More
Lifesaving Poems interview podcast
This is the link to the podcast of the interview I gave yesterday on the Arena programme, RTE, about … More
Lifesaving Poems: Rosemary Tonks’s ‘The Sofas, Fogs, and Cinemas’
The Sofas, Fogs, and Cinemas I have lived it, and lived it, My nervous, luxury civilisation, My sugar-loving nerves have … More
Lifesaving Poems: Denise Riley’s ‘A Misremembered Lyric’
A Misremembered Lyric, by Denise Riley I heard this poem for the first time a week ago, at the Bodmin … More
Lifesaving Poems: Yevtushenko’s ‘Damp white imprints dog the feet’
Damp white imprints dog the feet; snowbound trolley, snowbound street. Her tip of glove to lip and cheek, “Goodbye.” Go. … More
Inside Lifesaving Poems 2
Artwork by Angus Joseph Alongside each poem in Lifesaving Poems is a short commentary about how I came across … More
Lifesaving poems of summer
Now that we might finally be getting one, I found myself wondering recently how many of my Lifesaving Poems choices were about … More
Inside Lifesaving Poems
The central organising principle of Lifesaving Poems is that each poet is represented by a single poem. There are poets you … More
Guest blog post: Hands like these, by Beverly Rycroft
This is the first in a series of guest blog posts by writers I admire. Having enjoyed speaking and reading … More
Lifesaving Poems has arrived
Lifesaving Poems has arrived Well, it has finally arrived. The anthology which began life as a blog, which began life as … More
Lifesaving Poems: Juan Ramón Jiménez’s ‘I Am Not I’
I Am Not I I am not I. I am this one walking beside me whom I do not … More
Lifesaving Poems: Czeslaw Milosz’s ‘And Yet the Books’
And Yet the Books And yet the books will be there on the shelves, separate beings,That appeared once, still wetAs … More
Ted Hughes coming out of the radio
I have been wondering recently if the world of the poem (the one that is currently not-here, just out of … More
The Invisible College
I have just come back from a thing. I am tired. A good afternoon of good conversation about large, important … More
Lifesaving Poems: Gwen Harwood’s ‘Cups’
Cups They know us by our lips. They know the proverb about the space between us. Many slip. They … More