On writing and illness

Reading Arthur W. Frank’s astonishing At the Will of the Body  recently has given me pause to reflect on the relationship … More

Murdering my darling

I have murdered my darling. Like a bird of a certain blue vintage, it is ex, dead, kaput, finished. The … 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

After Paris

I found two blog posts especially moving in the aftermath of last week’s attacks in Paris, both by the same … More

Lifesaving Poems: Ellen Doré Watson’s ‘Be Here First’

Be Here First   I don’t know my trees but I know my trees. Their angling for what has spurned them; their spitting … More

Finding Sharon Olds’s The Matter of This World

The Collection The Matter of This World: New and Selected Poems (Slow Dancer, 1987)   I found The Matter of … More

Making Poetry Happen

  Announcing the publication of Making Poetry Happen: Transforming the Poetry Classroom (Bloomsbury, 2015). Making Poetry Happen provides a valuable resource … More

Influences: my first reader

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

Lifesaving Poems: Chrissy Williams’s ‘The Burning of the Houses’

The Burning Of The Houses Tottenham is on fire and I work in an arts centre where the sky is … More

Cut through

Cut through to what happens when you listen. Cut through to making it happen, listening for it, failing, then doing … More

New Year letter

Dear Ant Looking forward to 2015 it’s tempting to think it will never reach the heights of 2014. Big mistake. Huge. … 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

The most read Lifesaving Poems of 2014

Here are the most read Lifesaving Poems of 2014. For the first time I have been able to compare last … 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

Truce

Here is my Christmas poem for 2014. In this anniversary year of the First World War, it commemorates the unofficial … More

‘When I read poetry’: in memory of Mark Strand

I am sad because the great American poet Mark Strand has died. Among the tributes to him in the last … More

The Four of Us (a new poem)

I am delighted to have The Four of Us, a new poem, in London Grip New Poetry, which you can find … More

The woman at the workshop

I am at a thing. Not a famous thing, but an important one nevertheless. People are there, people you and … More