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

Sometimes people, including poets, ask me how my writing is going. The difference between a poet and a non-poet asking … More

Yesterday I wrote here about poets disappearing. Partly this came to mind via news of Salt’s decision to discontinue publishing … More

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

Seven Ways of Reading Gillian Allnutt: How The Bicycle Shone: New and Selected Poems (Bloodaxe; 216pp; £12) 1 It’s … More

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

I wrote here a couple of days ago about my aversion to using war metaphor to describe cancer. Judging from … More

I came across Michael Symmons Roberts‘s ‘Ultramarine’ during a stint as poetry editor for Third Way magazine. Like nearly everything … More

I want to live – Sharon Olds The most intense reading group I ever belonged to wasn’t really a reading … More

Sometimes you do not get a poem, or what a poet is up to, straight away. In the case of … More

One of the pleasures of being alive is reading John Ash. Think of a prize-winning poet, someone you think of … More

Apart from e e cummings and the genius Anon, one of my chief discoveries in the Voices and Junior Voices series that I … More

I I first came across e e cummings’s ‘in Just’ in an anthology, Wordscapes, edited by Barry Maybury (OUP, 1971). … More

I first encountered Siân Hughes‘s poems sitting around a table with some talented teenage poets at the Arvon Foundation‘s writing … More

As I say in my previous blog post, I owe my knowledge of ‘8.06 p.m. June 10th 1970’ to the … More

I first came across ‘Birth of the Foal’ at the recommendation of the great Cliff Yates. He told me he’d been … More

The funniest thing you will ever read about Elizabeth Bishop (or teaching, or anything else) is Mark Halliday‘s essay Moose … More