Lifesaving Poems: Cliff Yates’s ‘Boggle Hole’

This has already been a memorable year, for I have seen my old friend Cliff Yates twice, both at poetry-related … More

Lifesaving Poems: Robert Rehder’s ‘Corminboeuf 157’

I was very sad to read yesterday that the American poet Robert Rehder died in 2009. I had no idea. He … More

What the Living Do Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there. And … More

James Schuyler is back from the dead with the lovely “Other Flowers” a posthumous book of his unpublished, uncollected poems. … More

I will forever be grateful to Emma Metcalfe from the Bath Festivals’ Write Team for recommending to me Mandy Coe’s … More

I first read Moniza Alvi’s wonderful ‘I Would Like to be a Dot in a Painting by Miro’ in … More

A very special thing happened this week: a large delivery of poetry pamphlets fromHappenstance Press arrived. It included the wonderful No … More

In my last blog post I wrote about the importance of following one’s nose in terms of developing a taste … More

In my last blog post I wrote about the influence of social contexts upon one’s reading, specifically that of … More

I began writing this poem in 1996 in response to the election of a BNP councillor in Tower Hamlets, the … More

The most recent addition to my list of Lifesaving Poems is ‘Prayer’ by Marie Howe. I read it for the first time … More

Alone I One evening in February I came near to dying here. The car skidded sideways on the ice, out … More

If you write poetry (and I assume that if you do, you are also actively engaged in reading … More

The Divine ImageTo Mercy, Pity, Peace, and LoveAll pray in their distress;And to these virtues of delightReturn their thankfulness.For Mercy, … More

I was struck by a remark of Seamus Heaney in an interview he gave some years ago now. He was … More

‘If he had been Spanish then maybe he would bave been valued more.’ -Xavi Hernandez (Spain and Barcelona) on Paul … More

I’ll begin by promising that there’ll be times in your life as a poet when the problems that are a … More

The People of the Other Village hate the people of this village and would nail our hats to our … More