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

This is the link to the podcast of the interview I gave yesterday on the Arena programme, RTE, about … More

The Sofas, Fogs, and Cinemas I have lived it, and lived it, My nervous, luxury civilisation, My sugar-loving nerves have … More

A Misremembered Lyric, by Denise Riley I heard this poem for the first time a week ago, at the Bodmin … More

Damp white imprints dog the feet; snowbound trolley, snowbound street. Her tip of glove to lip and cheek, “Goodbye.” Go. … More

Artwork by Angus Joseph Alongside each poem in Lifesaving Poems is a short commentary about how I came across … More

Now that we might finally be getting one, I found myself wondering recently how many of my Lifesaving Poems choices were about … More

The central organising principle of Lifesaving Poems is that each poet is represented by a single poem. There are poets you … More

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 Well, it has finally arrived. The anthology which began life as a blog, which began life as … More

I Am Not I I am not I. I am this one walking beside me whom I do not … More

And Yet the Books And yet the books will be there on the shelves, separate beings,That appeared once, still wetAs … More

I have been wondering recently if the world of the poem (the one that is currently not-here, just out of … More

I have just come back from a thing. I am tired. A good afternoon of good conversation about large, important … More

Cups They know us by our lips. They know the proverb about the space between us. Many slip. They … More

I am delighted to have a new poem, To Spring, published today at Sarah James’s blog, in With You In … More

I am delighted to have a new poem, ‘Blue Morning’ (after Terry Frost), included in Four Ways of Looking at … More