Lifesaving Lines: “Still Do I Keep My Look, My Identity…”, by Gwendolyn Brooks

It was the dying of the light of my time on Twitter. Days when I miss it, I think of … More

Lifesaving Lines: Spring, by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Our tiny minds blown by ‘The Wreck of the Deutschland’, ‘Spelt From Sibyl’s Leaves’ and ‘As Kingfisher’s Catch Fire’, we … More

We have a lot of windows. I sit next to them at this time of the year thinking, Just five … More

I have been thinking a lot this week about a line from Tomas Tranströmer’s masterpiece, ‘Alone’. (I have also blogged … More

The line that’s been buzzing round my head this week is the final phrase from Michael Laskey’s miracle poem of … More

Recently, my relationship with Wednesdays has changed. It’s quite a long story, and one I don’t want to trouble you … More

The line that’s been buzzing round my head the last couple of weeks is from Robert Lowell’s heartbreaking poem ‘For … More

I was very saddened to hear of the death of Brendan Kennelly this week. He had been a long-standing presence … More

‘Awful but cheerful’ is the final phrase and line of ‘The Bight‘, by Elizabeth Bishop. I’ve always felt that the … More

I was at a thing. Very rarely for me, it was my own thing, only my second in front of … More

I thought of it before I knew I had remembered it. Just the word ‘then’. Rereading and searching at speed … More

As I try to hold on to beginner’s mind, I recall the practice of falling in love at a moment’s … More

Praise the Rain Praise the rain; the seagull diveThe curl of plant, the raven talk—Praise the hurt, the house slackThe … More

It was one of those throwaway remarks made by one writer, male, to another, ditto, in one of those books … More

If you came round for coffee these days you’d be offered decaff. Doctor’s orders, I’d say. And against my better … More

I turn the radio on and switch it off again, unable to settle to anything. There is still no sign … More

‘You look upset.’ ‘I am upset,’ I say. ‘Well, not so much upset as disappointed.’ ‘Want to talk about it?’ … More

Sometimes poems aren’t literal representations of anything. Sometimes a poem just exists as something else in the universe that you … More