Lifesaving Poems: Sean O’Brien’s ‘Before’

BeforeMake over the alleys and gardens to birdsong,the hour of not-for-an-hour. Lie still.Leave the socks you forgot on the clothesline.Leave … More

In Praise of Rupert

Rupert Loydell is shouting at the countryside. I have got up at sparrow-fart to drive him to the Blandford … More

My friend Rupert Loydell has emailed me a list of blog posts curated by Rob Mclennan on writing at the … More

I am in the pub with Rupert. We are talking about planning a thing. It’s definitely going to happen. A … More

We had been in the new city for two months. The house we had bought was even more of a … More

I met Evangeline Paterson once, in the early Nineties, at a workshop in London. Rupert Loydell suggested I went as … More

To safe and almost universal silence I published How Far From Here is Home? (Stride) a few days before Christmas in … More

The Lack of You Level as any water, constant as clock-time,the lack of you has occupied the house.It is an … More

What It’s Like To Be Aliveafter Django BatesI remember the nights, and the sounds of the nights,and the moon and … More

A MorningI have carried it with me each day: that morning I tookmy uncle’s boat from the brown water coveand … More