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I was at a thing recently. Not my thing, a good thing. Luminosity filled the evening. In the pouring of … More

Are you writing?

I am at a thing. It is not my thing, it is someone else’s thing. Poets are there. People I … More

[S]everal things dovetailed in my mind, & at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man … More

I have said goodbye to the poem. For a while, a long while, we were not even speaking. After the … More

The poem is not happy. It glares up at me, its eyes spitting fury. ‘How dare you take me in … More

I am being pursued by the poem. It has been there for several years now, asking to be written. I … More

You stick to the routines you have set up, notebook observations, voracious reading, sending the work out to mags, even … More

You go a talk by a Leading Poet. No one you know is there, but still you sit at the … More

My blog post yesterday about the stationery thing provoked more responses than I ever imagined it would. Among the … More

Once upon a time I broke the rules and spoke with another poet (it doesn’t matter who) about a … More

When I visit schools to read and talk about poetry there is often some sort of Q and A following … More

I’m grateful to you, you see. I wanted to tell you. –Raymond Carver (‘For Tess’) A kind, wise man once … More

I once heard Stephen Knight say ‘If I am reading well then I am writing well.’ It was a Q … More

In 2007 Sue Dymoke, Andrew Lambirth and I got together and decided we were going to apply to the ESRC … More

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