Influences: Alan Booth

I am taking a break from writing brand new blog posts over the summer. Instead of posting new work I … More

Guest posts and summer reading

As I did last year, I will be taking a break from uploading new posts to this blog over August. … More

How I put The Art of Falling together In May 2012 my first pamphlet If We Could Speak Like Wolves … More

Don’t Think About A White Horse Coming closer, he turns out to be you – or nearly. Once you … More

I am minding my own business, putting out some rubbish, when it happens. An elderly man I know, a neighbour, … More

On Literary Envy “Comparison is the thief of joy” –Teddy Roosevelt You wake up one morning. You check in … More

This is the second in a series of Guest Blog Posts that I am hosting this year. More are … More

after and with apologies to Mark Halliday The missing blog post has gone AWOL. Never sure of its place in … More

My deep thanks to Maria Taylor, who has written the most lovely appreciation of Lifesaving Poems. Thank you Maria for capturing its … More

“A poem begins with a lump in the throat; a homesickness or a love sickness. It is a reaching-out toward … More

An artist needs not so much an audience, as to feel a need to answer, a promise to respond. Robert … More

I have been moving. Not moving house, moving within it. Stuff has come with me, some of it has vanished … More

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

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

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

This is the first in a series of guest blog posts by writers I admire. Having enjoyed speaking and reading … More