On headphones in the day case ward and in my kitchen late at night, Mogwai’s New Paths to the Helicon,…
Why I miss Robert Rehder
It is odd to speak of missing someone you never met, but this is how I feel about the American…
Review of Riddance in Magma 56
Andrew Neilson has reviewed Riddance in Magma poetry magazine. He describes it as a ‘a moving, often harrowing, book, while also…
Luke Allnutt on ‘battling’ cancer
Readers of this blog will know of my antipathy to the martial language often used in the culture to describe…
Chemo reading
I wrote here recently about losing my ambition as a writer. In case readers are in any doubt, the stuff…
The art of Jörn Cann
This is Jörn Cann. He was my ward doctor at the haematology unit where I was treated for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma…
Why it’s called Love for Now
Love for Now did not begin with an idea but an illness. As I have written elsewhere, there wasn’t a plan. I…
The Write Team: Creative Writers in Schools
The Bath Festivals‘ Write Team was a creative writing project designed to develop pupil confidence and engagement in their learning. The…
Losing my ambition
Towards the end of my treatment for cancer in 2006 I had one of the most profound conversations of my…
Review of Love for Now and Riddance
Tomorrow the Church Times publishes a combined review of my memoir of cancer Love for Now and Riddance, my…
Lifesaving Poems: Billy Collins’s ‘Morning’
In February, 1999 I was sitting in a car park with Naomi Jaffa when she asked me what I…
The ‘rollercoaster ride’ of cancer: an Interview with James Landale
It was great to hear the BBC’s Deputy Political Editor James Landale’s interview about his experience of treatment for cancer…
Making Poetry Matter
In 2007 Sue Dymoke, Andrew Lambirth and I got together and decided we were going to apply to the ESRC…
When poets don’t appear
I have been thinking a lot recently about the career trajectory of poets, including my own, whose work briefly becomes visible…
On disappearing
I wrote recently about poets who disappear from view, specifically Susannah Amoore, from Faber’s Poetry Introduction 6. My point is far…
How’s the poetry going?
Sometimes people, including poets, ask me how my writing is going. The difference between a poet and a non-poet asking…
An Upstairs Kitchen
Yesterday I wrote here about poets disappearing. Partly this came to mind via news of Salt’s decision to discontinue publishing…
When poets disappear
Some of my favourite poetry books of all time are anthologies. Not the headline selections everybody has (and has to…
Lifesaving Poems 