The chances are, more of us are mortal than have multiple orgasms -Violet Weingarten, Intimations of Mortality When I was diagnosed…
When poetry stopped me breathing in 2012
I have just been asked by Abegail Morley to send her a list of my poetry books of 2012 for…
Together we can beat war as a metaphor for cancer
If there is one difference I hope to make with Love for Now book it is to challenge the overwhelming…
Lifesaving Poems: Mark Strand’s ‘A Morning’
I fell in love with the poetry of Mark Strand via the enthusiasm of Rupert Loydell sometime in the late…
2012 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: 4,329 films were submitted…
Cancer, I found no poetry in you
I was formally diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system, on Valentine’s Day, 2006. I was 42.…
When Your Friend is Diagnosed with Cancer
If you have a friend who is diagnosed with cancer, the best thing to do in terms of what to…
Four Nativity Poems
Mary At first a fluttering then a kick, his fist pummelling my ribcage when I knelt to pray. They…
How I Wrote Love for Now
There wasn’t a plan. On January 1, 2006 I woke up with a sharp pain on my right side. I…
Why I wrote Love for Now
I began writing Love for Now, my journal-memoir of diagnosis and treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2006, one week before I…
Remembering Jörn Cann
To all who knew him, it was a tragedy,one year ago, to lose the life-force that was Jörn Cann. I…
Lifesaving Poems: CK Williams’s ‘Kin’
In the spring of 1999 I got the best education in poetry I have ever had. I was in Suffolk,…
On Smiths Knoll
Yesterday was a good day and a sad say. A good day because Smiths Knoll, the poetry magazine edited by…
Lifesaving Poems: Raymond Carver’s ‘Prosser’
I first read ‘Prosser’ in the bookshop in Northwood, where I grew up, on my way into work and back…
Writing and Silence
Originally posted on Lifesaving Poems:
I love the silence that descends on a classroom full of people who are all engaged…
What I have learned about remission
Originally posted on Lifesaving Poems:
In February I wrote a blog post on the anniversary of my diagnosis of Non-Hodgkin’s…
Lifesaving Poems: Don Coles’s ‘Photograph in a Stockholm Newspaper for March 13, 1910’
Isn’t Twitter a marvellous thing? Following a link on a tweet of Jeanne Duperreault last week I came across the Canadian Poetry Online…
The First 50 Lifesaving Poems
I began writing the Lifesaving Poems posts in June 2011, back when I was using Posterous for this blog.…
Lifesaving Poems 