Life After Chemo

The oddest phase of my experience of cancer six years ago was the period of time after my chemotherapy treatment…

Lifesaving Poems: Jean Sprackland’s ‘The Birkdale Nightingale’

I met Jean Sprackland in 2000, somewhere in the bowels of the Poetry Society in London. We were meeting to…

Above the desk where I am writing this is a shelf on which sits more than a yard of poetry…

Last night saw the launch of Magma 53 at the Troubadour Coffee House in London with guest readers and Lifesaving…

A year ago I began the Lifesaving Poems series of blog posts. I got the idea for it after reading…

As I wrote in my recent post, I chose to call this series Lifesaving Poems because I actually believe…

May the Silence Break Because you do not speakI know the shockof water encountering a rock. Supremacy of silence is…

Let a Place be Made Let a place be made for the one who draws near,the one who is deprived…

‘More Chelsea Than Sunderland’ was prompted by the remark of a doctor of a friend of mine, when asked to…

Six years ago today I was told I wasn’t going to die. Those weren’t the words my consultant used, but…

I first heard Chris Southgate’s ‘High Fidelity’ sometime in 2005, when I was lucky enough to be part of a…

PGCE students are so dedicated. They burn with desire to be amazing. They hand in their work and have beautifully…

As I have said before in the Lifesaving Poems series of blogposts, some poets come into your life through the…

Here is what happened halfway through my treatment for non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in April 2006. I went for a midway scan…

I absolutely love this poem by Andy Brown. I am not sure when I read or heard it first. Possibly…

I never thought I would actually get to hear the word ‘discharge’ at the haematology unit where I was treated for non-Hodgkin’s…

I can remember exactly where I was when I first read these poems. It was on the balcony of the…

Yesterday I had the pleasure of giving a talk at the University of Exeter’s CREATEseminar with Emma Metcalfe of Bath…