To the Mincing Poets

Last Sunday I attended the last ever group meeting and reading of the Mincing Poets, in Exeter. A classic … More

Lifesaving Poems: Ann Gray’s ‘mercifully ordain that we may become aged together’

It was such a privilege to read from the cornucopia of talent assembled in Lifesaving Poems at the Greenbelt Festival over … More

Last week I gave up writing. For about a day. I had been given a book by one of my … More

‘Are you going to do one?’ ‘Who let you in?’ ‘Are you?’ The book has its feet up on my … More

I first met Maurice in the sitting room of a mutual friend, a lifelong Labour supporter, the night after the … 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

Two new poems are published today at And Other Poems, curated by Josephine Corcoran. They are Poem Beginning With a … More

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

Rondeau Redouble There is so little left. The room is bare. She’ll strip his sheets and blankets by and … More

Thanks to the recommendation of Naomi Jaffa (again) I had the smug pleasure of already knowing the work of Tony … More

8.06 p.m. June 10th 1970poemTom Raworth (from Jumpstart, ed. Cliff Yates, Poetry Society, 1999) As I say in my previous blog post, … More

Slaughterhouse Let it be done here, here where deathis all in a day’s work, and by men who dealin the … More

I began writing the Lifesaving Poems series of blog posts in May 2010. The idea was to celebrate the poems that I … More

mercifully ordain that we may become aged togetherTobit 8.7 I was in the Canadian Muffin Company in Armada Way,waiting for … More

I was struck by a remark of Seamus Heaney in an interview he gave some years ago now. He was … More

Love Listen Let’s love, listen, take timewhen time is all we have. Let’s be unafraid to be kind,learn to disregard … More