Lifesaving Poems: Michael Donaghy’s ‘Machines’

The most fun I have ever seen a poet have at their own reading (with the possible exception of Jackie … More

Lifesaving Poems: Charles Simic’s ‘My Shoes’

It was the best of times. Jean Sprackland and I were tutoring the dream group at Totleigh Barton for a … More

It was the best of times. Jean Sprackland and I were tutoring a poetry course at Totleigh Barton, the Arvon … More

To safe and almost universal silence I published How Far From Here is Home? (Stride) a few days before Christmas in … More

I first met Lawrence Sail at a private view at a gallery just outside Exeter. My family and I … More

I wrote here recently about losing my ambition as a writer. In case readers are in any doubt, the stuff … More

I first encountered Siân Hughes‘s poems sitting around a table with some talented teenage poets at the Arvon Foundation‘s writing … More

Saint Francis and the SowThe budstands for all things,even for those things that don’t flower,for everything flowers, from within, of … More

I Cavalli di LeonardoAll those sketches he left behind –endless series of repetitions: bunches of muscles, sinews,knuckles, joints, the entire … More