Why do it?

because of the words and because of the books because of the woman in the anorak at the swimming baths … More

A new poem: Some More Strategies for the End of the World

I am delighted to have a new poem, Some More Strategies for the End of the World, published today at … More

The book and I are passing each other messages through a third party. Neither of us bothers with the niceties … More

Nine years ago today I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the white blood cells. Even though I have … More

Hamlet The buzz subsides. I have come on stage. Leaning in an open door I try to detect from … More

I am visiting the book. We have already been through a lot together, including the part where I killed it and … More

Reading Arthur W. Frank’s astonishing At the Will of the Body recently has given me pause to reflect on the relationship … More

I have murdered my darling. Like a bird of a certain blue vintage, it is ex, dead, kaput, finished. The … More

One of my personal, private highlights of last year’s Aldeburgh Poetry Festival was a Sunday morning breakfast hosted by The … More

I found two blog posts especially moving in the aftermath of last week’s attacks in Paris, both by the same … More

The Collection The Matter of This World: New and Selected Poems (Slow Dancer, 1987) I found The Matter of … More

My first reader was a man called Fergus. A friend of a flatmate at university, I never got to … More

Cut through to what happens when you listen. Cut through to making it happen, listening for it, failing, then doing … More

Dear Ant Looking forward to 2015 it’s tempting to think it will never reach the heights of 2014. Big mistake. Huge. … More

I have so much to be grateful for in 2014. The year began in one of my temporary fits … More

Dan O’Brien began by saying he wasn’t really a poet, but a ‘moonlighting playwright’. Selima Hill took out her glasses, … More

I am sad because the great American poet Mark Strand has died. Among the tributes to him in the last … More

I am at a thing. Not a famous thing, but an important one nevertheless. People are there, people you and … More