How to enter a poetry competition

You go a talk by a Leading Poet. No one you know is there, but still you sit at the … More

To failure!

I listened to the most wonderful radio programme about failure the other day. It featured Anne Enright talking with clear-eyed … More

Lately I have been pondering the practice of paying attention, vis-à-vis my habit of keeping a notebook to capture impressions, … More

Readers of this blog will know I have been thinking a lot about stationery recently. (Actually, that is something of … More

My blog post yesterday about the stationery thing provoked more responses than I ever imagined it would. Among the … More

At the start of each academic year, usually when I have known them for a week or so, I make … More

Sometimes I think it’s gone forever -Ken Smith I want to write a poem, Seamus Heaney says, but I have … More

If you’re not enough without the gold medal, you’ll never be enough with it. – John Candy, Cool Runnings I did not … More

It is odd to speak of missing someone you never met, but this is how I feel about the American … More

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

Towards the end of my treatment for cancer in 2006 I had one of the most profound conversations of my … More

I wrote recently about poets who disappear from view, specifically Susannah Amoore, from Faber’s Poetry Introduction 6. My point is far … More

Sometimes people, including poets, ask me how my writing is going. The difference between a poet and a non-poet asking … More

I have published a new poem in the style of Kenneth Koch, On Twitter, at Ink Sweat & Tears. Whether … More

The Next Big Thing I have been been tagged by poet and blogger Abegail Morley to answer set questions relating to my memoir … More

If you write poetry (and I assume that if you do, you are also actively engaged in reading … More