This was Canada

I was listening to Radio 4 the other day. (You might think this unremarkable, but it was. I still have … More

This is writing!

The occupational hazard of going to things where other writers are also present is that they will always at some … More

There was a door

I do not have brilliant form with Louise Glück. I seem to remember the Poetry Book Society choosing or recommending … More

When you can’t, it’s impossible

I can’t write poems in recent weeks either. It’s not the first time it’s happened. And it’s not worth going … More

And The Telephone Church

In the late Eighties and early Nineties I spent a lot of time in the company of my friend Richard … More

‘I hate this time of year’

Photo credit: Andrew Rumsey This, from a person I have met a handful of times, our dogs nosing each other … More

On the missing short story

It was going to be great. I wrote it more than seven years ago, in two bursts after work with … More

On publishing and Christmas

I don’t make new year’s resolutions. I used to, but not any more. It’s not that I don’t want to … More

James Schuyler at 100: ‘Schuyler and Mitchell’, by Tamar Yoseloff

Thank you to Tamar Yoseloff for contributing this fourth post in celebration of James Schuyler’s centenary. In Paris last year, … More

Advent meditation, 11 December 2023

On publishing This year I published a book of poems. It is about grief, love and anger. It seems to … More

Advent meditation, 2 December 2023

On waiting I grew up in a house where we were not encouraged to talk about our accomplishments. (I blame … More

On having allies

I once heard a senior British poet warming to a riff during a reading on the topic of the acknowledgements … More

Advent meditation 3

This time last year, I had begun a third period waiting for a response to a new manuscript of poems. … More

The Kevin Jackson Award

I was privileged to meet and work with the late writer and critic Kevin Jackson in 2011. We tutored a … More

Not much

What’s been happening? Well, not much. Which is another, deflecting, way of saying quite a lot, actually. So much that … More

Lifesaving Lines: Stone, I Presume, by Ian Mcmillan

For several weeks before Christmas I had these words from Ian McMillan’s peerless ‘Stone, I Presume’ rattling around my head. … More

Not exactly good riddance

Just a few hours left of 2021. Time to reflect on what this year has been. Until a week or … More

Writing prompts (blog post ending with a line by Shawna Lemay)

after Shawna Lemay Write a poem about the rain. Or the wind.Write about what you learned at university.Or did not … More