The Year of Living Deeply 21: Some James Schuyler resources

My James Schuyler obsession continues. (So is my adoration of blogs about pencils, but that is another story.) Below are … More

Who is your go-to poet?

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the ‘poets I go back to’ idea, that I first came across in … More

Dear James (may I call you James?) Though it’s been a while (at least ten years, maybe more) it feels as … More

I have been reading Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It For Life recently. In it she asks … More

I have carried it with me each day, that sense of shame about the fact that I write, that it … More

About a month before my friend Pammy died, she said something that may have permanently changed me. We had … More

Dear Mark I am sorry it has taken so long to getting round to writing to you, not least because … More

I was saddened to hear of the death of the Australian poet Les Murray yesterday. In the autumn of 1997, … More

I have been thinking a lot about habits recently. The unconscious, unthinking ones which, as Sylvia Plath said about words, … More

I have just started reading Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit: Learn it and use it for life. Like those other classics … More

Dear Alicia I can’t believe it is three years since I got to hang out with you at Totleigh … More

after Shawna Lemay Write a poem about the rain. Or the wind. Write about what you learned at university. … More

Anne Lamott suggests an index card, and I have used these, but they suggest something pre-planned, organised. The envelope, especially … More

Towards the end of her Greenbelt Festival poetry reading Q and A with Sasha Dugdale in 2017, Rebecca Goss said … More

Having left FB a week or two ago and quickly decided before I could persuade myself to do otherwise to … More

I always think of myself as working at a rock face. Ninety days out of ninety five, it’s just a … More

After Charles Wright Strives for perfection-Thursday Is begun day after votings Old envelope from the hospital) Will … More

When I began blogging almost ten years ago, I felt as though I had been let into the shiny, sugar-scented … More