On having allies

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

The blank space

Dear Friends Like the closed down (but still creative) shop window of Top Shop I saw on an early morning … More

Ok, so it was a terrible week. But in other news, not such a bad one. My friend Katherine sent … More

Just over a year ago I wrote a blog post talking about my ‘tired frame of mind’ and intention to … More

Here are the blog posts that you read most in 2020 As I click through the links I am surprised … More

Earlier this year my Lifesaving Poems blog enjoyed something of a milestone. Not as momentous as Jimmy Anderson taking his … More

I hear him before I see him. Sometimes not even that. The proverbial person you could set your clock by. … More

In 2014 I was invited by the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival to be their guest blogger. I have added the blog … More

One of the privileges of writing this blog is inviting others to write guest blog posts. I have collected these … More

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? You are close at hand yet very far away. So long since I have … More

Today I have published a new Archive page on this blog. It contains links to all of the blog posts … More

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

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

Dear Facebook I thought I would write to let you know that after years of thinking (and even talking) … More

There’s a problem with that title, isn’t there? While I have not been completely silent (fifteen blog posts at most? … More

Today is the last day of NaBloPoMo, that month in the year when someone decides it is a nice idea … More

As we draw to the end of NaBloPoMo, I have invited Josephine Corcoran to collaborate with me on a joint-interview. … More

Fear after Raymond Carver Fear of cancer returning That phone call in the night Fear of Donald Trump Fear … More