On not being grateful for cancer

An old friend of mine wrote to me the other day, out of the blue, to tell me about … More

Life Begins With Cancer

This is the recording of my reading ‘Life Begins With Cancer’, recorded at the Greenbelt Festival on Sunday 25th August, … More

I’m grateful to you, you see. I wanted to tell you. –Raymond Carver (‘For Tess’) A kind, wise man once … More

A year ago I published Riddance, a book of poems, with Worple Press. It concerns my diagnosis and experience of cancer … More

Today is the seventh anniversary of the day I was told I was officially in remission from cancer. The popular … More

Thank you to Julia McGuinness for posting this interview with me on her Creative Connections blog. In it I discuss … More

A year ago I went to hear Clare Best read from her extraordinary book Excisions (Waterloo Press, 2011). Clare … More

Earlier this year I ran a Poetry School course about poetry and health called Written on the Body. It was … More

This is What I Wanted to Sign Off With You know what I’m like when I`m sick: I’d sooner curse … More

In September 2006 my treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma came to an end. I was not told I was officially in … More

When I began to recover from my treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2006 this lovely article about Nick Drake’s Northern … More

Let Evening Come Let the light of late afternoon shine through chinks in the barn, moving up the bales as … More

Colin Mallett, Sculptor The poets I go back to This article first appeared in the North magazine, in November 2007. … More

On headphones in the day case ward and in my kitchen late at night, Mogwai’s New Paths to the Helicon, … More

Readers of this blog will know of my antipathy to the martial language often used in the culture to describe … More

Tomorrow the Church Times publishes a combined review of my memoir of cancer Love for Now and Riddance, my … More

It was great to hear the BBC’s Deputy Political Editor James Landale’s interview about his experience of treatment for cancer … More

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