The Afterlife has arrived

– –for Peter and Amanda Carpenter   Yesterday a miraculous thing happened. I took delivery of a box containing copies … More

A list of found poems

  As the holiday season continues I repost this list of various found poems that I have made over the … More

Writing in the gaps

There isn’t much left to be done. The proof reading, the book blurbs (they take longer than the poems), the … More

Deck shoes and other enthusiasms

  Some of you will have seen this blog post before. It is a taster of some of the contents … More

The possibility of shatter

I think I am done. I think. I think, therefore I am done? I think I am. No doubt there … More

Proof(s)

I have been doing the proofs to my new books. And I am scared. Scared that I have got it … More

Nothing

‘What are you doing?’ says the book. ‘Nothing.’ ‘Doesn’t look like it.’ ‘Listening to the cricket,’ if you must know. … More

The Year of Living Deeply 20: Poems hatch – a found poem by Marge Piercy

Poems hatch Poems hatch from memory, fantasy, the need to communicate with the living, the dead, the unborn. Poems come … More

The Year of Living Deeply 18: Thinking of Nick

This is the time of year when I traditionally think of Nick. Nick lived with us in our house in … More

The Year of Living Deeply 14: Which artists do you admire most?

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

The Year of Living Deeply 16: I have carried it with me each day

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

The Year of Living Deeply 15: You don’t have that kind of time

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

The Year of Living Deeply 19: Open letter _ A week with Mark Hollis

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

In memory of Les Murray

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

The Year of Living Deeply 11: In the taxi with Twyla Tharp

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

The Year of Living Deeply 10: A week without –

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

From Brussels With Love (LentBlog32)

Well, by tomorrow night, we might be out. Crashed out with no deal or sailing into a bright future presaged … More

Why we need to save the Poetry Business (LentBlog26)

after Mark Halliday   Because of the writing days. And because The discovery will not happen on its own, unprompted, … More