Finding ‘And Yet the Books’

One year I decided that I would decorate one of my teaching rooms with my collection of Poems on the … More

When one poet rescues another poet

I came across Hubert Moore’s fantastic book of poems The Hearing Room (Shoetstring, 2006) via my friend and neighbour Lawrence Sail. In … More

It is odd to speak of missing someone you never met, but this is how I feel about the American … More

Apart from e e cummings and the genius Anon, one of my chief discoveries in the Voices and Junior Voices series that I … More

I I first came across e e cummings’s ‘in Just’ in an anthology, Wordscapes, edited by Barry Maybury (OUP, 1971). … More

As I say in my previous blog post, I owe my knowledge of ‘8.06 p.m. June 10th 1970’ to the … More

I first came across ‘Birth of the Foal’ at the recommendation of the great Cliff Yates. He told me he’d been … More

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: 4,329 films were submitted … More

In the spring of 1999 I got the best education in poetry I have ever had. I was in Suffolk, … More

I began writing the Lifesaving Poems posts in June 2011, back when I was using Posterous for this blog. … More

PGCE students are so dedicated. They burn with desire to be amazing. They hand in their work and have beautifully … More

The Picnic It is the picnic with Ruth in the spring. Ruth was third on my list of seven girls … More

Some writers influence you through the pull of their imagination on your work, opening up new worlds as you read … More

I am a little late in writing these reflections prompted by the tenth anniversary of 9/11. What I want to … More

You have to hand it to Jamie Oliver for giving it a go. How he kept so positive confronting all … More

Artwork: Kate Vaughan What Michael Gove says about trainee teachers having the opportunity to observe and learn from teachers in school … More

‘Whenever I work with people – no matter what their age – I try to run a checklist through my mind: are … More