What you read in 2022

Here are the blog posts from 2022 that you read most often Lifesaving Lines: The Death of Fred Clifton, by … More

Lifesaving Lines: Stone, I Presume, by Ian Mcmillan

For several weeks before Christmas I had these words from Ian McMillan’s peerless ‘Stone, I Presume’ rattling around my head. … More

Rupert Loydell is shouting at the countryside. I have got up at sparrow-fart to drive him to the Blandford … More

As I have said before, there wasn’t a plan. Which does not mean I don’t feel the luckiest man alive … More

I have been wondering recently if the world of the poem (the one that is currently not-here, just out of … More

Heaven on Earth Now that it is night, you fetch the wash from outer space, from the frozen … More

It Is Summer for Months Clothes are skimpy and tans are got without flight bags. We saunter beside a … More

I am in the pub with Rupert. We are talking about planning a thing. It’s definitely going to happen. A … More

I have not read a book in six months -Raymond Carver, ‘Drinking While Driving’ I can still remember the shock … More

I think my first bout of Poetry Exhaustion occurred sometime after my A levels. Our English paper was quite advanced for its … More

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

Some of my favourite poetry books of all time are anthologies. Not the headline selections everybody has (and has to … More

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

On the Impossibility of Staying Alive They have found a new moon; it stands on my shoulder. They call it … More

I was struck by a remark of Seamus Heaney in an interview he gave some years ago now. He was … More