To safe and almost universal silence I published How Far From Here is Home? (Stride) a few days before Christmas in … More
Tag: Jo Shapcott
Guest Blog Post: Don’t Think About A White Horse, by Kate Bowles
Don’t Think About A White Horse Coming closer, he turns out to be you – or nearly. Once you … More
Poetry and illness
Medicine The black hair of my Chinese doctor gleams like combed ink as he leans over his desk, with quick … More
To my cancer
I am taking a break from writing brand new blog posts over the summer. Instead of posting new work I … More
Gratitude
I’m grateful to you, you see. I wanted to tell you. –Raymond Carver (‘For Tess’) A kind, wise man once … More
Lifesaving Poems: Ted Hughes’s ‘Wind’
Wind This house has been far out at sea all night,The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,Winds stampeding the … More
Lifesaving Poems: Sean O’Brien’s ‘Before’
To safe and almost universal silence I published How Far From Here is Home? (Stride) a few days before Christmas in … More
Sideswiped by poetry
And sometimes you don’t know where it comes from. It appears as a heat, prickly, under your skin, your scalp. … More
Lifesaving Poems: Jo Shapcott’s ‘Era’
As I say in my full length review of Jo Shapcott’s Of Mutability, really good books about cancer are rare. Really … More
Lifesaving Poems
I was struck by a remark of Seamus Heaney in an interview he gave some years ago now. He was … More
To my cancer
To My Cancer When you left me I did not say goodbye. I kissed you then carried you outside. You … More
Book Review: Of Mutability by Jo Shapcott
Really good books about cancer are rare. Really great books about cancer, the ones that offer new perspectives and … More