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

Poetry and illness

Medicine The black hair of my Chinese doctor gleams like combed ink as he leans over his desk, with quick … 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

Lifesaving Poems

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