I have been thinking a lot about the poetry of Julia Darling this week. Her work became essential to me … More
Tag: Julia Darling
The woman at the workshop
I am at a thing. Not a famous thing, but an important one nevertheless. People are there, people you and … 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
The most popular Lifesaving Poems
I began writing the Lifesaving Poems posts in May, 2011. Below is a list of the twenty most popular poems … More
The Year of Drinking Water, seven years on (free download)
Seven years ago I published The Year of Drinking Water, a pamphlet of poems, about my experience of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (Exeter … More
Don Paterson’s ‘Oh God’ moment
The most immediate and forthright analysis of a poem I have seen at any poetry workshop occurred as I passed … More
The most read Lifesaving Poems of 2013
These are the most read Lifesaving Poems posts of 2013. Mary Oliver, ‘The Journey’ I first read this on … More
Lifesaving Poems: Alison Mosquera’s ‘Tamoxifen’
Earlier this year I ran a Poetry School course about poetry and health called Written on the Body. It was … More
The Top 10 Lifesaving Poems
I began writing the Lifesaving Poems series of blog posts in May 2010. The idea was to celebrate the poems … More
8 great books about dying
The chances are, more of us are mortal than have multiple orgasms -Violet Weingarten, Intimations of Mortality When I was diagnosed … More
On Riddance
Riddance is published today. It is my fourth full-length collection of poems and my third with Worple Press. You can … More
Lifesaving Poems: Julia Darling’s ‘Chemotherapy’ vs ‘Psalm 102’
I was astonished to find in an old diary today that by 8 March 2006, less than one month after … More
Lifesaving Poems
I was struck by a remark of Seamus Heaney in an interview he gave some years ago now. He was … More