On reputation

It’s complicated. Say you are out and about and want to buy a cup of coffee. I’m not going there, … More

The return of the book

I arrive late back at the house. It is already dark. The usual reassuring things are there: unopened mail, the … More

Mowing the lawn with Maura Dooley

‘There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as … More

Lost notebook

An event of this magnitude Overshadows the destruction of the Berlin Wall And the troubles in the Caucasus. –Robert Rehder, … More

About Maurice

I first met Maurice in the sitting room of a mutual friend, a lifelong Labour supporter, the night after the … More

KBO

‘80% of success is showing up.’ -Woody Allen I was chatting with a student the other day when I said … More

What I learned this week

That CK Williams has died. More than two weeks ago! One of my heroes. This is the first thing I … More

Why social media doesn’t create intelligence

Those kind and wonderful people at Change This have just released a new batch of free, downloadable manifestos. These articles … More

Guest blog post: Poetry and Work, by Shawna Lemay

Poetry and Work   I recently took out a book via Interlibrary loan called, The Mind at Work: Valuing the … More

The Creativity Challenge

Below is the text of a PowerPoint presentation that I am giving today at the Directors of Studies Conference 2015, at Port … More

Am I a poet?

A friend recently asked me if I was writing. I replied, as I always do, saying that it was going … More

A day he won’t have

I had bumped into a friend at the cash machine. We greeted each other, as we always do, with a … More

Pure distraction

In the rift between what is going to happen and whatever we would wish to happen, poetry holds attention for … More

Ignore everyone, absorb everything

During the mad phase, when everything was a tweet or a share or a retweet, one of my favourite discoveries … More

Nothing doing

Sporting occasions are bad. Or the Corbyn result, that was hard. I seem to remember (no one else does) a … More

Guest blog post: Whose life is it anyway? by John Foggin

  A few weeks ago I was writing in my own blog, the great fogginzo’s cobweb, about the way I … More

Lifesaving Poems: Myra Schneider’s ‘Goulash’

Goulash A crucial ingredient is the right frame of mind so abandon all ideas of getting on. Stop pedalling, dismount, … More

This may not work

Since I decided to leave Twitter and abscond from Facebook I have been reminded of some of the guiding principles … More