Chemo reading

I wrote here recently about losing my ambition as a writer. In case readers are in any doubt, the stuff … More

Why it’s called Love for Now

Love for Now did not begin with an idea but an illness. As I have written elsewhere, there wasn’t a plan. I … More

I wrote recently about poets who disappear from view, specifically Susannah Amoore, from Faber’s Poetry Introduction 6. My point is far … More

I want to live – Sharon Olds The most intense reading group I ever belonged to wasn’t really a reading … More

I have written before that there are a wide range of reasons for including the poems I have in my … More

The Next Big Thing I have been been tagged by poet and blogger Abegail Morley to answer set questions relating to my memoir … More

The chances are, more of us are mortal than have multiple orgasms -Violet Weingarten, Intimations of Mortality When I was diagnosed … More

I fell in love with the poetry of Mark Strand via the enthusiasm of Rupert Loydell sometime in the late … More

Originally posted on Lifesaving Poems:
I love the silence that descends on a classroom full of people who are all engaged…

May the Silence Break Because you do not speakI know the shockof water encountering a rock. Supremacy of silence is … More

Six years ago today I was told I wasn’t going to die. Those weren’t the words my consultant used, but … More

There was no mention of more sex or bungee jumps. A palliative nurse who has counselled the dying in their … More

With Only One Life Hold with both hands The tray of every day And pass in turn Along this … More

I went to see a play recently, set in the early 20th century, where a man sat in his office … More

Can our family escape the tyranny of the screen? Stephen Carrick-Davies’s son suggested a non-screen day every week. The family … More

The Other Life in memory of Emily Riall I want to wake up in a house where the … More

photo: Gwenllian Riall Last week I posted a blog about entering remission after treatment for cancer. For me this moment … More

In February I wrote a blog post on the anniversary of my diagnosis of Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (NHL), a cancer … More