Lifesaving Poems: Mary Oliver’s ‘The Journey’

The Journey One day you finally knewwhat you had to do, and began,though the voices around youkept shoutingtheir bad advice–though … More

Lifesaving Poems: Charles Simic’s ‘My Shoes’

It was the best of times. Jean Sprackland and I were tutoring the dream group at Totleigh Barton for a … More

It was the best of times. Jean Sprackland and I were tutoring a poetry course at Totleigh Barton, the Arvon … More

I once saw Michael Rosen teach a theatre full of tearfully happy children and adults these wonderful nonsense word games … More

In September 2006 my treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma came to an end. I was not told I was officially in … More

I think my first bout of Poetry Exhaustion occurred sometime after my A levels. Our English paper was quite advanced for its … More

To His Lost Lover Now they are no longerany trouble to each other he can turn things over, get down … More

To safe and almost universal silence I published How Far From Here is Home? (Stride) a few days before Christmas in … More

Atlas There is a kind of love called maintenanceWhich stores the WD40 and knows when to use it; Which checks … More

Let Evening Come Let the light of late afternoon shine through chinks in the barn, moving up the bales as … More

Some time ago I wrote about the importance to me of discovering, through my friend Duncan Kramer, the anthology The … More

Yesterday I had the great pleasure of getting back in touch with Mark Robinson, poet, author and former editor … More

I first had the pleasure of reading this remarkable and delightful poem by Janet Fisher in 2001 in the company of a … More

Photo: Rob Starling ‘Fishermen’, by Alasdair Paterson, is one of my Lifesaving Poems. I first read it as a new teacher, … More

Thanks to the recommendation of Naomi Jaffa (again) I had the smug pleasure of already knowing the work of Tony … More

I was lucky. I was taught English in one of those classrooms with complete sets of A Taste of Honey, … More

It was summer. I found myself on the top floor of the library, on the recommendation of a friend: … More

One year I decided that I would decorate one of my teaching rooms with my collection of Poems on the … More