Eating OutsideFat pine boughsdroop over the vegetable garden’ssticks and leaves,the moon’s hazy face comes and goesin the heat.Beautiful women,your skin … More
Tag: Lifesaving Poems
Lifesaving Poems: Ian Duhig’s ‘From the Irish’ and Maura Dooley’s ‘Mansize’
Last night saw the launch of Magma 53 at the Troubadour Coffee House in London with guest readers and Lifesaving … More
Lifesaving Poems is one year old
A year ago I began the Lifesaving Poems series of blog posts. I got the idea for it after reading … More
Lifesaving Poems: George Messo’s ‘The Beautiful Apartments’
As I wrote in my recent post, I chose to call this series Lifesaving Poems because I actually believe … More
Lifesaving Poems: Brendan Kennelly’s ‘May the Silence Break’
May the Silence Break Because you do not speakI know the shockof water encountering a rock. Supremacy of silence is … More
Lifesaving Poems: Yves Bonnefoy’s ‘Let a Place be Made’
Let a Place be Made Let a place be made for the one who draws near,the one who is deprived … More
Lifesaving Poems: Chris Southgate’s ‘High Fidelity’
I first heard Chris Southgate’s ‘High Fidelity’ sometime in 2005, when I was lucky enough to be part of a … More
Lifesaving Poems: Elizabeth Jennings’s ‘A Letter to Peter Levi’
As I have said before in the Lifesaving Poems series of blogposts, some poets come into your life through the … More
Lifesaving Poems: Patrick Kavanagh’s ‘Wet Evening in April’
Here is what happened halfway through my treatment for non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in April 2006. I went for a midway scan … More
Lifesaving Poems: Andy Brown’s ‘Prayer/Why I am Happy to be in the City this Spring’
Prayer/Why I am Happy to be in the City this Springfor creepers etched across a wall like the marble veins … More
Lifesaving Poems: On Hugo Williams and Douglas Dunn
I can remember exactly where I was when I first read these poems. It was on the balcony of the … More
Kenneth Koch’s Melancholy
I saw the sign above on a wall during a visit I recently made to a school to talk to … More
Lifesaving Poems: Sharon Olds’s ‘Looking at Them Asleep’
I found this poem in a collection of poems called The Matter of This World in a second hand … 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: Marin Sorescu’s ‘With Only One Life’
With Only One Life Hold with both hands The tray of every day And pass in turn Along this … More
Lifesaving Poems: Jackie Kay’s ‘Dusting the Phone’
One of the things I love about my job is that I get to co-construct projects with other people. One of … More
Lifesaving Poems: John Logan’s ‘The Picnic’
The Picnic It is the picnic with Ruth in the spring. Ruth was third on my list of seven girls … More
Lifesaving Poems: Ann Gray’s ‘mercifully ordain that we may become aged together’
mercifully ordain that we may become aged togetherTobit 8.7 I was in the Canadian Muffin Company in Armada Way,waiting for … More
Lifesaving Poems 