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

As I wrote in my recent post, I chose to call this series Lifesaving Poems because I actually believe … More

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

Let a Place be Made Let a place be made for the one who draws near,the one who is deprived … More

I first heard Chris Southgate’s ‘High Fidelity’ sometime in 2005, when I was lucky enough to be part of a … More

As I have said before in the Lifesaving Poems series of blogposts, some poets come into your life through the … More

Here is what happened halfway through my treatment for non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in April 2006. I went for a midway scan … More

I absolutely love this poem by Andy Brown. I am not sure when I read or heard it first. Possibly … More

I can remember exactly where I was when I first read these poems. It was on the balcony of the … More

I saw the sign above on a wall during a visit I recently made to a school to talk to … More

I found this poem in a collection of poems called The Matter of This World in a second hand … More

I was astonished to find in an old diary today that by 8 March 2006, less than one month after … More

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

One of the things I love about my job is that I get to co-construct projects with other people. One of … More

The Picnic It is the picnic with Ruth in the spring. Ruth was third on my list of seven girls … More

Ann Gray and I were chatting the other day. We were trying to decide how long we had known each … More

In 2002 I heard WN Herbert read ‘The Black Wet’ at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival. This is not remarkable in itself, you might say, and … More