Nowhere Poet

It is odd to speak of missing someone you never met, but this is how I feel about the American … More

Lifesaving Poems: Tom Andrews’s ‘Reading Frank O’Hara in the Hospital’

Reading Frank O’Hara in the Hospital   1 The IV drips its slow news. So long, lean and turbulent morning! … More

Lifesaving Poems: Kathryn Simmonds’s ‘In a Church’

  In a Church   No, no time for this the outside clamours to be heard, the books, you see, … More

UCU Strike Poems 4 -Things I Learned at University, by Kate Bingham

Things I Learned at University How to bike on cobblestones and where to signal right. How to walk through doors … More

What you read in 2017

Dear Friends Here are the blog posts which you read most often in 2017, according to my WordPress stats:   … More

Discovering Geoffrey Summerfield’s Worlds

In support of crowdfunding our new anthology of poems, No One You Know, with Unbound, Sue Dymoke and I are … More

The Power and Potential of Poetry

This is The Power and Potential of Poetry , the talk I gave today at the Somerset Literacy Network annual conference. … More

#NaBloPoMo 24 – See you later

Today is the last day of NaBloPoMo, that month in the year when someone decides it is a nice idea … More

#NaBloPoMo 8 -Try to Praise the Mutilated World

Try to Praise the Mutilated World   Try to praise the mutilated world. Remember June’s long days, and wild strawberries, … More

#NaBloPoMo 7 – The paradox of poetry, by Seamus Heaney

I have to be honest and say that, in the light of yesterday’s US Election result,  I am tempted to … More

Guilty

I have begun to acclimatise myself to the fact that the Book is not coming back. To lure it back … More

A household name

I turn the radio on and switch it off again, unable to settle to anything. There is still no sign … More

The Half-Finished Heaven, by Tomas Tranströmer

The Half-Finished Heaven Despondency breaks off its course.Anguish breaks off its course.The vulture breaks off its flight. The eager light … More

Tracks, by Tomas Tranströmer

Tracks   2 am: moonlight. The train has stopped out in the middle of the plain. Far away, points of … More

A few days to read

and James, it’s taken me a few days to read A Few Days, but I have loved every line, especially … More

and (Dear James)

and (Dear James) it occurs to me now, just thinking out loud, that in a way Kenneth and Frank actually were … More

Open letter to James Schuyler

Dear James (may I call you James?) Though it’s been a while (at least ten years, maybe more) it feels as … More

The poem as love affair

I have started the poem but the poem does not know it yet. I am more than flirting with it, … More