Lifesaving Poems: Sylvia Plath’s ‘Mushrooms’

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

Lifesaving Poems: Simon Armitage’s ‘To His Lost Lover’

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

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

And sometimes you don’t know where it comes from. It appears as a heat, prickly, under your skin, your scalp. … More

I first met Lawrence Sail at a private view at a gallery just outside Exeter. My family and I … More

I came across Hubert Moore’s fantastic book of poems The Hearing Room (Shoetstring, 2006) via my friend and neighbour Lawrence Sail. In … More

Night Drive The smells of ordinarinessWere new on the night drive through France;Rain and hay and woods on the airMade … More

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

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

Alone I One evening in February I came near to dying here. The car skidded sideways on the ice, out … More