Going for coffee

The book and I are passing each other messages through a third party. Neither of us bothers with the niceties … More

Making Poetry Happen

  Announcing the publication of Making Poetry Happen: Transforming the Poetry Classroom (Bloomsbury, 2015). Making Poetry Happen provides a valuable resource … More

Why we need Aldeburgh

Dan O’Brien began by saying he wasn’t really a poet, but a ‘moonlighting playwright’. Selima Hill took out her glasses, … More

The woman at the workshop

I am at a thing. Not a famous thing, but an important one nevertheless. People are there, people you and … More

Poetry and tennis

On the Sunday morning of the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival I breakfasted with poets discussing the theme of writing poetry and … More

On generosity

By the time you read this I will be far away from here. It has not happened yet, but I … More

Allan Ahlberg’s genius

Photo credit: Felix Clay, The Guardian   Heard I can’t remember a time in my teaching career when there wasn’t … More

Influences: Alan Booth

Alan Booth wasn’t the first teacher to teach me something, but he was the first who drew me into the … More

Lifesaving Poems: the book

Photograph © Bloodaxe Books Ltd I am delighted to announce that my Lifesaving Poems series of blog posts has now become … More

Just one thing

It all started with two remarks, one by a friend, the other by a stranger at work. ß The friend’s … More

The man kept piling things on

  I am driving to a thing. Not a famous thing, an out of the way thing. A classroom, perhaps. … More

The class of my dreams

The Class to the Class of 2014 after Raymond Carver   The class with beautiful scarves The class who learned … More

The power of poetry (free download) #NATEconf

Here are the text and ppt presentations of my NATE Conference 2014 keynote speech on The Power of Poetry. PDF … More

Now the silences are right

   I am completely torn apart -Rupert Loydell When I first read Raymond Carver’s Fires I loved and understood all of it, … More

Lifesaving Poets: Gerard Benson

I was saddened to hear of the death of Gerard Benson last week. A poet and anthologist, he was probably … More

Their age now

Having not succeeded at school, I’ve always thought of poetry as the holidays, rather than term-time. Hugo Williams I went … More

Don’t clap

I once heard Andrew Motion give a poetry reading at a day-conference for teachers, writers and writers in education. There … More

Bringing each other to perfection

One of the most powerful performances on my old Faber cassette tape of Ted Hughes reading his poems is ‘Bride … More