Writing in the gaps

There isn’t much left to be done. The proof reading, the book blurbs (they take longer than the poems), the … More

Poems from The Afterlife

After what feels like a very long wait since the publication of Riddance in 2012, I am delighted to be publishing … More

When Riddance came out in 2012 people said some very nice and kind things about it. But that is not … More

I have been doing the proofs to my new books. And I am scared. Scared that I have got it … More

To celebrate what I now think of as James Schuyler day, I am reposting June 30, 1974. Happy … More

What I love about James Schuyler is coming across poems I have not found before and finding in them the … More

Poems hatch Poems hatch from memory, fantasy, the need to communicate with the living, the dead, the unborn. Poems come … More

My James Schuyler obsession continues. (So is my adoration of blogs about pencils, but that is another story.) Below are … More

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

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the ‘poets I go back to’ idea, that I first came across in … More

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

I think I will write you a letter, June day. Dear June Fifth, you’re all green, so many kinds and … More

I have been reading Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It For Life recently. In it she asks … More

I have carried it with me each day, that sense of shame about the fact that I write, that it … More

About a month before my friend Pammy died, she said something that may have permanently changed me. We had … More

I was saddened to hear of the death of the Australian poet Les Murray yesterday. In the autumn of 1997, … More

I wrote the poem below in the summer of 2015. David Cameron had won a slim majority in the … More

Dear Alicia I can’t believe it is three years since I got to hang out with you at Totleigh … More