Lifesaving Poems: Siân Hughes’s ‘Results’

I first encountered Siân Hughes‘s poems sitting around a table with some talented teenage poets at the Arvon Foundation‘s writing … More

Lifesaving Poems: Tom Raworth’s ‘8.06 p.m. June 10th 1970’

As I say in my previous blog post, I owe my knowledge of ‘8.06 p.m. June 10th 1970’ to the … More

I first came across ‘Birth of the Foal’ at the recommendation of the great Cliff Yates. He told me he’d been … More

The funniest thing you will ever read about Elizabeth Bishop (or teaching, or anything else) is Mark Halliday‘s essay Moose … More

Here is a revelation: I did not always adore the work of Frank O’Hara. I had pause to consider why … More

Like a lot of people I first came across Carol Ann Duffy‘s ‘Words, Wide Night’ as a Poems on the … More

You make the thing because you love the thing and you love the thing because someone else loved it enough … More

Norman MacCaig’s ‘Aunt Julia’ was the first poem I remember reading which made me think ‘I need to do this’. … More

Slaughterhouse Let it be done here, here where deathis all in a day’s work, and by men who dealin the … More

What It’s Like To Be Aliveafter Django BatesI remember the nights, and the sounds of the nights,and the moon and … More

I began writing the Lifesaving Poems series of blog posts in May 2010. The idea was to celebrate the poems that I … More

Elegy for Jane(My student, thrown by a horse)I remember the neckcurls, limp and damp as tendrils;And her quick look, a … More

EraThe twenty-second day of March two thousand and threeI left home shortly after eight thirtyon foot towards the City. I … More

Sunday LunchtimeThe whirlpools of the launderettedo not recognise the Sabbath,so the air in Worple Streetsmells of soapsuds and roast beef.The … More

Seven years ago today, the date in the photograph above was the day I knew had cancer. By this … More

Saint Francis and the SowThe budstands for all things,even for those things that don’t flower,for everything flowers, from within, of … More

I began writing the Lifesaving Poems series of blog posts in May 2010. The idea was to celebrate the poems … More

Down by the Station Early in the Morning It all wears out. I keep telling myself this, butI can never … More