Just another Wednesday

Days Each one is a gift, no doubt, mysteriously placed in your waking hand or set upon your forehead moments … More

Lifesaving Poems: Boris Pasternak’s ‘Hamlet’

Hamlet   The buzz subsides. I have come on stage. Leaning in an open door I try to detect from … More

Lifesaving Poems: Denise Levertov’s ‘The Secret’

The Secret Two girls discover the secret of life in a sudden line of poetry. I who don’t know the … More

After Paris

I found two blog posts especially moving in the aftermath of last week’s attacks in Paris, both by the same … More

Lifesaving Poems: Ellen Doré Watson’s ‘Be Here First’

Be Here First   I don’t know my trees but I know my trees. Their angling for what has spurned them; their spitting … More

Finding Sharon Olds’s The Matter of This World

The Collection The Matter of This World: New and Selected Poems (Slow Dancer, 1987)   I found The Matter of … 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

Influences: my first reader

  My first reader was a man called Fergus. A friend of a flatmate at university, I never got to … More

Lifesaving Poems: Chrissy Williams’s ‘The Burning of the Houses’

The Burning Of The Houses Tottenham is on fire and I work in an arts centre where the sky is … More

New Year letter

Dear Ant Looking forward to 2015 it’s tempting to think it will never reach the heights of 2014. Big mistake. Huge. … More

The most read Lifesaving Poems of 2014

Here are the most read Lifesaving Poems of 2014. For the first time I have been able to compare last … More

‘When I read poetry’: in memory of Mark Strand

I am sad because the great American poet Mark Strand has died. Among the tributes to him in the last … More

On generosity

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

Ellen Doré Watson’s ‘Be Here First’

Ellen Doré Watson was a new name to me until recently. ‘Be Here First ‘ is a good example of … More

Dusk

Reading Thomas Lux’s magnificent new Selected Poems reminded me recently that I first heard his poems before I read them. One of … More

Past fifty

Well, it’s happening. Happened, I mean. Stuff I thought would last forever -film titles, the actors in them, scenes of … More

Thomas Lux’s syntax

I first heard Thomas Lux’s poems before I read them. In the autumn of 2000 I was sent a tape … More

Adélia Prado’s tone

She started as a name. There I was, following my nose, minding my own business, trying to ignore all instincts … More