Waiting to be picked

If you’re not enough without the gold medal, you’ll never be enough with it. – John Candy, Cool Runnings I did not … More

Lifesaving Poems: Kate Bingham’s ‘Things I Learned at University’

Things I Learned at University How to bike on cobblestones and where to signal right. How to walk through doors … More

Hysteria As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in her laughter and being part of it, until her … More

A comment Mark Robinson made in the days following Seamus Heaney’s death in August resonated with me. He said he … More

The Only Son at the Fish ‘n’ Chip Shop He lived with his mother till he was forty-five … More

How It All Started Do you know this dream? An exam room full of neat, serious girls, your lucky gonk … More

Rondeau Redouble There is so little left. The room is bare. She’ll strip his sheets and blankets by and … More

Psalm How leaky are the borders of man-made states! How many clouds float over them scot-free, how much … More

A year ago I went to hear Clare Best read from her extraordinary book Excisions (Waterloo Press, 2011). Clare … More

Timetable We all remember school, of course: the lino warming, shoe bag smell, expanse of polished floor. It’s where we … More

Laura Apol’s ‘The Switch’ is a witty poem which explores the tension between primal, and sometimes unforeseen, forces and the … More

Swineherd When all this is over, said the swineherd, I mean to retire, where Nobody will have heard about … More

I can remember exactly where I was when I first read ‘Early Summer’. It was on the balcony of … More

I was lucky. I was taught English in one of those classrooms with complete sets of A Taste of Honey, … More

One year I decided that I would decorate one of my teaching rooms with my collection of Poems on the … More

Yesterday I wrote here about poets disappearing. Partly this came to mind via news of Salt’s decision to discontinue publishing … More

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

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