The back of an envelope thing

‘An amazing stillness this morning. A sense of impending exhaustion in the air. There was one robin as I went … More

Poets who remain poets, by Stephen Dunn

Young poets Who don’t think of themselves As apprentices Are notorious For resisting influences. They’ve experienced The first stages Of … More

Consider what value, What meaning Is enclosed even In the smallest Of our daily habits, In the hundred possessions Which … More

An artist needs not so much an audience as to feel a need to answer, a promise to respond. … More

‘Did you hear?’ says the book. ‘Ted Hughes’s brother has died.’ ‘I did see that, yes,’ I say. ’95, though. … More

Every year, the bright Scandinavian summer nights fade away without anyone noticing. One evening in August you have an errand … More

In the last year, another government initiative has created a compulsory part of the curriculum: learning poetry by heart … More

Recently I have featured prose writing by various writers, reshaping them in the form of found poems. Annie Dillard on … More

If every head of state and every government official spent an hour a day reading poetry we’d live in … More

Sometimes poems aren’t literal representations of anything. Sometimes a poem just exists as something else in the universe that you … More

‘What drives you?’ ‘I’ve only just woken up!’ I say to the book. ‘Don’t care. It’s morning. Work to be … More

‘Aren’t you going get the phone?’ I say. ‘It won’t be for me.’ With a little groan the book … More

The adventures of the book have now clocked up fifty blog posts. Here is a list of all of them, … More

In the summer of 1986, when he was poetry editor of New Statesman and not long after Writing Home had … More

A Rainy Morning A young woman in a wheelchair, wearing a black nylon poncho spattered with rain, is pushing … More

August 1914 What in our lives is burnt In the fire of this? The heart’s dear granary? The much we … More

By Any Other Name First, he called her My Little Aubergine as if she was … More

You say “drone” and I think of bagpipes refrigerators aeroplanes I think of bees a male bee in a colony … More