Lifesaving Poems: Catherine Smith’s ‘How It All Started’

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

Lifesaving Poems: Dorothy Nimmo’s ‘Rondeau Redouble’

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

I met Evangeline Paterson once, in the early Nineties, at a workshop in London. Rupert Loydell suggested I went as … More

I heard Michael Symmons Roberts give a magisterial reading from his book Drysalter recently. It was exemplary on so many levels, not … More

In 1991 I made the decision to teach part-time so that I could put poetry more at the centre of … More

A Poem for Someone Who is Juggling Her Life This is a poem for someonewho is juggling her life.Be still … More

Sometime in 1997 I went to hear Kevin Crossley-Holland give a reading at Exeter Central Library. I’d heard he was … More

‘A Lyric Afterwards’ was the poem in which I finally got Tom Paulin. I had been given a tape of him … More

I love watching poets having fun. Think of Don Paterson shooting the breeze with Bill Herbert in the South Bank … More

Ann Sansom is one of my all-time favourite people, poets or normal, ever. I count myself fortunate to have worked … More

This is What I Wanted to Sign Off With You know what I’m like when I`m sick: I’d sooner curse … More

W.H. Auden once said that writers should always be honest, even about their prejudices. So here is my confession: when … More

Early Summer Small things get lost now;There are intrusions,Defeats in alien worlds. This is the time to slide a foolish … More

In September 2006 my treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma came to an end. I was not told I was officially in … More

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