Lifesaving Poems: Robert Lowell’s ‘Epilogue’

I became interested in Robert Lowell’s poetry because of the criticism of Seamus Heaney. I had tried reading him before, … More

Lifesaving Poems: Tom Paulin’s ‘A Lyric Afterwards’

‘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

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

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

It was summer. I found myself on the top floor of the library, on the recommendation of a friend: … 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

I began writing the Lifesaving Poems posts in June 2011, back when I was using Posterous for this blog. … More

A year ago I began the Lifesaving Poems series of blog posts. I got the idea for it after reading … More