I blame the dead

We have been to a thing. Breaking with this blog’s tradition of oblique references to low-level gossip and self-recrimination at … More

A step from me

In August last year I wrote about Tom Paulin’s poem of hurt and slow healing ‘A Lyric Afterwards’. It wasn’t … More

After Joe Biden won the 2020 US presidential election, I posted one of the very few poems to this blog … More

Timorous or bold are the first three words of Seamus Heaney’s famous (to me) ‘Elegy’ for Robert Lowell. They’ve been … More

But first came Plath. After Ursuala Le Guin, the only female author we studied (OK – Jane Austen). Her name … More

On a spring day as far from ‘late in dour October’ it would be harder to imagine, James Schuyler’s The … More

The line that’s been buzzing round my head the last couple of weeks is from Robert Lowell’s heartbreaking poem ‘For … More

I was very saddened to hear of the death of Brendan Kennelly this week. He had been a long-standing presence … More

What You Missed That Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listento … More

Tollund That Sunday morning we had travelled far. We stood a long time out in Tollund Moss: The low ground, … More

Earlier this year my Lifesaving Poems blog enjoyed something of a milestone. Not as momentous as Jimmy Anderson taking his … More

A Blessing in Disguise Yes, they are alive and can have those colors, But I, in my soul, am alive … More

As promised last week, here is my presentation of the paper I co-wrote with Sue Dymoke in which we argue on … More

In a Church No, no time for this the outside clamours to be heard, the books, you see, … More

’Anything else?’ the book says. ’What do you mean?’ ’That you want to tell me?’ There is a long silence, … More

In support of crowdfunding our new anthology of poems, No One You Know, with Unbound, Sue Dymoke and I are … More

As we draw to the end of NaBloPoMo, I have invited Josephine Corcoran to collaborate with me on a joint-interview. … More

I have to be honest and say that, in the light of yesterday’s US Election result, I am tempted to … More