Mostly all the time nearly everything

Everyone who enters the stage begins by saying thank you * That silence * Mostly nearly all the time * … More

Poetry and tennis

On the Sunday morning of the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival I breakfasted with poets discussing the theme of writing poetry and … More

The opening night of each Aldeburgh Poetry Festival is about young poets stepping into the spotlight and taking the applause … More

By the time you read this I will be far away from here. It has not happened yet, but I … More

Photo credit: Felix Clay, The Guardian Heard I can’t remember a time in my teaching career when there wasn’t … More

I first heard Thomas Lux’s poems before I read them. In the autumn of 2000 I was sent a tape … More

Photograph © Bloodaxe Books Ltd I am delighted to announce that my Lifesaving Poems series of blog posts has now become … More

It Is Summer for Months Clothes are skimpy and tans are gotwithout flight bags.We saunter beside a canalwhere horses pull … More

Thanks to the vision and generosity of Jean Sprackland, between 1999-2001 I had the privilege of working with the great … More

Here are the text and ppt presentations of my NATE Conference 2014 keynote speech on The Power of Poetry. PDF … More

I am at a thing. It is my thing, contributing to the thing of others, who I do not know. … More

I am completely torn apart -Rupert Loydell When I first read Raymond Carver’s Fires I loved and understood all of it, … More

I was saddened to hear of the death of Gerard Benson last week. A poet and anthologist, he was probably … More

I followed a lead, nudged by a hunch, and it brought me here. The book is In Their Own Words (edited by … More

When Ezra Pound claimed that ‘Poetry is news that stays news’ it is likely he was thinking of Katy Evans-Bush’s Baroque … More

I was at a thing recently. Not my thing, a good thing. Luminosity filled the evening. In the pouring of … More

The poem is not happy. It glares up at me, its eyes spitting fury. ‘How dare you take me in … More

Lately I have been pondering the practice of paying attention, vis-à-vis my habit of keeping a notebook to capture impressions, … More