All Blogposts

  • Notes from a Cluttered Desk

    Notes from a Cluttered Desk

    Like Julie Mellor and many others in the Poetry Blogging Network, I try to put something up on this blog each week.  Like Julie, I don’t always manage it but, also like Julie, I thought I’d try again this week.  I don’t always have something to say so I wonder if it’s worth blogging.  At Read more

  • Mid-September Notes

    Mid-September Notes

    I’m just back from a few days in Spain with my family.  I felt bad about flying, even though I haven’t flown since I went to Portugal in 2015.  I will try not to fly again for at least a year, maybe longer.  I haven’t signed up for the #flightfree2020 pledge but I am thinking Read more

  • Sarah Hymas’ poem at And Other Poems in this year’s Forward Prizes

    Sarah Hymas’ poem at And Other Poems in this year’s Forward Prizes

    Most of you know that I founded and edited a poetry site called And Other Poems for six years and retired the site at the end of 2018. One of my final jobs as editor was to nominate three poems for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem and I’m pleased to say that Sarah Read more

  • September

    September

    I wasn’t going to blog today but started playing around with words and images after spending some time in the garden. lavender has lost its purple like it’s been through a hot wash     left out in the rain leaves rust     roses have dropped pink litter on burnt grass   fat pigeon Read more

  • Hating on Phone Culture

    Hating on Phone Culture

    If you want to see real anger, read some of the comments in response to Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett’s Guardian piece Art, aura and the doomed search for the perfect selfie.  Although Cosslett writes that she has discovered that “even to suggest that to look at a painting through a phone is a lesser form of Read more

  • The Day before GCSE Results Day

    The Day before GCSE Results Day

    I originally wrote this post four years ago, the day before my oldest child took her first public exams.  That same child is now in her second year at university and the second one is about to leave for university in September.  I thought I’d share the post again as it’s GCSE Results Day here Read more