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  • Winchester Poetry Festival Diary: Day One (Part Two).

    Winchester Poetry Festival Diary: Day One (Part Two).

    Kim Moore, Ian Duhig and Sophie Hannah gave wonderful readings on the opening night of the festival. It really is a pleasure to hear poems you think you know quite well read aloud. Even if you’ve read them many times in magazines, websites, in collections and at award evenings, something surprising and new often turns Read more

  • Winchester Poetry Festival Diary: Day One (Part One)

    Winchester Poetry Festival Diary: Day One (Part One)

    So here I am, safely installed in a delightful airbnb very close to the centre of Winchester. I have a Festival Pass in my hands and I’m going to make the most of it. I’ll report back, in between attending events, starting with a few things I went to yesterday. The opening event was a Read more

  • A poem for National Poetry Day 2016

    A poem for National Poetry Day 2016

    The theme for this year’s National Poetry Day in the UK is ‘messages’.  As Poet in Residence at Trowbridge Town Hall, I’ve been working with artist Ben Midgley on a new poem which we will share with school students and other visitors to the Town Hall on National Poetry Day, October 6. Local school students from primary and Read more

  • Sinéad Morrissey to give a talk about her Communist heritage

    Sinéad Morrissey to give a talk about her Communist heritage

    One of the best things about poetry festivals, in my opinion, are the quieter, less obvious events that festival organisers somehow manage to schedule alongside a packed programme of readings and workshops.  One such an occasion to look forward to at Winchester Poetry Festival is a talk by the poet Sinéad Morrissey called My Communist Heritage: On the Trail of Read more

  • Thinking about Children’s Poetry

    Thinking about Children’s Poetry

    Ahead of Winchester Poetry Festival which runs from Friday 7 October to Sunday 9 October, and because I’m teaching some poetry workshops for children at Trowbridge Town Hall on National Poetry Day (October 6), I’ve been re-reading a 2015 issue of Modern Poetry in Translation magazine  which had a focus on children’s poetry in translation. Read more

  • How to format poetry in WordPress (updated)

    How to format poetry in WordPress (updated)

    Post updated November 2020. Since I last updated this post, WordPress has switched to the block editor (known as Gutenberg).  When I edit poems, I create a post and put in the title, then go to save.  When I return to the dashboard menu, I click ‘WP Admin’, (NB if you cannot locate ‘WP Admin’ Read more