Review of Victoria Gatehouse’s The Hawthorn Bride
With thanks to the editor, Hilary Menos, for commissioning it, my review of Victoria Gatehouse’s excellent debut full collection, The Hawthorn Bride, is at The Friday Poem today, here. The collection,...
View Article(Other) November reading
Shash Trevett’s debut full collection, The Naming of Names, published by the Poetry Business and available to buy here, follows on from her 2021 pamphlet From a Borrowed Land, with more poems relating...
View ArticlePoem at Atrium – ‘Entertaining’
With thanks to editors Claire Walker and Holly Magill, I’m very pleased to have a poem up at Atrium today, here.
View ArticleBack to Michael Hamburger
It would be remiss of me not to revisit Hamburger before his centenary year ends. I wonder who else has marked it; not even PN Review as far as I can see, a surprising omission given that Carcanet...
View ArticleMy year in haiku
I’ve had a grand total of nine haiku and senryu published this year, which is pitifully few compared to my heyday, but nonetheless represents an increase on last year. I write them so seldom that it’s...
View ArticleDecember reading
What reading I have done this month has principally been on buses, trains and trams. Bus journeys – to and from Doncaster or Sheffield – in particular are ideal for reading poetry collections. Derek...
View ArticleJanuary reading (1)
I’ve started my reading in this new year where I left it in the old, with the American poet Dorianne Laux. I’d first encountered Laux’s poetry back in September, when ‘The Shipfitter’s Wife’ was one of...
View ArticleReview of Gerry Cambridge’s The Ayrshire Nestling
With thanks, as ever, to Hilary Menos and Andy Brodie, and also to Helena Nelson for a helpful point of clarification, my first review of the year is up at The Friday Poem – of Gerry Cambridge’s...
View ArticleJanuary reading (2)
My further exploration of Dorianne Laux’s oeuvre has continued with Only as the Day is Long, her 2019 ‘New and Selected Poems’ (Norton). I’m surprised that no British publisher has brought out an...
View ArticleReview of Sue Hubbard’s God’s Little Artist
In contemplating writing creatively about the life and death of a real person, famous or otherwise, one has (a minimum of) six key decisions to make, the last four of which are dependent on the first...
View ArticleFebruary reading
Another book which has been sitting on my TBR shelf has at last, and happily, pushed its way into my hands: Don Paterson’s Smith, sub-titled ‘A Reader’s Guide to the Poetry of Michael Donaghy’,...
View ArticlePoem in The Fig Tree – ‘Comedians’ Comedian’
With thanks to editor Tim Fellows, I’m delighted to have a poem in another fine issue of The Fig Tree, here. The poems by the featured poet, Calder Valley Poetry’s Bob Horne, are marvellous,...
View ArticleLaunch of The Fig Tree Anthology 2024 and Crooked Spire Press
As one of the contributors, I’ll be reading at the launch of The Fig Tree Anthology 2024 in Doncaster on Saturday 26 April. The anthology is a print collation of poems which featured in the first five...
View ArticleMarch reading
I’ve continued my merry way through the novels of Rupert Thomson by reading his debut novel, from way back in 1987: Dreams of Leaving. There’s a good summary of its plot and themes here. Its London-set...
View ArticleReview of Hannah Copley’s Lapwing
With thanks, as ever, to Hilary Menos and Andy Brodie, my review of Lapwing (Liverpool University Press, 2024) by Hannah Copley is up at The Friday Poem, here.
View ArticleOn another haiku by Simon Chard
the day’s gentle start lesser celandines This is the winning haiku, and therefore featured, haiku for April on this year’s Haiku Calendar, still very much worth buying from Snapshot Press, here....
View ArticleThe Last Corinthians
It’s taken me a long time to assemble my second collection of longer-form poems into a coherent state, eight years since my first. I’m delighted to say that it will be published this June, by a new,...
View ArticleA Shakespeare Day walk . . .
. . . on the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation away with the fairies—the lock gatesclanking shut Jack-by-the-hedgethe navies and maroonsof the berthed narrowboats a mallard alightsbeside a...
View ArticleThe Last Corinthians – pre-ordering and online launch
My forthcoming poetry collection, The Last Corinthians, is now available for pre-order at the Crooked Spire Press website, here. Also, tickets are available, here, for the online launch on Tuesday 10...
View ArticleApril reading
I read about Boot Sale Harvest by Adrian May, Dunlin Press 2023, available here, on the Caught by the River website and had to buy it. Ostensibly, it recounts a year’s worth of May’s hauls from...
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