You can read the poem I’m talking about on this page here. ** The grammar of the opening sentence of Isabel Galleymore’s ‘The Ocean’ – and therefore the opening gambit of her book Significant Other – is designed to trip us up and then to catch us as we fall. At the end of the…
Review: Jane Hirshfield, Sean Borodale, Paul Durcan
[this review first appeared in PN Review 231, Volume 43 Number 1, September – October 2016.]
Review: Nelson & Hitchens, Cameron and Crewe & O’Loughlin
[This review first appeared in Poetry Wales]
on ‘Lines starting with La Rochefoucauld’ by Denise Riley
In which I talk about Denise Riley’s poem ‘Lines starting with La Rochefoucauld’
on ‘Eagle Eating a Flamingo’, by Amali Rodrigo
In which I discuss Amali Rodrigo’s poem ‘Eagle Eating a Flamingo’
Spreadsheet Politics
In which the clash of quantitative data with literature makes bad politics happen, and I’m sorry.
Music, Scores, Muldoon, Connection
In which a hungover morning listening to Radio 3 prompts me to ramble about why Paul Muldoon teaches me about connection in poetry.
Rebuttal: Tom Bamford, Cryptozoology
In which I conclusively rebut the poetic debut of a close friend of mine.
A (Brief, Highly Subjective) Introduction to Kei Miller
In which the mask of impartiality probably slips too much. Read Kei Miller.
Written for Wild Court.
The Glittering Prizes
In which I talk about the problems (and, a bit, the values) of prize culture in the UK.
Written for The Poetry Review.
Progress and Form in Dear World & Everyone In It and New British Poetry
[the following was first given as a paper at the British and Irish Poetry Conference, at the University of Manchester, in 2012 (and, as a result, it’s really quite academic and dry – I promise you I can be more fun than this). An edited version also appeared in Oxford Poetry] ☺ “Poetry and progress…
Review: Sheenagh Pugh, Short Days, Long Shadows
[This review first appeared in Poetry Wales] * Sheenagh Pugh, Short Days, Long Shadows (Seren) The blurb of Sheenagh Pugh’s twelfth collection Short Days, Long Shadows describes her as a poet who ‘considers “too accessible” to be the best sort of compliment’. So often the back of a book of a book of poetry sells…
