I’ve not posted since January which is appalling even by my non-prolific blogging standards. I blame the PhD. There will be a resurgence of all kinds of creativity when that’s done-or so I tell myself. In the meantime it’s nice to publish a few poems written by other people like then below, written…

I can’t add anything that hasn’t been said in the numerous tributes that have been posted today in response to news of the death of David Bowie. It all proves what a monumental influence he was on so many lives – definitely on mine – and the fact that we grew up with him in…

Artist Cindy Sherman, like me, has a birthday in January. We are of a similar age; she, a little older. Identity work is her project through art as mine is, in various ways, through poetry. I love the ways in which she projects her various selves.  I believe we all have many ‘switch-over’ elves. I…

  I posted 10 times last year-I thought it was 8! Well, maybe I can double that next year…:) The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,800 times in 2015. If it were…

I’ve been inspired by Robin Houghton‘s recent post about her poetry submissions (acceptances and rejections) in 2015 to do some reflecting and totting up myself. I am not as systematic as Robin. I don’t take particular note of how many times various poems have been sent out nor when written and revised. This is a…

I have a postcard of this painting on my desk. Its dramatic use of the medium (oils) appeals to me: stormy but with turbulent light pushing and pulsing.  John Constable painted ‘Rainstorm Over the Sea’ between 1824-1828 from swift sketches he did on Brighton beach.  I like to think of the artist resting his sketchpad…

It’s hard returning to earth when you have been roaming around in a different universe, hopping on and off stars and planets, having conversations you wouldn’t have anywhere else, hearing voices that lift you off your feet and send you spinning. That would be you, Tony Hoagland, Kim Addonizio, Choman Hardy, among others. Yes, I’m…

i have started to make surreal landscapes with various phone apps when I wake, customarily, as I do, 2 or 3 times a night . I am so used to this now ( though am not saying that I like it) that it has become a ‘normal’ pattern. I realise it is not a good…

  Blue – such a lovely colour   but, on certain mornings   when light changes from rays to bars,   it turns sharp, hard, cuts …   cuts deep  

I was out walking just now listening to this podcast where Jackie Kay talks about Edwin Morgan and reads some of his poems.http://www.theguardian.com/books/audio/2013/mar/01/poetry-jackie-kay-edwin-morgan-podcast I’m a fan of Morgan and was interested to hear that some of his most passionate, urgent poems-for instance, those to lovers-were written when he was in his eighties. Jackie Kay reads…