It's just over eight weeks since I quit my job and time is doing that weird thing it seems to do of speeding up and filling up the more 'free' time one has. So I thought it might be good to take a step back and reflect on what I've done in that period. I've …
Category: London
off to the charity shop
I bid farewell to an old favourite the other day. A school satchel that has seen better days, and for the last few years, if not longer, has hung, not quite forgotten, on a hook on the back of the door that hides our hot water tank. I bought it decades ago, before satchels became …
Friday night and Saturday morning
On Friday night I was on the bill with Joolz Sparkes at Fourth Friday at the Poetry Café, reading a bunch of poems from our London Undercurrents project. There's more about the event on our dedicated LU blog here. I'd been looking forward to this and practising for quite a while, and, as the reading …
staying the course
I thought about calling this post 'I survived a poetry course'. But that would've been a tad melodramatic. I've just completed a six week poetry course on Monday evenings, based in the Marlene Dumas exhibition at Tate Modern and tutored by the amazing Pascale Petit. And I've surprised myself by really rather enjoying it. I …
underground reading
One of the few up sides of my enforced break from cycling was the extra reading time on the journey to and from work. I found poetry particularly suited to short bursts of reading, and also loved how individual poems could quickly plunge me into a completely different emotional and linguistic space to the squash …
Hilaire – Reborn
I'm very pleased to have this poem published on The Stare's Nest today. The poem is dedicated to Talha Ahsan, a British-born poet and translator with Asperger's syndrome. In 2012, having already been held in detention without charge in the UK for 6 years, he was extradited to the US - without any prima facie evidence being provided to a …
February’s looking up
Poor old January. Too often a long dark month to get through. Now you're behind us, and February's here, the shortest month whose lengthening days speed us towards spring. So it snowed overnight on Monday, and the wind is Siberian, but there are snowdrops in the park, and buds on the magnolia trees. This bright …
a short idiosyncratic list to round off 2014
The year is nearly out. Here are a few of my highlights of 2014. Ravel Day on BBC Radio 3 Friday 7th March was dedicated to the music and life of Maurice Ravel. I marked the day on my calendar as soon as I heard about it. His 139th birthday, so not a traditional landmark …
Continue reading a short idiosyncratic list to round off 2014
Thank you, Thurgoods, and farewell
About a year ago, our local greengrocer closed temporarily for a radical refurbishment, including the addition of a flat over the shop. We resigned ourselves to several months of mildly-aggravating and bit-more-expensive fruit and vegetable shopping in the nearby supermarket, softened by the anticipation of when-Thurgoods-reopens, hoping it would be perhaps a little smarter but …
the view from my window
This is the view from my studio* window. I love it. That big blue gasometer has been part of my skyline for very nearly 25 years. I think it's beautiful, in a rugged, industrial way. But the gasometer has been decommissioned. It's being dismantled. You can guess what's going to replace it - luxury apartment …
Hilaire 