The book: Barracuda by Christos Tsiolkas Start time: Thursday 14th May approximately 11 p.m. Finish time: Sunday 24th May approximately 8:45 a.m. Number of pages: 513 This is fast for me. I'd wanted to read this for a while but it looked like a chunky novel and not one I could easily carry around with …
Category: London
Notes on the Poetry of B.S. Johnson
On Wednesday evening we attended a free event at the Poetry Library discussing and celebrating the poetry of B.S. Johnson, who is better known for his experimental novels such as The Unfortunates. I'd prepared for the event by reading the selection of Johnson's poetry published in Penguin Modern Poets 25 (1975) - an old secondhand …
eight week review
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 …
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
Hilaire 