All afternoon I've had Kurt Weill's September Song swimming around my brain. Weill composed the beautiful, liltingly melancholy tune; the lyrics, which I erroneously thought were by Bertolt Brecht (well, he and Weill did work together a lot), turn out to be by the American playwright Maxwell Anderson. I've just listened to a recording of …
Category: musings
Of Islands and Strangers
I come from a sunburnt country.I come from Scottish and Welsh,and Protestant guilt.I come from stolen land.I come from privilegefrom classical musicand cryptic crosswordsand private education.I come from discontentfrom chucking in schoolfrom teenage rebellion. I came in desperation,I came a strangerin a strange state of mind.I came to Thatcher’s disunited kingdomto Red Ken’s London. I found …
What’s for pudding?
A familiar refrain from my childhood, and one I often ask Nick as we finish our dinner - something sweet to round off the evening meal. I was lucky to grow up in a family where putting food on the table - in terms of affording it - was never an issue. With hindsight, I …
latest poetry crush
Earlier this year I received my contributor copy of a new anthology from Grey Hen Press, Two Ravens - Explorations of mind and memory. It's a substantial and impressive collection exploring its important themes from many different angles, through poems written by older women poets. I'm honoured that my poem The Sheffield Man is included …
a lot of life, and quite a few words
I've kept a journal since I first came to London, nearly 40 years ago. Those journals have slowly accumulated on the top shelf above my writing desk, until they were crammed up to the ceiling and in danger of toppling. What to do with all these words, this record of my life lived mostly in …
where did it all begin?
Recently I was thinking about writing goals (not something I often do, actually), and thought how cool it would be to have one of my poems read on radio. Poetry Please, where listeners request poems on a theme, is perhaps the pinnacle, but I'd be just as thrilled to have one of my poems broadcast …
ruminating while running
While I was running around Battersea Park this morning, I started thinking about how much I hated exercise and sport as a child, and then well into adulthood. My younger self would have been amazed, and possibly appalled, to see me pounding along paths between trees and gambolling down grassy knolls. Running isn't my favourite …
a washout
Two people turned up for my Open Spaces in Nine Elms walk: Nick & me. Well, the weather was more like October than August; cold, gusting winds and heavy downpours. And I know London is half empty in August, so maybe it was the wrong time to try my first walk under my own umbrella …
A poem in the Morning Star
My poem Hotel Braverman was published in the Morning Star on Thursday, and you can read it online here: Hotel Braverman It's a poem I wish I hadn't had to write. I wish our government would live up to its obligations under the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that 'Everyone has the …
Unilateral declaration of World Tahini Day
Tahini on toast. My breakfast this morning, and it set me thinking, not for the first time, what a magical food tahini is. Surely, I thought, there must be one day in the year when this delicious, nutritious and versatile ingredient is celebrated. I searched online and to my surprise it appears there is no …
Hilaire 