The Story of The Time-turner and The Lyrical Ostrich

by | Aug 8, 2011 | Blogs

Penzance literary festival is unlike any other’ reads the welcoming and informative website http://penzance-literary-festival.org.uk It’s a community festival, started last year, and organised again by a small number of volunteers who have somehow succeeded in...

What is the point of making teenagers write poetry?

by | Jul 4, 2011 | Blogs

Have you read any of Tom Warner’s work? You should. He’s an excellent poet. Which is why I was pleased but also a bit nervous to be working with him on a pilot project called Well Versed (run by Writers Centre Norwich and carried out by poets and teachers in schools...

A day at the poetry

by | Jun 14, 2011 | Blogs

The Cley Little Festival of Poetry, in my experience, circles around the village of Cley but doesn’t settle there, ranging between Sheringham and Wiveton along the coast road. They very generously invite me to suggest themes, poets etc., from time to time and...

Riding the Line

by | Apr 28, 2011 | Blogs

I was moved to write this piece after reading a Robert Penn article in this month’s Cycling Plus where he argues that poetic thinking and cycling are incompatible, and quotes Diane Ackerman: “When I go biking… the world is breaking someone else’s heart”. It’s a strong...

Education in poetry

by | Apr 21, 2011 | Blogs

This is the first of what will hopefully become an ongoing series of guest blogs featuring regularly on The Rialto website. Education in poetry During the day, when I’m not writing, you can find me running an antiquarian bookshop in North London, surrounded by...
On a painting and poetry

On a painting and poetry

by | Nov 6, 2010 | Blogs

Snowy Landscape at Eragny, with an apple tree, by Camille Pissaro, hangs in a Victorian wallpapered gallery in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. Seeing it for the first time, I felt like when you open curtains on unsuspected snow. It’s late afternoon or mid...
On Difficult-to-find Books

On Difficult-to-find Books

by | Sep 20, 2010 | Blogs

Brian Patten’s brilliant BBC radio essay on lost poets – and the one whose poems astonished me the most was Rosemary Tonks – made me think of the poets I like who are – not lost – but difficult to get hold of. In fact, getting hold of Rosemary Tonks’ two poetry...
On Difficult-to-find Books

On the voice and poetry

by | Sep 2, 2010 | Blogs

I like the idea of the voice being betwixt and between. Moving from the body out to the world. Of belonging neither to the world of objects (not a bodily thing) nor to that dreadful (dead-full) world of text – where when we read, all we try to do is get what the text...
On Difficult-to-find Books

Masha Zrabl

by | Jul 31, 2010 | Blogs

There’s a feeling when you see a stranger who resembles someone you once knew, of being thrown off kilter, caught between two people, one present before you and the other present only in your memory. I had such an experience in the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich, looking...
Down at the White Horse, Feat. Bob the Barman

Down at the White Horse, Feat. Bob the Barman

by | Jul 26, 2010 | Blogs

During my ‘poetry adventure’ in New York, I had a drink with a cool guy called Peter at The White Horse. I found out that the pub has an interesting story to it, which might be of interest to readers of The Rialto. I arranged to document it all the next...
Down at the White Horse, Feat. Bob the Barman

New York: A Little Poetry Adventure

by | Jul 23, 2010 | Blogs

I recently undertook a bit of a poetry adventure. It was across the pond, in a place called New York. I heard once that a lot of poetry comes from there and I went to see for myself. And it’s true! The rules and agenda for this adventure were simple: 1) Find a...