Category: Poetry
-
The world under our feet
Soil – an exhibition at Somerset House, London – until 13th April 2025 Going to Somerset House in London is always a treat – not least because the building is almost a history lesson in itself.* But this time I was going down in more than one way… I believe I have a rich history…
-
Magic and mountains and cakes….
Once I stayed in a haunted house after a literary festival in Scotland. It was so haunted, in fact, that my friend and I crept out in the very very early morning to drive home through some very remote countryside. We cheered ourselves up imagining a perfect cafe suddenly appearing – warm, with delicious pastries…
-
Creative writing exercise, week 4 – writing your own instructions
The late great Toni Morrison famously said, “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” I like this advice on many levels, but mainly because it deals with the idea that when we are writing, we are also listening to ourselves. Perhaps one…
-
Creative writing in the garden, Week 2
If last week’s prompt was all about memories, this second writing prompt is all about looking forward in time. Imagine it’s some point in the future – five years, ten years, twenty years hence. Now picture yourself in the garden. What do you think that future you think about what you are doing right now?…
-
Why gardeners should read (and write) poetry
It was Cicero who said that if you have a garden and a library you want for nothing, and I’m proud to have an essay in the RHS The Garden magazine about why gardeners should read poetry. It was a joy to share lines of some of my favourite poems in the essay, and if…
-
The News From the Garden
is earthshattering, a blackbird’s made its nest in the hawthorn tree, and breaking as I write, seedlings planted a month ago are bursting forth, teasing us with their rainbow hints, but if you rub a leaf between finger and thumb you can smell summer already; a baby is kicking its legs in response at the…
-
Snowdrops rising like lanterns
Winter Garden by Sarah Salway Like the pilgrim divests himself of worldly goods, the garden’s stripped back to a skeleton, only the vertebrae of paths holds its truest form and even as trees hold blossom close, buds aching, it’s still the cutting back that matters most, while through it all the river’s artery rolls,…
-
Poor Susan and the sounds of the city
This week I was lucky enough to go on a guided walk around the city of London with Rosie from Dotmaker Tours. She was concentrating particularly on the sounds of the city – we walked without talking, just listening (almost too intense, was the verdict), we talked how the city would sound in the future…
-
Nine bean-rows, friends and a poetry exchange
I am lucky enough to be involved with the Poetry Exchange, an organisation which pops up in interesting places and asks people to nominate what poems they consider as friends. It’s a fascinating question – not your favourite poem, or even a poem that you love – but what kind of friend is this poem…
-
We wrote a poem on a leaf…
I’m just back from a glorious weekend teaching creative writing with Anna Robertshaw from Freestyle Yoga Project, who was teaching the yoga. Yoga and writing proved a perfect combination, or maybe that was the group who came. Or even the venue, glorious Tilton House, just up the road from the Bloomsbury set’s famous Charleston Farmhouse on…
-
Come and write with me…
Come and indulge your senses with a Herbal Infused Poetry Workshop at the beautiful Physic Garden at Westgate Gardens, Canterbury Saturday 24th September – 11-1pm Costs £4 (including tea and cake) How could such sweet and wholesome hours be reckoned, but in herbs and flowers? Andrew Marvell I’m running a workshop in Canterbury designed around…