The other evening I was in Lewes listening to Jackie Wills and Grace Nichols being interviewed by Mark Hewitt. One of the topics they discussed was the idea of having a ‘personal canon’, in other words those poets or poetry collections that have either been formative influences, or that you dip into regularly for inspiration.Read more ⟶
Tag: eavan boland
On feeding The Lake
The spreadsheet of poetry magazines is forever growing, albeit slowly. Even though I’m adding perhaps eight to ten titles each quarter, there are those I have to delete. This is usually because they’ve stopped publishing; quite a few mags were set up hurriedly during the pandemic and never really got off the ground. Others haveRead more ⟶
Advice to a poet, and a curious birthday thing
Q: Who are these poets and what do they (almost) have in common? (Answers below…) Advice lines Recently I came across this delightful and very relevant piece on the Poetry Ireland website: Advice to a Poet – words of wisdom from Maurice Harmon, critic, biographer, editor, literary historian and poet. Even the title has anRead more ⟶
Current reading and other news
Current reading … and a parrot Camilla’s Bookshop is open again in Eastbourne after an arson attack, and I can report that the parrot is still alive and greeting you as you enter, and the stacks of books are as tightly packed as ever – in fact even more so! Here’s how the poetry sectionRead more ⟶
Unexpected bonus
In the post today came a copy of Poetry magazine, volume 202 number 1 – yes, it’s been going for over a hundred years – gawds! The reason it was an unexpected bonus is because I cannot remember where or when I ordered it. But here it is, and with such a heritage the firstRead more ⟶