This coming Tuesday 24 March, we’re greeting spring with an evening of poetry in West Greenwich library from 7 for 7.30pm GMT, thanks to marvellous Irena Hill of In-Words. I’m enormously honoured to be reading (from Safe Ground, Mica Press, launched there in April last year) alongside NJ Hynes and Susannah Hart, with music by harpist Lucia Foti. We’ll be focussed on home and where we find it, with wine, Irena’s home-made cakes and the best of company.
I’ve had two of these this week. If it feels too good to be true, it probably is:
I’m looking forward to catching up with my Cambridge writers later today. Here are some prompts so that you can join us, wherever you are:
What is this day with two suns in the sky?
Day unlike other days,
With a great voice giving it to the planet,
Here it is, enamoured beings, your day!
(Quatrain, Rumi, 1207-1273)
You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
(You who never arrived, Rainer Maria Rilke, 1875-1926)
The highway is full of big cars
going nowhere fast
And folks is smoking anything that’ll burn
Some people wrap their lives around a cocktail glass
And you sit wondering
where you’re going to turn
I got it.
Come. And be my baby.
(Come, and be my baby, Maya Angelou, 1928-2014)
A sad sort of rain,
today, and I inside, alone,
look at the pictures I took of you
in London and Paris and Spain.
(Rain, Margaret Newlin, 1925-2005)
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face
(When you are old, WB Yeats, 1865-1939)
Agony! Pain hangs in my heart. Is it she?
It cannot be. Walk on. In the blue, a star.
(The street in shadow, Antonio Machado, 1875-1928)
Last night at my daughter’s, near Blaine,
she did her best to tell me
what went wrong
between her mother and me.
‘Energy. You two’s energy was all wrong.’ (Energy, Raymond Carver, 1938-1988)
On Saturday 7 March, 2026, from 7.30pm, Sarah Briault is bringing POETRY & PROSECCO to north Kent again for another ‘fun, bubbly evening‘.
BECAUSE OF ILLNESS, I HAVE HAD TO PULL OUT OF THIS EVENT. LUCKILY MY DEAR FRIEND CHARLOTTE ANSELL WILL READ FROM HER NEW COLLECTION ‘AMITTERE’ IN MY PLACE, alongside MAGGIE HARRIS and BARNABY HARSENT. They will be in the glamorous surroundings of the Oriole Cafe at Kent County Cricket’s Spitfire ground in Canterbury. Your ticket price includes a glass of Prosecco or non-alcoholic drink, and the chance to read your own words in the OPEN MIC.
Tickets are through Eventbrite HERE.
FAVERSHAM LITERARY FESTIVAL IS BACK SOON! For 10 days between 20 February and 1 March, 2026, FavLit will steep Faversham, Kent’s most beautiful medieval town, in marvellous authors again, more exciting than ever. I will be hosting the free POETRY HUB on Saturday 21 February, in the GUILDHALL between 3 and 8.30pm (full list here). Headliners are Richard Skinner and Jean Atkin at 6pm, and I have the honour of reading alongside Maria McCarthy and Charlotte Ansell from 5pm. (I’m behind the bar too in St Mary’s church for most of the main week.) From 7 to 8.30pm on Saturday, Angela Dye hosts the OPEN MIC. All these poetry events are free – please just turn up.
And on Sunday 22 February between 3 and 4pm, I’m hosting the Local Author Showcase in the Guildhall. This is a quickfire presentation of three minutes each, against the clock. Come and have a go! Everybody’s welcome. Yes, I’m bringing my shepherd’s crook again in case anybody overruns…
Pencils and what-not, ipads, laptops, phones, we can write with anything these days. Yet there are still times when the words flow like cold porridge. The solution is two interlocking things. One is that if you’re a writer, you need writing time, lots of it, securely ring-fenced, guilt-free. The second is being among other writers, especially warm, supportive darlings who are fun to be with. The combination is sometimes known as Writing Buddies. So, I am starting local ‘buddies’ groups, for writers to get together in person for special time like this:
On the SECOND SUNDAY AFTERNOON of each month between 2 and 4pm, we’ll be in The Old Curiosity Shop, Harbour Street, Broadstairs, Kent. That’s 8 February, 8 March and so on, and
On the SECOND WEDNESDAY EVENING of each month, you’re invited to Chapters Coffee & Books in Sturry High Street, near Canterbury. We’ll gather from 6.30pm, for two hours writing and socialising between 7 and 9pm. If you’d like to write through the whole two and a half hours, feel free.
Thank you to Maurice of Chapters who has asked us writers to join the Silent Readers there too on the FOURTH WEDNESDAY EVENING of each month – from 6.30pm for a 7-9pm session – to sit among those quietly reading to themselves, write to our hearts’ content and share Chapters’ atmosphere of happy creativity among books and words.
I hope you’ll find a time to suit you. These are just informal gatherings, not a course. You’re welcome to join me to concentrate quietly on your own writing as you like and to chat and meet other writers. Please bring your writing materials and enough £ to buy your refreshments.
January’s heading out of the door already and some poetry events are coming up fast for me. First is the annual feast-smorgasbord-cornucopia of books and writing in Faversham. The FAVERSHAM LITERARY FESTIVAL #FavLit runs for 10 days between 20 February and 1 March, 2026 and Faversham, Kent will be flooded again with marvellous authors, more exciting than ever. I host the free POETRY HUB on Saturday 21 February, in the medieval GUILDHALL again, between 3 and 8.30pm. Headliners are Richard Skinner and Jean Atkin at 6pm, and I read alongside Maria McCarthy from 5pm. (I’ll also be behind the bar in St Mary’s church for most of the main week.) From 7 to 8.30pm on Saturday, local poet and all-round star Angela Dye hosts the OPEN MIC. And on Sunday 22 February, between 3 and 4pm, I have the fun again of hosting the Local Author Showcase in the Guildhall. Also free. Everybody’s welcome.
On Saturday 7 March, 2026, 7.30 – 10pm, Sarah Briault is bringing POETRY & PROSECCO to north Kent again for another ‘fun, bubbly evening’ and I’m really excited to be among the featured poets. Your ticket price includes a glass of Prosecco or non-alcoholic drink, and the chance to read your own words in the open mic. More details tbc.
On Tuesday 24 March, 2026 from 6.30pm, I’m joining ALEX JOSEPHY and N J HYNES as a featured poet in south east London. IRENA HILL (a dear friend) of In-Words will host this marvellous event at WEST GREENWICH Library and I look forward to seeing you there if you can come. Our poems will be about home, wherever we find it.
Here are today’s written prompts for my Cambridge writing group so that you can join us in spirit if anything here stirs you to write. (Usually the group is really keen on that creative electricity that happens whenever we get together in person but in these UK winter months, I’ve moved us online because travel can be tricky.) These prompts, to warm us on these chilly days, are from two magnificent American poets today: Mary Oliver and Sylvia Plath. Happy writing!
PROMPTS FOR CWs, 17 January 2026
Sylvia Plath, Ariel (1965)
This is the room I could have never been in.
This is the room I could never breathe in.
***
Love, love,
I have hung our cave with roses,
With soft rugs —
***
This is the time of hanging on for the bees — the bees
So slow I hardly know them,
Flying like soldiers
To the syrup tin
***
Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems, volume two (2005)
You want to cry aloud for your
mistakes. But to tell the truth the world
doesn’t need any more of that sound. (The Poet with his Face in his Hands)
***
I have a little dog who likes to nap with me.
He climbs on my body and puts his face in my neck.
He is sweeter than soap. (Percy, Two)
***
How the distances light up, how the clouds
are the most lovely shapes you have ever seen, how
*
the wild flowers at your feet begin distilling a fragrance
different, and sweeter than any you ever stood upon before —how
*
every leaf on the whole mountain is aflutter. (Bear)
Heptonstall, North Yorkshire
My review of A History of Western Music by American poet August Kleinzahler has just appeared in London Grip. The collection was terrific fun to read and to write about.
You can buy it from Carcanet here. Enjoy!
In AA Milne’s Winnie the Pooh (the real thing, pre-Disney – oh, look, there’s a beautiful hardback to celebrate 100 years since its first publication), Eeyore says to himself:
‘This writing business. Pencils and what-not… Silly stuff. Nothing in it.’
Pencils and what-not, ipads, laptops, phones, we can write with anything these days. Yet the words can still flow like cold porridge. The solution is two interlocking things. One is that if you’re a writer, you need writing time, lots of it, securely ring-fenced, guilt-free. The second is being among other writers, especially warm, supportive darlings who are fun to be with. The combination is sometimes known as Writing Buddies.
Years ago, before I’d had any fiction or poetry published, I had a year and a half when no writing would come. Not a thing. I had plenty of plans and false starts, but a series of rejections had frozen me solid. So I booked an Arvon course led by a marvellous dramatist called Abi Morgan who sent me to my room for four hours to do nothing but write. It didn’t matter what I wrote or why. My instructions were just to cover page after page and not stop. It did the trick – bless you and thank you, Abi.
So, I’m setting up ‘Writing Buddies’ in a beautiful tea shop in Broadstairs called The Old Curiosity Shop (across the road from the cinema). On the 2nd Sunday of each month between 2 and 4pm, and on the morning of each 3rd Thursday, we’ll get together for undisturbed writing and cosy chats. I’ll post a flyer soon for you to keep those dates handy. There’s no charge (other than for what you buy in the tea shop) and you will be welcome to come to either or both, as you like. We start in February.
This is in addition to our ‘Quiet Writing’ evenings in another lovely tea & coffee shop, Sturry’s Chapters Coffee & Books, near Canterbury. We’re there next on Wednesday 11 February from 6.30pm.
In any of these groups, what you write is up to you. It’s space to find your feet or concentrate on your own project. I will bring prompts in case they’re useful but time and again I’ve seen that as soon as writers have this almost secret time to themselves, their writing runs like a hare across their page or screen. Writing Buddies is a place for you and your inner writer, with your laptop and what-not, to roam entirely free.
Snow buddies
