EDIT *Apologies – for some reason this post didn’t publish automatically yesterday. Instead it went to my draft folder and sat there!* Day 11 I wrote this in a temper, in a rush, in one go. I think this is…
16 Days of Action Against Domestic Violence #Day10
Day 10 Much of the information for this poem comes from https://medicalnewstoday.com and www.lenstore.co.uk When I was writing this poem, I googled ‘black eye’ and ‘what causes a black eye’ and ‘facts about eyes’. I knew what caused a black…
16 Days of Action Against Domestic Violence #Day9
Day 9 Over half way through 16 days of action. It’s been both harder and easier than I thought. Now I am returning, I’m interested in how the mode of address in the sequence changes – that there are more…
16 Days of Action Against Domestic Violence #Day8
Trauma is not stored as a narrative with an orderly beginning, middle and end. Memories return….as flashbacks that contain fragments of the experience, isolated images, sounds and bodily sensations that initially have no context other than fear and panic 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000…
Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize
A quick interruption of the 16 Days of Activism posts I’ve been doing for some happier news. My book The Art of Falling was awarded the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize yesterday. The Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize is awarded to a…
16 Days of Action Against Domestic Violence #day7
16 Days of Action Against Domestic Violence #Day7 Reasons you might stay in an abusive relationship *Perhaps the violence has crept up on you slowly. *Perhaps he apologises afterwards, and he’s genuinely sorry *Perhaps he won’t leave. How do you…
16 Days of Action Against Domestic Violence #day6
16 Days of Action Against Domestic Violence – Day 6 The painting above is by a fabulous artist called Fran Riley. It hangs in my living room to remind me what I know. Poets have always turned to myth and…
16 Days of Action Against Domestic Violence #day5
One must have a mind of winter The Snow Man by Wallace Stevens is one of my favourite poems. It is a poem that has haunted me. I didn’t love it straight away – the first time I read it,…
Sunday Poem – Matthew Stewart
I’ve had a busy week this week and spent much of it feeling a bit rough with a horrible cold that I only shook off on Wednesday night. On Monday I met my supervisor for a discussion about the poems…
Sunday Poem – Kate Fox
It has been a strange week for me – the #metoo hashtag on social media has made me sad and angry and hopeful in an exhausting cycle.. Amongst all of this, I’ve had to get on with doing…