Poetry is my own art. My poems are published in leading literary journals, and I was awarded Third Prize in the 2016 Stephen Spender Prize.
I’m currently working on a collection of poems for publication. Before that appears, you can read a few poems on my poetry site:
Thirteen Birds (link to Anthropocene)
On my poetry blog I write about poetry that inspires me, and announce new publications and readings. Subscribe to the poetry blog if you’d like to follow my work as a poet.
My poetry podcast – A Mouthful of Air
In summer 2021 I launched my poetry podcast, A Mouthful of Air.
Each episode focuses on a single poem: I invite contemporary poets to read a poem and talk about what went into it; and for classic poems, I read the poem myself and talk about what makes it great.
If you don’t read much poetry, then have a listen to episode 1, where I talk about what poetry can offer you that no other form of art or entertainment can. It might change your mind…
You can subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or have the audio and a full transcript delivered via email.
Listen to me read from my Chaucer translation
As well as writing my own poems I’m translating Geoffrey Chaucer’s long poem Troilus and Criseyde from the original Middle English into modern English verse.
If you ask me it’s the greatest love poem in English, yet hardly anyone reads it these days. I hope my translation will change that!
You can read an excerpt from my translation on the Stephen Spender Prize website.
Click here to hear me read this passage at the Stephen Spender Prize awards in London.