Category Archives: Poetry

Everything

Posted on November 24, 2015 by

This morning when I looked out my window they were the first thing I noticed. I saw them flocking outside my house. I like to look at them from the back window. I get the sun there. Yes, I wondered … Continue reading →

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Dear Bob Cunis

Posted on May 20, 2015 by

One of the things I did when up was up in Auckland for the writers’  festival was meet my friend Donald for breakfast one morning, on K Road, just after I had fallen over while walking to meet him. It … Continue reading →

Posted in books, Poetry, Recklessness | Tagged , , , , , | 10 Comments

Bad, but not damned: On Tim Upperton

Posted on February 8, 2015 by

  Tim Upperton is the kind of poet who tends to have his poems shared without people asking his permission or paying him money. They’re the kind of poems that you want to share with another person immediately. So you do, which … Continue reading →

Posted in books, Poetry | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Memorandum of Understanding

Posted on November 17, 2014 by

BY BILL NELSON Understand that we will be working together / and this means / we do not have to like each other. / Understand that we have common goals / and aspirations, we have aspirations / most of all. … Continue reading →

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Metamorphosis

Posted on November 16, 2014 by

or, Ode to Jerry   Small boy dressed as barn owl. Barn owl with mouth of shark. Cover of Whitley Strieber’s Communion but the alien’s smiling. Boiled can of condensed milk. Neighbour at RSA on Sunday afternoon. Slow prattle of … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

A bike ride with James Brown

Posted on April 11, 2014 by

I’ve been a big fan of James Brown’s poems for a long time. The first poem of his I read was ‘Loneliness’, in 2001. It’s probably still his most well known poem, all these years later. I wonder if James is … Continue reading →

Posted in bicycles, books, Poetry, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

We should catch up. Let’s catch up

Posted on April 1, 2014 by

1. I started out this morning thinking maybe I’d write something about Poetry Night (which, by the way, you should record a poem for and send to me immediately) but I got distracted by the Frank O’Hara poem where Frank sees a note on … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, Poetry, Social media | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments

Rejection mash-up

Posted on February 21, 2014 by

What can you do with some failures? Ground them into a fine paste then mash them together. These lines come from five (rightly) rejected poems. Preservation I have lost my coat. Like many coats that go on to be lost … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

A stick of dynamite

Posted on February 9, 2014 by

This blog has been very quiet lately, I know. In the last couple of months all of my confidence in writing, and in having anything of worth to say, has just been detonated. If we think of confidence as being … Continue reading →

Posted in London, Poetry | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

The point at the end of the world

Posted on April 3, 2013 by

“When Bill Clinton was inaugurated,” Alpert (Herb) said, “they had ten saxophone players at the party. It was mostly the young guns, but Gerry Mulligan was in there too. Afterward, he called me and said, ‘Man, you know, these young … Continue reading →

Posted in books, Poetry, Social media | 9 Comments