In defence of the much malinged creative writing degree
Why writing and arts degrees are not "rip off degrees"
Hunt and Peck
A lyric essay about fingers, thumbs and pigeons
the living artist online
How the human artist can place the process above the product to counter the encroachment of AI
Why it's okay to keep writing the same poem again and again
A minor iteration
on the heart's tender need to be nagged
Why our life partners are so much more than our other halves.
Do plagiarists dream of electric feats?
The plagiarism that seemed to be all over the poetry world a few years back seems to be less of an issue today. But has the rise of AI helped similar shenanigans to go unnoticed?
From Sion Hill to the Green Hill Zone
What Sonic the Hedgehog taught me about the long, baroque sentence
The (bitter)sweet science of the lyric poem
How a poem about a gecko forced me to take a good, long look at myself.
The job of the artist differs from the job of art and that’s absolutely fine
It might be sacrilege to watch Lawrence of Arabia on your phone but it's still better than doomscrolling.
The shrinking screen – a memoir and elegy to cinema
How cinema shaped my mind from my earliest memories and how it has survived the fluctuations of the digital age.
Orlok the Oligarch
How Robert Eggers' latest version of the horror classic adapts the classic aristocratic trope to match our current strain of oligarch.
What the Cambrian Explosion tells me about 8-bit video games and Tim Burton’s napkin sketches
About two hundred and something million years ago, myriad forms appeared in the fossil record. Before animal life ventured out of the ocean to set in motion...
On viewing posh markets through a launderette window
My old launderette I've never been one to partake of the delights on offer at the Sunday market that's been popping up outside the train station every week...
The Paradoxical Isolation of the Writer
An essay about the solitary life of the writer and how we might need to re-think the ways in which we try to find our audiences.
Poetry and the Flow Rate of Meaning
If there's one thing better than feeling superior to instapoets it's feeling superior to people that feel superior to instapoets. I'm not really a fan of...
Democracy and Determinism
I'm not much of a believer in free will, but I still think it's important to vote. Here's why ...
poem: three pounds of flax
if it's anything its this — the serenity within the surge — the weight of sweatshop labour in my moth-eaten fast fashion bed shirt — the four-by-four driver...
Why the Whitechapel Fatberg is my Guru
This is actually the Belgravia fatberg but I liked this image I've been an on/off follower of meditation practices for the last thirty years. I've done so as...
Thursday poem: on distraction
There are things that must be done and the mind must keep chugging down a single track of pure intention.But what's that? Don't look at it.It's the big...
Poem: count them!
on the concrete perimetersedging the grass vergeson the denmark hill estateI count at least fifty snails coaxed out by nightlong rainfrom green bristly...