Today, one year on from the EU membership referendum, I'm posting an edited version of a piece I wrote for Agenda, at the invitation of Patricia McCarthy, back in June 2016, which now seems like a hundred years ago. That issue of Agenda - 'The Power of Poetry' (Vol 50, nos 3-4) is bursting with… Continue reading Something about the importance of poetry
The latest Springlines exhibition has been in the plotting stages for at least two years, so I'm really excited to report that the show opens at Tunbridge Wells Museum & Art Gallery on 9 June and will run until 14 October. The town of Tunbridge Wells came into being thanks to the mysterious rusty red… Continue reading Springlines at Tunbridge Wells Museum & Art Gallery, 9 June – 14 October
Ever since I first came across Eric Gill's work for The Golden Cockerel Press when I was a student of fine bookbinding, I have admired his art whilst feeling an intuitive ambivalence about his portrayal of the female body. So when Fiona MacCarthy’s biography of Gill was published in 1989, revealing (from Gill’s meticulous diaries)… Continue reading ‘Eric Gill: The Body’ at Ditchling Museum of Art & Craft, until 3 September
I have never before been away for two weeks to an artists' residence or colony, just to write and work to my heart’s content, but I can really recommend Fundacion Valparaiso if this is something you feel inclined to do. The formula, to my mind, is perfect: each artist has their own large studio/room (if you… Continue reading Working hard in paradise
Three weeks into the New Year and I haven’t broken a single New Year’s resolution. But that’s because I don’t much like resolutions and I didn’t make any. Resolution implies something that can be decided on, put to bed, removing all doubt. I don’t think life is like that. And one of the earlier meanings… Continue reading Welcome 2017 and bring on the Parsnip Soup!
I've always liked that line from Robert Frost's ‘The Death of the Hired Man’. The Poem-a-Thon in Brighton on Sunday 11 December is raising funds for the Refugee Council which does excellent work helping refugees and asylum seekers – who have suffered terrible losses – find the openings they need in order to feel at home… Continue reading ‘Home is the place where, when you have to go there, / They have to take you in.’
Right now I am at the end of a particular kind of tether – the house rental tether. Last year we decided to sell our home of seventeen years in order to downsize. Having tried to buy various houses, each of which fell through for a different reason, and not wanting to lose our buyer,… Continue reading Water, water, everywhere
What a privilege to be invited to take part in StAnza 2016, the 19th annual poetry festival in St Andrews. Heartfelt thanks to Eleanor Livingstone and to all the members of the team who every year organise and programme this outstanding festival. StAnza extends such a warm welcome to everyone who attends – it really… Continue reading StAnza 2016 – a festive table
Take Me With You: the Museum of Friendship, Remembrance and Loss 6.00-8.30 pm, Thursday 18 February 2016 at the Chowen Lecture Theatre, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, Falmer Campus BN1 9PX Museum open from 6.00 pm Clare Best and Tim Andrews in conversation (+q&a) 6.30-7.30 pm Drinks reception from 7.30 pm Museum open until 8.30 pm… Continue reading Take Me With You: the Museum of Friendship, Remembrance and Loss
Yesterday, Michaela Ridgway and I took delivery of CELL, the not-quite-pamphlet which gives embodiment to my poem in twelve sections with art by Michaela. The object has been designed by Katy Mawhood – it’s a printed and folded sheet with only some of the folds cut, so that it can be handled and read in… Continue reading The publication of CELL
