‘((Human)(Animals))’: A New Poem in English & Arabic
((Human)(Animals)) Here we are on this clouded island, adrift but safe in our burrows and dens, yawning in dawn’s milky light, washing our bottoms, barking at our partners, snarling at the news, venturing out to hunt in the high street, scent pheromones in the queue for coffee, lick our wounds in the quiet of diaries, poems, suckle babies on buses,…
Kill or Cure: Cancer & Coronavirus
Well, be careful what you wish for. When in my last post I asked for 2020 to be a year of healing, little did I dream that the universe would respond in epic fashion. Now it’s two weeks into the UK lockdown, and like most people, I’m still adjusting to the dystopian world we find ourselves in. An invisible…
ADAMANTINE Hits the UK – While There Still IS a UK!!!
What a week. As the fates of the country and the planet whirl in the balance like fragile baubles on a Christmas tree for sale out in a blizzard . . . ADAMANTINE, my third poetry collection, is published today in the UK. While the United Kingdom still exists! Facebook friends know I’ve been quite exercised about the General…
Adamantine: The Transatlantic Summer Tour!
Adamantine [adjective] 1. Made of adamant, or having the qualities of adamant; incapable of being broken, dissolved or penetrated.2. Like the diamond in hardness or lustre3. My third poetry collection! Welcome to the first round of celebrations of the publication of Adamantine (Red Hen/Pighog Press, Pasadena), which was published July 11th in the US/Canada and is forthcoming December 11th in the…
Building Jerusalem . . . in Jerusalem
September sings, but the chords of summer echo on, not least of my visit to the Occupied Palestinian Territories in late July for readings from A Blade of Grass: New Palestinian Poetry, the bilingual anthology I edited last year for Smokestack Books. Travelling with Rachel Searle, the Director of BlakeFest (Bognor Regis) – for whom I am consulting on…
A Blade of Grass: Launched!
It’s here! And it’s a beaut: bursting with sharp, fresh and tender poems, and well and truly launched at a sell-out event on Thursday Nov 16th at P21 Gallery in London, a contemporary arts centre dedicated to the promotion of Arab culture. Thank you to the gallery for hosting us, to the University of Chichester for promoting the event with…
Disappearance without absence: Book Launch on National Poetry Day
In my role as Associate Editor at Waterloo Press, I was honoured this year to help publish a book of profoundly moving poems, Disappearance without absence/Desapariencia no engaña, by Néstor Ponce, exquisitely translated by Max Ubelaker Andrade. Written in honour of the ‘disappeared’, the book is a testament to those thousands of individuals targeted for death and erasure by…
No Enemy but Time: A New Pamphlet of Old Poems
Being cured of cancer last year gave me a powerful sense of priorities. It seems that keeping up with this blog wasn’t one of them . . . Instead, in between a short course of radiotherapy and an unexpected return to hospital to treat a broken ankle (!), I’ve thrown myself into book production mode. Currently I’m finishing the final…
Farewell to 2016 – and Cancer
What a year. When it comes to traumas we’re spoiled for choice, but as Amnesty International and Greenpeace remind us, 2016 also brought many victories for humanity and the planet. Here at home, I’ve been celebrating the official All Clear, which clear as a bell, arrived with impeccable timing on Dec 23rd. I’ve still got follow-treatments to come, but to…
From Indeterminate Cats to Interfaith Cathedrals
From Schrodinger’s Cat to Salisbury Cathedral, Prague castle to the Princess Royal Hospital, my cancer journey has come full circle, back to a strangely euphoric, possibly disease-free state. As I wrote in June, in the days just prior to my diagnosis, I felt both terminally ill and joyously alive; now, having just had an operation to remove four lymph nodes…