Welcome to my website, where you can read about my publications to date, my interests and experiences, my hopes for the future and my ideas. I use the blog to post poetry reviews and short essays on individual poems and  collections. There is also a contacts page where you can email me to arrange a reading or to buy one of my books, or (next year) to arrange a poetry writing workshop.

I’ve spent most of my working life as an English teacher at the Manchester Grammar School. Teaching has been a wonderfully stimulating and rewarding way of life, despite the inhibiting pressure of exams, and I hope to continue with it in a freelance way. At the same time I look forward to focusing more fully on my own writing, and to developing workshop ideas, reading more widely and writing reviews.

 

Forthcoming Events:

As part of the Didsbury Arts Festival
I will be reading with Steve Waling in Didsbury Library
at 7.00 pm on Monday Sept 27th
and leading a poetry workshop for adults
beginning at 11.00 am upstairs in the Didsbury Pub.
Both events are free.

 

Ian Pople and I have teamed up to offer a reading course in poetry. 

We will alternate each month to present  Anne Rouse’s ‘The Upshot’ (Bloodaxe Books) (Ian); Michael Longley’s  ‘Gorse Fires’ (Cape) (Edmund); Jill Bialosky ‘The Skiers’ (Arc Publications) (Ian); Tomas Transtromer’s ‘New Collected Poems’ (Bloodaxe) (Edmund); Nina Cassian’s  ‘Continuum’ (Anvil) (Ian); and Jo Shapcott’s ‘On Mutability’ (Faber) (Edmund). 

cost: £50
when: Saturday mornings, monthly: 2 Oct, 6 Nov, 4 Dec, 8 Jan, 12 Feb, 12 Mar.
where: Friends’ Meeting House, 6 Mount Street, Manchester M2 5NS

Contact: ian.pople@manchester.ac.uk or tel: 01457 810531 for further details.