In The Poetry

‘From his Childhood’ is a fantasy about a severe governess or nanny remembered from somebody’s early years. A woman full of moral maxims and stern instructions and her influence is destructive though the storyteller has eventually grown out of her. She is not my own nanny or governess – I had no such thing – [...]

‘From his Childhood’ is a fantasy about a severe governess or nanny remembered from somebody’s early years. A woman full of moral maxims and stern instructions and her influence is destructive though the storyteller has eventually grown out of her. She is not my own nanny or governess – I had no such thing – [...]

‘Incident on a Holiday’ features the words forming the title of my 2001 book, The Cat Without E-Mail – the point made here is that human beings might be controllable by technology but animals like the cat and natural phenomena like fire are more elusive.

Incident on a Holiday

The cat between the tables is not worth [...]

‘From his Childhood’ is a fantasy about a severe governess or nanny remembered from somebody’s early years. A woman full of moral maxims and stern instructions and her influence is destructive though the storyteller has eventually grown out of her. She is not my own nanny or governess – I had no such thing – [...]

I wrote a longish sequence of poems called ‘The Automatic Days’ about life in a department store, the day-to-day living stuff, and I will read this narrative extract from ‘The Automatic Days’.

From ‘The Automatic Days’

The music stops in mid-bar on the PA,
So all the customers realise there was music
And wonder what comes now. ‘Will Mrs [...]