School holidays are over and it's bucketing down outside and everything feels comfortably back into normal routine. So I get the books out, poetry collections, folders of poems and I am glad for some quiet to work on a poem again and even to catch up on some blogging!

 



I've picked my set to read at the Melita Hume Poetry Prize reading event for those shortlisted which will be in London on Sunday 8th September and at where the winner will be announced! I would be delighted to meet any fellow bloggers there, it will be at the Betsy Trotwood Pub on Farringdon Road, 3pm. The event will be hosted by the poet Tim Wells.






Pleased to have a poem in the latest Gutter mag. A great issue which also features poems by Janette Ayachi, Rob A Mackenzie, Colin Will as well as poems from fellow New Writers Award poets Samuel Tongue and Kathrine Sowerby. There are also a couple of terrific poems by Jen Hadfield. Lots of prose too including short stories by Carol McKay and an old philosophy lecturer of mine, Paul Brownsey!