This poem was first published in issue 19 of Gramarye, the Journal of the Chichester Centre for Fairy Tales, Fantasy and Speculative Fiction. ‘Gramarye’ is an archaic word meaning mystical or magical learning, related to the word ‘grimoire’, which refers to a spellbook. Frogs in folklore seem to be strongly associated with magic, and the […]

The Playing Poetry exhibition is on display at the National Poetry Library from now until 15th January, and includes one of my digital ludokinetic poems, Erratum (a work in progress), as well as Adversary, a prototype poetry card game I made with Abigail Parry, pictured above. There was a neat write-up in the Financial Times […]

“Where’s evil? It’s that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side.” — Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night “[Contemporary] fiction is about society,” says Clare Pollard, in a short essay asking how writers can respond to the present moment. I wouldn’t have thought this […]

Lyonesse (Bloodaxe, 2021) presents a problem. On the one hand, it’s tricky to talk about because I don’t feel able to map out the book’s depths. Parts of it remain sunken and mysterious to me – I can claim no commanding vantage point, despite having browsed it on-off for a couple of months and read […]

Added a new version of this old (2010) poem to the website’s gashopon machine/lucky dip today:

I have two new poems in Bristol-based journal Raceme no.13, both titled ‘Another Labyrinth’. Below is a poster I’ve made for one of them. If you find it a little difficult to understand at first, that’s likely because it’s actually a puzzle-poem based on the well-known ’15 puzzle’ — a set of sliding numbered blocks […]

I’m reading alongside Astrid Alben, Rose Gibbs, Sophie Herxheimer and Lucy Mercer at Burley Fisher Books in Haggerston this Thursday. Tickets are £5 and can be ordered from here. I’ll be reading a few poems from Sandsnarl, but also from a new work-in-progress which happens to be set in the same universe, in a hotel […]