Another superlative review of The Son

appears on Alan Baker's "Litterbug" blog, appropriately in time for National Adoption Week here in the UK.

Three months gone

Living in a world where you are not is unbearable.

A splendid review of Divining for Starters

appears on the Burning Eye Books website. Here's one beloved passage:

"This is a poet writing with confidence and surety. Yes we are at the experimental end of things, out there with the kooky fringe dwellers painting with words, but what words, what poise, what perfect balance of imagery from beginning to end."

Current Issues

When I started "Current Issues" posts on my blog, it was in response to students who asked where they could read more of my work, especially as I had yet to publish a book. With two books now in hand, I was starting to wonder whether such posts had become superfluous, but as I'm always interested to know where poets I admire are publishing new work, I'll persist in the hope someone is curious about my work in the same way.

I have poems in two new anthologies, The Best British Poetry 2011 (Roddy Lumsden, ed.; Salt Publishing) and This Line Is Not for Turning: An Anthology of Contemporary British Prose Poetry (Jane Monson, ed.; Cinnamon) as well as in the magazines Horizon, Sunfish and Tellus.

Poems are forthcoming in Notre Dame Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, Poetry Wales, The Rialto and Tears in the Fence. A short-short story, "The Name," will appear in Ginger Piglet, a new magazine started by Bath Spa MA graduate Libby Walkup. I also have a poem in the forthcoming anthology, A Mutual Friend: Poems for Charles Dickens (Peter Robinson, ed.; Two Rivers Press).

I also have a short review forthcoming in the TLS.

The T.S. Eliot Prize shortlist is out

and can be read here on the Poetry Book Society's website.

Bath Spa University's Stand Up Poetry Reading Series, 2011-12

If you live in or near Bath, please take note of the following dates for the Bath Spa University Stand Up Poetry Series this year. In five years, we've never repeated a reader, and I hope that will continue. The organizer of the series is Professor Tim Liardet (with assistance from yours truly) and its manager is PhD poetry student Andy Turner. All readings are held at 8 p.m. at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institute, 16-18 Queen Square, Bath. I believe the cover charge is £7, though it's free for Bath Spa students.

6 October (yes, already gone!): Dennis Nurkse

10 November: Ian Duhig

8 December: Julia Copus

12 January: Lytton Smith and Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch

9 February: Geraldine Monk

8 March: Neil Rollinson

19 April: Jill Bialosky

10 May: Vahni Capildeo and Ahren Warner

Unfortunately I'll miss 10 November and 8 December as I have readings in Cardiff and Swindon, respectively, on those nights, but I expect to make it to the others. I hope to see some of you there!

A prose poem from Ellie Evans' The Ivy Hides the Fig-Ripe Duchess

Line Ending

He was always plagued by line-endings. This was why he didn't lift his pencil off the paper, but kept on and on, writing more and more slowly. And his writing got smaller. When words stopped forming, he let the line go and it drew him after it, as it drew petals, the scroll of an ear, a foetus like a conch-shell. At the same time, the line annotated all these in tiny script, written backwards to bewilder him. Still he was running as the line left the page and spiralled over walls to doodle staircases, camels, a banyan tree...then off down corridors, ambulatories, even cannons and aeroplanes. But all he had ever wanted to do was make a lion: it walked towards the king as if to attack, then opened its mouth. And it was filled with lilies.

Ellie Evans

The Ivy Hides the Fig-Ripe Duchess

Seren Books, 2011

You can purchase The Ivy Hides the Fig-Ripe Duchess from The Book Depository with free worldwide shipping. At the moment of writing, it's 26% off!

Poet Tomas Tranströmer wins the Nobel Prize for Literature

See the article in today's Guardian.

Sara's latest painting

My eight-year-old niece Sara's latest painting. I love the rich colours.

Poetry Reviews

My short reviews of Nancy Gaffield's Tokaido Road, Ahren Warner's Confer, and Carol Watts' Occasionals appear in today's Guardian. All were well worth the read.