Swift

This arrived today from the wonderful Sidekick Books - seven poems on skir-devils, jackie squealers, whips and longwings from Anne Stevenson, Edward Thomas, Alistair Noon, Jon Stone, Ann Drysdale, Lynne Wycherly and myself. It's part of their new Bird Superminis range - each volume contains a handful of poems about a particular bird species. They are, dare I say it, perfect Christmas presents for the birdwatcher and/or poetry-lover in your life.

Poets on iTunes

A couple of weeks back, poet David Morley made mention on his blog of the success of Warwick University's iTunes channel.

I'd come across it quite by accident a while back, and downloaded several readings and interviews with the likes of Lee Harwood, Anne Stevenson and David Morley himself. Anyway, I listened to most of it while hanging around various airports in the last week, and very good it is too. Just need to go back to some of the texts now that I'm home.

The race is on again

After last year's rather unseemly brouhaha (I've been dying to use that word - you can tell, can't you?), the contest to find the next Oxford Professor of Poetry is back on.

Of those mentioned in the Guardian article, I think I'd like Anne Stevenson to get it - she's one of those poets who seems to transcend a lot of the divisions in the poetry world. I wouldn't be unhappy with Geoffrey Hill, though, but I hope that's not Clive James angling for someone to beg him to stand. I should probably give his poetry a fair chance, but his crimes against TV are too many to mention.