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Nice phrase “ far flung.” I was feeling slightly far flung tonight when taking part as panellist in a debate “what value literature” alongside three distinguished panellists: Arts Council Director of Literature Srategy Antonia Byatt , Chairman and chief Executive of Penguin Group John Makinson, Poet In The City Chief executive Graham Henderson and chaired by the Director for English PEN Jonathan Heawood . Read more [...]

What’s between us now is twenty years at least but as he talks of our bailing hay on to the tractor through hot summer afternoons on fields of Gold at Marshes Farm the years between us fall away and a flood of memory gushes in. Read more [...]

She has her choice one hundred poems I have mine. I open the door. It’s a scene of a western. The bar woman behind the poetry cafe counter at the far end of the room polishes a glass and looks at me. I enter with my fistful of of A4. Read more [...]

Forget the reasons. Here’s what it is. It is the fear of meeting someone who recognises me; friend , acquaintance, colleague, shopkeeper family or mirror. The thought of eye contact with any of them sends a strike to the core. I am not sure Jean Paul Sartre had depression in mind but “Hell is other people” typifies the anti-social modus operandi. Not that “other people” are to blame. If hell is other people then heaven should be total isolation shouldn’t it? Read more [...]