Blog and news

Winter is my second favourite season.* It is a season often overlooked, despised sometimes, seen as a type of purgatory before the bright warmth of summer returns.

There is much to admire about winter. The colour of the landscape at this time of year is unlike any other. The black of damp wood; the purple of gone-over bracken; the calm of snow. Contrast this with the lush greens and blooms of spring; the baked yellow of thickening summer; and the reds and browns of autumn. Each season has its own palette, and winter brings a dark and sombre beauty.

Moseley Green

The Forest had a network of railways running through it, serving the mines and towns. Many of the lines have since been turned into cycle paths, but there’s a few sections that haven’t, leaving wild, overgrown sections of trackbed, marked with rotten sleepers and rusted bolts.

My debut pamphlet, Knots and Branches, is published this month from Eyewear. I’ll be reading poems from in it Bristol as part of the Bristol Poetry Festival 2016. Early next month, I’ll be launching it in Cambridge on 3/11/16. See the events page for more information about both of those.