Almost Composed

Meditation and curiosity

154 contemporary poets respond to Shakespeare’s sonnets

May 19, 2016

Helen Eastman of Live Canon has edited an anthology of 154 responses to Shakespeare’s sonnets. I contributed a response to sonnet XXV, titled ‘Perseids’. It is a testament to Helen’s energy and organisation that this happened at all. They say working with poets is like herding cats. Can you imagine trying to marshall 154 of them […]

categories: poems

Downshifting: balancing your job, life, and your art

November 27, 2015

I stumbled on this old productivity post which, ironically, I never did anything with. I wrote it a while ago when I was preoccupied with getting it all done: work, writing, music, life: the full catastrophe. I’m not sure in all honesty how good I am at implementing these strategies. I have a more relaxed attitude […]

categories: reflections

Alternative productivity tips

October 14, 2015

Keep flowers on your desk. Do things when you feel like it. Open the window to feel the breeze and hear life going on outside. Try a ‘to do’ list of things you can do for others. Cut away the trivial but pay attention to the small.

categories: reflections

The Chalk Path

October 7, 2015

Joe, Hugh, and I are publishing our third shared poetry pamphlet very soon. Our hope is to have it coincide with the Chalk arts and literary festival in Winchester, which starts on Saturday. The Chalk Path is the final instalment in our trilogy of pamphlets, which began with The Inner Sea in 2012. Earlier this year we published, […]

categories: poems

The importance of imagination

September 8, 2015

The world seems apt to give rise to stories and images. Such imaginings may be the product of our minds, but our minds are nonetheless part of the world and shaped by it. Imagination is a dialogue with the world, and a feature of it. To conceive of reality only in terms of the barest […]

categories: essays, reflections