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Welcome to my website, a place for me to share my poems with anyone who fancies turning up or who stumbles in accidentally needing shelter. The photo above was taken by my friend Charlie at a river spot near where I live in the Cévennes mountains.

My latest poetry collections, The Last Woman Born on the Island (Vagabond Voices) and The Red House (Drunk Muse Press) are now out and I am chuffed to bits with the beautiful books both these presses have created. See the Publications page for more details.

Previous publications are a pamphlet, Rib, (Wayleave Press, 2021), and two full collections: The Art of Egg, (Two Ravens Press, 2015; reprinted Pindrop Press, 2019) and To Know Bedrock (Pindrop Press, 2011).

 

News

* A 5-question interview with yours truly is up now on the Poetry Lit! newsletter for March 2024. You can read it here (scroll down to find me).

* The first reviews of The Red House are coming in. Hilary Menos of The Friday Poem, says, "love of language underpins this new collection"; Clare Best, writing in The Frogmore Papers, describes it as, "rich in thought, language, memory, story and humanity", while Mandy Haggith calls it "deliciously vivid poetry" in the pages of in Northwords Now. Jennifer McGowan in Orbis says simply, "Read this book".

* The Last Woman Born on the Island was longlisted as one of 12 titles for the Highland Book Prize 2022. It was also named by publisher Vagabond Voices as their best-selling book of 2022, across all categories. Charlotte Gann, writing in The Frogmore Papers, describes the poems as "generous, full of atmosphere and sense of place".

* I'm delighted that my poem Aground received an honorable mention in the Fish Poetry Prize 2023, judged by Billy Collins.

* Another, December Lore, won 2nd prize in the Alpine Fellowship Poetry Prize 2023.

* The Scottish Poetry Library selected one of my poems, Cusp, for publication in their online anthology Best Scottish Poems 2022.