In 1985 I read a review of Douglas Dunn's newly published Elegies. I was so astounded that anyone could function, let alone produce a book of poetry, soon after the death of a partner, that I bought a copy, possibly my first purchase of a volume of poetry by an author whom I hadn't studied. But here we are. My third chapbook, Managed Woodland: Poems for Gurminder Sikand, has been published this month (August 2024) by Red Ceilings Press. Although the poems are rooted in the intensely personal, they move outwards, or at least I hope they do. The collection has its origins in loss, but that is a starting point for invoking presence through representation. Gathering and arranging the poems and reading through the proofs, I realised -- or was able to pretend to myself -- that the writing was akin to painting, and to Gurminder's painting in particular. Questions of form, selection, arrangement, symbol, shading, precision and nebulosity, and (in some cases) economy of line, apply to both. The penultimate poem, a found poem, ends with the title of Gurminder's final non-posthumous show, 'The Weaver of Songs', a title that I like to think describes the poet's role, too. But representation involves capture, in both the positive and negative senses of that verb. The final poem in the chapbook, one written after Gurminder's drawing 'Woman and Cell', ends with 'The artist has her own shape here', which she does in the drawing, but of course not in the chapbook. One of the things that has struck me during repeated close scrutiny of Gurminder's works is the consistency of motifs across four decades, and through changing contexts and shifts in style. It's not surprising, I suppose, that the repeated words in 'Managed Woodland' that most stand out to me are 'brush' (in noun and verb forms) and 'again'.

My poem, 'Work-out', first published in Finished Creatures poetry magazine, no.7 (2023), is now on display (until 15th September 2024) at Nottingham Castle underneath the drawing that inspired it, Gurminder Sikand's 'Woman and Cell'. The exhibition, 'New for Nottingham: Recent Acquisitions', includes three of Gurminder's works, as well as works by Frank Auerbach, Roger Hilton, Paul Waplington, Evelyn Gibbs, and others.

I am grateful to Jan Heritage, editor of Finished Creatures poetry magazine, for publishing in issue 8 (Dec. 2023) a new poem of mine, 'By Design'. The poem, for an issue whose theme is 'Edge', was inspired by the dress of the figure in the artwork by Gurminder Sikand that appears on the cover of my chapbook Transmission Blues.

I'm grateful to Philip Rowland for publishing my poem 'Elegy on the Line' in Noon: Journal of the Short Poem Issue 24, p.78.

I'm very pleased to have an ekphrastic poem in issue 7 of Finished Creatures. My poem, 'Woman and Cell', is inspired by a late drawing of that title by Gurminder Sikand and by others of hers contemporaneous with it.

I am grateful to Alan Baker of Leafe Press for publishing two poems I wrote recently for a couple of special occasions. The first, 'Only Correct', appeared in an online Festschrift, edited by Alan with Andrew Taylor, for the poet Cliff Yates . The second, 'Reading at the Brasserie', was likewise produced for a celebration. Both were inspired by the voice of Gurminder Sikand.

The poet Andrew Taylor, a close family friend and colleague, has written a poem in memory of the artist Gurminder Sikand, my late wife. I am delighted to have permission to publish it here for the first time.

Makers’ Balm
i.m. Gurminder Sikand
 
The dark wing of winter
& its saddest sounds
 
from the hill a simple
view to the city
 
cold sucks the juice
out of the air
 
new shirt cuffs
hide a floral pattern
 
low sun illuminates
your image
 
amongst the books
& art at home
 
steam from tea
spirals & fades
 

I'm pleased to see that the Routledge Research Companion to Travel Writing, which I edited with Alasdair Pettinger, is now avalable in paperback. At the time of posting, it and the ebook version are available on sale for the reduced price of £31.99, down from £39.99. Isabel Kalous of the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany) has written a detailed review of the book.

I am delighted to have been made an honorary member of La Société d’Etude de la Littérature de Voyage du monde Anglophone (SELVA), a society that aims to bring global perspectives to bear on Anglophone travel writing and to promote the study of it, I look forward to working with SELVA. Thanks to Anne-Florence Quaireau and to Samia Ounoughi.

I am grateful to Peter Thabit Jones for publishing four of my poems in issue 32 (Summer/Autumn 2020) of The Seventh Quarry magazine. The poems are loosely linked in their concern with proximity and distance. Three of them are travel-themed. 'Sign' results from a break on the north Norfolk coast four or five years ago. 'Archived' arises from a conversation with Dr Jenny Gaschke of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, who kindly showed me a notebook of the artist William James Müller (1812-1845). (I shall be posting that poem online and linking to it here at a later date.) 'Procession', a whimsical metaphysical exercise in sibilance, follows several stays in the vicinity of St Paul's Cathedral in London. 'Reading Wendell Berry' records life outside the page ending up on it. Perhaps in revised form, one or two of these poems may end up in my second pamphlet, which I hope to put together this summer.