Category Archives: Dark Angels

Good news from the front line

Posted on April 3, 2020 by

(Also available as a podcast here) Front lines are on all our minds right now. I think of poetry as language’s front line, the place where things can at once be at their most considered and their most intense, raw … Continue reading →

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Making sense

Posted on January 7, 2020 by

You can now listen to each new post, including this one, as a podcast. I am also gradually adding selected posts from the archive. Click here. If we look for milestones to prompt reflection and personal stocktaking, few come better … Continue reading →

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Seeing what I say

Posted on November 1, 2019 by

Next week I’m going to Moniack Mhor, the Scottish writing centre in Inverness-shire. It will be the twelfth time I’ve been since 2005 when we ran what was the second-ever Dark Angels course there, and the first one I took … Continue reading →

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Moon journeys

Posted on July 26, 2019 by

Fifty years ago last Saturday, in the crowded and sweltering public room of a cheap hotel, with an ancient fan creaking and whirring overhead, I watched the televised moon landing. I was in downtown Tehran. The commentary was in Farsi. … Continue reading →

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Dark Angels on Writing

Posted on July 4, 2019 by

Over the years I’ve come to believe that people are sometimes drawn to Dark Angels courses in answer to an unspoken, perhaps even unacknowledged, need. They may not know it but at the moment they hear about our programme there … Continue reading →

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Three cities

Posted on April 12, 2019 by

Place matters. It shapes thoughts and emotions. We have always encouraged people who come on our Dark Angels courses to connect as strongly as they can with the place where the course is held. We want that heightened awareness of … Continue reading →

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Paying attention

Posted on November 30, 2018 by

Birnam, the village where I live, and neighbouring Dunkeld, across the river, have a combined population of just 1,100 souls. For our size we’re unusual in having an arts centre, fully equipped with a 150-seater auditorium, studio and meeting spaces, … Continue reading →

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Hawks and angels

Posted on June 29, 2018 by

Nestled into steep woods on the slopes of a Cotswold valley stands a manor house built of stone the colour of pale honey. It has tall chimneys and gothic windows and a walled garden full of vegetables and fruit trees … Continue reading →

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Spirit of place

Posted on April 6, 2018 by

It’s fifteen years since I first started to work with my Dark Angels partner John Simmons, and it must now be nearly a decade since we both started our regular blogs. We have a lot in common and it would … Continue reading →

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Of earth and sea

Posted on March 16, 2018 by

On Monday night I returned from Melbourne after a month spent mainly in New Zealand, the first ten days running Dark Angels workshops in and around Auckland, the following two weeks touring the North and South Islands. This is one … Continue reading →

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