This week I've been reading Jean Sprackland's 'Tilt' - an amazingly crafted book, tender with the ability to leave you somewhere else, somewhere previously uncharted, in just a few stanzas - and Helen Mort's 'The Shape of Every Box' - which also manages to transport you into another experience, to take you off guard.

Highly recommended, both of them.

I've also been playing a CD of Simon Armitage reading for the Poetry Archive. It strikes me that there's something about Armitage that draws you back, despite any intention you might have to break away, to listen to newer voices. This CD is like that Bowie record you've worn out the grooves of from playing so often. You know you should really be listening to that obscure electronica you downloaded at the weekend but something makes you play Bowie again for the umpteenth time that day. Not sure Armitage and Bowie have been compared before but there is a first for everything!

On 2nd October, East Words takes place at the Museum in Docklands, compered by myself and Richard Tyrone Jones. I'm really excited about the line up (http://east-words.blogspot.com/) and can't wait. Six of London's best poets for free. Gig of the year, I'd say.