Poets should only be allowed to publish as many poems as they can learn by heart.

Remember the days when you would read anything? The small print on a bar of chocolate, the rubbish on a packet of cornflakes?

HappenStance has an open submissions policy for poets. There are two reading ‘windows’ per year. The next one is July. Please don’t send them in June!

It looks innocuous, sounds harmless, pops up all over the place – and it’s a killer. No, not ‘shards’. Not even ‘memories’.

I teach loads of adult students who loathe poetry. Sometimes I hate it more than they do. I look at books of it piling up around me and I feel sick. I feel like the miller’s daughter locked in a room of straw without the faintest hope of Rumpelstiltskin.

Here’s the scenario:

Your cousin has had a book of poems published. He sends you the Amazon link. Good grief!! It costs TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY QUID. Will you buy it?