Since its inception, poetry has been rooted in practices that are oral, aural and communal. What happens when we lean into those roots in the classroom?

Thank you to Voice 21 UK and editor Rebekah Simon-Caffyn for including our article ‘Taking an oracy approach to poetry’, co-written by me and my wonderful Poetry By Heart colleague Charlotte Bourne, in the latest edition of The Talking Point.

Taking an oracy-informed approach to poetry goes way beyond developing performance skills. It unlocks empathy, empowers students to find their voice and helps celebrate a diversity of Englishes and experiences.

Read more here: https://voice21.org/voice-21-launch-talking-point-2026/ plus check out the rest of the journal which focuses on inclusion, employability, polarisation, the transition to Key Stage 3, and storytelling and narratives

Exposure to a wide variety of poems and rhymes, spoken and sung, is *so* beneficial for children’s development. It can also be a struggle in those early years to know where to find good resources and think about how to fit songs and poems into a routine packed with wake windows and nap times.

Over on the BookTrust website I explore some strategies based on my own experiences as a mum and poetry professional: https://www.booktrust.org.uk/resources/find-resources/finding-and-sharing-poems-with-the-very-young/

🗣️ 10 Books to Build Confident Poetry Voices 🗣️

My Poetry By Heart colleagues and I have co-written an article for the latest edition of Teach Reading & Writing all about getting younger pupils confidently performing poems.

Suitable for EYFS-KS2 pupils, you’ll learn all about our 10 favourite poetry and rhyming picture books plus lots of activities for lifting poems off the page!

Lovely to also see articles from Rebekah Simon-Caffyn, Jon Biddle & others in the latest edition.

Huge thanks to Andrea Reece, the Artichoke Media team and my lovely colleagues Suzannah V. Evans, Charlotte Bourne & Poetry By Heart Co-Director Julie Blake.

All my close reading sessions of 2026 for Literature Cambridge are now available to book via the Literature Cambridge website. If you see one you fancy, head here: https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk/ and scroll down for the full list of courses arranged month by month. You’ll find all of the booking links and more information there.

Join me for our upcoming close reading sessions, all on Sundays, 2-4pm GMT via Zoom. This winter we will be repeating our sold-out Keats class, exploring some winter poems and getting to grips with Emily Dickinson’s dashes.

links to book:

KEATS:https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk/keats

WINTER POEMS:https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk/winter

EMILY DICKINSON:https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk/emily-dickinson/p/book

My poem ‘Totem Pole/White Gloves’ was shortlisted for the Verve Poetry Press October Poem of the Month. You can read all the shortlisted poems here: https://vervepoetry.substack.com/p/october-poems-of-the-month

The most amazing review of my book Michael just came out in The Broken Spine.

It is so rare to have a full review devoted to a single book of poetry and I am so grateful to Alan for taking the time to so deeply understand my weird little collection.

You can, of course, buy Michael direct from Broken Sleep Books.

In 2017, a terrorist detonated a bomb in Manchester Arena at an Ariana Grande concert, killing 22 and injuring 1017 people. I was living in Manchester and wrote this poem a few years later about the experience of public mourning and memorial that happened in the aftermath as Mancunians came together in St Anne’s Square to remember the dead and injured, many of them young girls.

The poem is about the insufficiency of language to mark such a horror.

Heard this morning that my poem ‘New Years Eve, Kyoto, 2008’ was shortlisted for the Free Verse Prize 2025 – not bad considering they received 14,000 poems!

From next week I will be joining Poetry By Heart as their new Poetry and Digital Content Editor.

Poetry By Heart is England’s national poetry speaking competition, funded by the Department of Education. I’ve been working with PBH on-and-off since 2020 when I met Julie, one of the Co-Directors, while she was finishing up her DPhil at Homerton College where I was Poet-in-Residence.

I will be working on the timeline anthologies and overseeing a number of PBH publications – I can’t wait to get cracking!