Originally from UK, where I was appointed the inaugural Poet Laureate for Cheshire in 2003, I emigrated to South Africa’s Eastern Cape in 2008.

Outspoken (and unapologetic) in my commitment to the natural world, and a passionate advocate of poetry, I’m the author of nine collections, three of the most recent being Small Stones for Bromley (2014); The Cull: new and resurrected poems (2017); and All Weathers (2019).

My latest collection, Thicket: shades from the Eastern Cape, originally released as an eBook, was published in expanded print form by Minimal Press in July 2022.

I have also edited three anthologies – I Write Who I Am: an anthology of Upstart poetry (2011); For Rhino in a Shrinking World: an international anthology (2013); and Coming Home: poems of the Grahamstown diaspora (2019).

For more than twelve years I had the enormous pleasure of hosting the popular monthly open floor event called Reddits Poetry in Grahamstown. That small city has become an indelible part of my creative life.

But in early 2021 my wife Chrissie and I moved to the Western Cape where we now live in the village of Kylemore, near Stellenbosch, surrounded by mountains and too many wine estates to count!