POETRY READINGS: Paul is an acclaimed speaker of his poetry, engaging his audience in dialogue, interactive writing and wordplay. The talks that he gives are often interwoven with his poetry.

TALKS (fuller descriptions available on request): 

THE PRACTICE OF BETWEEN-NESS in language, perception and meditation.

‘THE CHAMELEON POET’: What John Keats meant by the need to develop ‘negative capability’.

BEING A POET: What it means to dedicate your life to this crazy essential business.

WHAT IS A WORD WORTH? Our responsibility to care for the words we use in our relationships and communities. 

EARTH, WATER, AIR, FIRE as an imaginative language to help bridge the gap between self and world. 

HEALING THE WORD: The Buddha’s ‘Path of Right Speech’ and the possibility of filling our words with the power to heal. 

WHAT’S BEHIND THE SKY? For teachers and parents: the language of childhood and the role of imagination in home and classroom.

FROM SILLINESS TO SOULFULNESS: Why play needs to be taken seriously.

POETRY, A WAY OF SEEING

THE TRUTH OF FAIRY TALES: How these seemingly fanciful tales speak a soul language and awaken us to deeper aspects of our own biography

A ROSE IS A ROSE: Naming as a creative and essential human responsibility.

THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH as news of the story that we belong to.

THE ELOQUENCE OF LOVE: The poetry of the Troubadours, and how we can recreate our language in the presence of the other person.

ALL HEAVEN IN A RAGE: William Blake’s battle for the life of the Imagination.

TRUE IMAGINATION? Daring to stand in the place where fact and fiction meet.

IN THE BEGINNING: How Creation Myths relate to our own creative processes.

WHY DID THE CHICKEN? The foolish and fabulous world of Riddles.

GREEN GRAMMER: Poetry as a training of ecological awareness.