Another reading at the Betsey Trotwood http://www.facebook.com/events/411632572200782/ - 7.30 on Tuesday 22nd May – lots of Saltanas on the bill.
Sing-a-long-a May 8, 2012
Here’s one of my poems which has been made into a song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIKjmo0auiE - it’s about the lads that practise a sort of wild gymnastics down by the South Bank. I didn’t write the baby giggles in the background in, but they’re quite nice.
Back Home … April 21, 2012
I’m reading at New Brewery Arts in Cirencester on Thursday 26th April … that’s where I had my first job after university.
Jilted John February 18, 2012
A post valentines’ reading in Clerkenwell this week … an event full of live dumpings-by-text, songs of heartbreak and Dear John letters. Here’s mine …
Dear Johns
We need to talk
dear John Cusack.
This relationship has crashed and burned. It’s dead in a ditch
dear John Malkovitch.
I’m not giving you another chance to blow
dear John Galliano.
Tell me why you’ve got two phones
dear John Paul Jones.
So I’m jealous. Jealousy’s not my fault, d’you hear
dear John Paul Gaultier?
The flower said ‘he loves me not’ when I picked off all the petals
dear John Nettles.
I’ve seen backs less hairy
dear John Terry
I’m bored of you. There are other boys I’d like to see, other blokes
dear John Noakes.
I’ve bundled up all your back issues of Classic and Sports Car and left them in a bin bag on the back step
dear Johnny Depp.
There’s absolutely nothing I can say to you now
dear John Cougar Mellencamp.
In every comic novel of the 1930s, there’s a stock flighty female character with red lips and long beads who leaves her husband before the ink is dry on the marriage certificate and she’s always known as The Bolter. That’s me
dear John Travolta.
That thing you do, that’s not okay
dear JFK
I cheat, you cheat, he cheats, she cheats
dear John Keats.
You don’t like my manners. Sorry
dear John Stammers.
Your silent sulks give murder rage
dear John Cage.
I can’t stand another evening listening to you banging on about your best mate, do you get the jist
dear John the Baptist?
This is going to hurt
dear John Hurt.
One of us has to go
dear Jon Snow.
It’s not you, it’s me
dear John C Reilly.
Dear John Woo
It’s not me, it’s you.
Me, Keats and Fungus the Bogeyman … January 9, 2012
I wrote an article about the very same … http://www.writershub.co.uk/poetry-piece.php?pc=1306
You Call Him Dr Jones! October 13, 2011
I’m reading at You Call Him Dr Jones!, a celebration of everyone’s favourite whip-cracking, gun-slinging, hoochie-smooching imaginary archaeologist. I’m also in charge of procuring eyeballs for the eyeball soup cocktails. But here’s my poem, a pantoum based on the scene on the boat where Marion forces Indy to ask her to kiss him. Sigh.
It’s Not The Years, Honey, It’s the Mileage
(for the 30th anniversary of Raiders of the Lost Ark)
There are places where it doesn’t hurt:
elbow, forehead, eyelid, lips.
If you won’t ask me, I’ll make you ask me -
a kiss felt in a million mouths.
Elbow, forehead, eyelid, lips.
One kiss used, then lost, then sold to a museum,
a kiss felt in a million mouths,
a story with sequels and sub-text.
One kiss used, then lost, then sold to a museum.
I’m not the first girl to have travelled with pirates -
a story with sequels and sub-text.
Sometimes we all go out in a borrowed dress.
I’m not the first girl to have travelled with pirates -
Scrapes and grazes, bullet-nicks.
Sometimes we all go out in a borrowed dress,
a lovely moon-rock coloured dress.
Scrapes and grazes, bullet-nicks.
If you won’t ask me, I’ll make you ask me.
A lovely moon-rock coloured dress.
There are places where it doesn’t hurt.
Poetry Please, Thanks May 22, 2011
The May 22nd episode of Poetry Please … if it’s still on the iplayer, my ‘Radio at Night’ poem is the last but one. Thank you, Barbara from Nottingham for requesting it.
Up North May 10, 2011
I’m reading in Walthamstow on Wednesday 18th May, details here. I used to work in Walthamstow, right round the corner from a Greggs which stocked solely day old cakes. Nothing wrong with a slightly crunchy iced bun. Come to this reading. It’ll be grand.
New rations … April 4, 2011
I’ve got a new poem in Nasty Little Press’ monthly Ration Book, download it here http://www.nastylittlepress.org/the-ration-book/. Also featured – George Szirtes, Richard Tyrone Jones, Luke Wright and Caroline (‘The Other One’) Bird.
I have bought a tombola drum … March 19, 2011
… because I’m going to be running a stall at the Today I Love workshop at the South Bank Centre on 30th April. Come and write a postcard poem about the best thing that happens to you on that day. I am collecting a list of 1,000 pleasant and pocketable words to help you along, they will be in my new tombola drum.
