Julia Bird

Me, Keats and Fungus the Bogeyman …

juliabird — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:44:37 +0000

I wrote an article about the very same … http://www.writershub.co.uk/poetry-piece.php?pc=1306

You Call Him Dr Jones!

juliabird — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 22:07:01 +0000

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 30^th 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

juliabird — Sun, 22 May 2011 16:01:23 +0000

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

juliabird — Tue, 10 May 2011 10:34:53 +0000

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 …

juliabird — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 08:37:59 +0000

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 …

juliabird — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 11:17:13 +0000

… 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.

Sauce. For Valentines Day.

juliabird — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 18:34:34 +0000

Check out Alice’s wondrous copywriting …

‘Ladies hold tight to your romantic ideals!! Though husbands, boyfriends and lovers grow sweaty palmed and faint with the responsibility of Valentines revelry, Club Holloway-Smith Noir is on hand to relieve the burden from their emotionally repressed shoulders and make ‘dinner and a movie’ a thing of the dreary past. Offering a red hot bill of dazzling burlesque starlets and saucy new poets, we are determined to stir up a vigorous tribute to Saint Valentine this 14th February.

Aphrodisiac; Salon D’Amour is sure to delight gentlewomen and fellas alike, with its rousing mix of salacious verse and cockle warming striptease, served up with a generous menu of lusty gastronomy. Read for your aural pleasure: the blackened wit of Mark Waldron, the heady romance of Amy Key, the pert lyricism of Julia Bird, and the dizzying imagination of Wayne Holloway-Smith. You’ll encounter an ass slapping general, a lovestruck Dougal and his unbeknowing dame Florence, and a human breakfast platter amongst the debauched confessions and eccentric fantasies of these literary amabassadors

Dancing to invoke the muse: The vivacious Tallulah Tempest and the sultry Emerald Fontaine bring you a rousing celebration of the female form, perfect for a little Valentines inspiration.

Our carefully selected seasonal menu is bursting with virility. Featuring both classic aphrodisiac cuisine and some more unusual shapes. Each platter is served to share and we encourage you to tuck in and get your fingers dirty as well as your intentions.

All this lies in wait in Mme Holloway-Smith’s intimate boudoir setting, temporarily taking up residence at the Fox Public House, where Holloway-Smith Noir beautiful, erotic, lingerie accessories glimmer in the candlelight, for you to take your pick, because let’s face it, we can’t leave that up to the men either!’

The Fox Public House, Shoreditch

28 Paul Street, London EC2A 4LB

Tickets: £35 per head. To book please email alice@hollowaysmithnoir.com

Cakes

juliabird — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 15:38:18 +0000

a cake. with a poem on.

Poetry Digest

- where Faber & Faber meets Greggs. PD publish poems on cakes, and their new batch (due onto the cooling racks on January 16) features poems with a particular raisin d’etre … they’re all about sultanas, currants or raisins. A tea party of all the featured poets’ cakes takes place at the Bell in Middlesex Street, E1 – details here.

salt, shirts, sales & so on …

juliabird — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 11:33:34 +0000

Two readings coming up – one with some fellow Saltanas at the Poetry Cafe in London on Saturday 18 September, details here ; and one at Aubin & Wills in on Wednesday 24 November, with Tim Dooley, George Ttoouli and Hannah Walker. Dooley, Ttoouli, Walker and Bird – we sound like the Trumpton firemen.

London, Edinburgh, Paris

juliabird — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 09:32:57 +0000

Last weekend, I read in Gloucestershire, and the lemon drizzle cake in the interval was very good indeed. The weekend before that, in Galway, and I saw Edwina Currie in a farmers’ market there. Today, I am being a bit more disciplined about listing my readings … so coming up, I’ll be reading in London on 5th August for those nice Tall Lighthouse people, in Edinburgh on 23rd August for Utter in a venue called the Banshee Labyrinth, and on 9th September in Paris, pas de details a ce moment.