‘I’m hungry less/and eating more’

*Waves from the internet void*

This isn’t a Napowrimo poem. I know, I know, an actual fucking lockdown seems like it’d be the perfect time to tackle Napowrimo. We’ll see. I’m trying not to over-ascribe myself jobs, because my sense of worth being tied to my productivity is a relationship I’m trying to break.

In the meantime, have a quarantine poem that I am mildly pleased with. Needs tinkering, but sharing is good as well. Need to remember to share my writing, instead of just sitting on it, especially now that I won’t be performing in person for a while.

Hope everyone is healthy, safe and relatively sane.

Chester: A Poem for a King

 

This is Chester. One time he jumped in my lap and it was one of the Top 10 Most Glorious Things That Have Ever Happened To Me in my entire life. He hated everyone and everything indiscriminately and we loved him for it. And last weekend we had to say goodbye to him and it fucking sucks. The house will not be the same without its raggedy ginger tyrant.

We’ll miss you and we love you Chester, you beautiful grumpy dandy.

‘The Push’ by Rebecca

Look mum, I’m on a youtube!

I go to an excellent poetry night at the Eagle Inn in Salford (‘Evidently’, check out the link below, they’re class) and whilst there last month some folks from Speculative Books press in Glasgow (link also below) asked if they could film me doing my poem from the open mic.

I should point out – I was a little bit drunk, and so you’ll have to excuse the slight wibble of emotion that escapes at the end there.

In my defence it was Easter half term and I didn’t know I was going to be filmed when I piled into the pub that afternoon. Please show Speculative Books some love and give them a follow, they’re doing good work.

 

 

Evidently

Speculative Books

Poetry rec: ‘My People’ by Kim Moore

Today’s poetry rec is ‘My People’ from the The Art of Falling by Kim Moore.

I saw Kim read a couple of years ago and she was phenomenal; she made me snort laugh (at a very hush hush poetry event) with this poem, dealt smoothly with some slightly misogynistic questioning from an old dear in the audience and her poetry sequence about surviving a domestically abusive relationship was completely stunning. The only reason that I’m not recommending a poem from that sequence (‘How I Abandoned My Body to His Keeping’) is that I simply wouldn’t know which poem to single out.

But you know what you could do? Buy her collection.

Returning from the void

I’m sharing this again. For anyone who’s ever wondered where the line of poetry tattooed on my right arm is from, this is it.

Most people ask to read my tattoo and then give the overly serious nod and slight side-eye and move swiftly on to another topic. I’ll admit, it doesn’t make much sense out of context, taking only the following lines from the above;

‘I send my rockets forth/between my ears’

As an avid fan of both poetry and space travel, an image which merged the two ideas was irresistible to me and I couldn’t not steal it.

But the poem as a whole is something I think best experienced in context.

Sound the trumpets

For my MA is done and dusted – with no small amount of stress and slight-sleep-deprived-mania (Rosey Brown and I spent a good 5 minutes giggling over the concept of bras the morning of hand-in)* towards the end, but it was good to send off those poems I’d been obsessively editing since June-time into the wild to make it on their ownsome.

And to celebrate (although I also plan to actually celebrate, with some kind of alcoholic beverage and possibly some dancing, sorry world) I thought I’d post one of the poems I have been labouring over all this time.

See employed friends, I am not a layabout to quite the degree you think I am!

Forays into Workshop Land …

Last week I had the good fortune to attend not one, but two Creative Writing workshops. At first glance, given their subject matters –bereavement and holistic therapy – I’d expected they’d occupy opposite ends of the emotional spectrum. Nope.

Though I hadn’t anticipated it, the workshops mirrored each other in many ways – besides the loveliness of their respective venues and the high quality of the discussion and writing.

And the cake. Never undervalue the creative powers of cake.