Unfulfilled Playlist

A while ago, I wrote a poem about the experience of buying records in shops, as a kind of post-streaming, tribute to the irreplaceable, tactile, sensory atmosphere of physical stores. The poem ‘Unfulfilled Playlist’ has now been published on Wild Court, where you can read it.

Unamerican

There’s a new poem below. I don’t tend to like explaining poems, but I do appreciate a bit of context. Like many others I suspect, not least in the USA itself, I feel profoundly shaken by recent events there. When I was six, I discovered Charlie Brown cartoons, encouraged by an American exchange student assistant…

Adios Twitter

I’ve deleted my twitter account. Why? Ought to be obvious – The extreme-right owner and the wannabe dictator. This George Carlin sketch articulates the issue well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsL6mKxtOlQ I felt increasingly uncomfortable clinging on for some months now.Twitter isn’t what it was, but please look at my poems anyway… I didn’t sit right with me doing…

In search of the remarkably mundane

This article was originally published on Mono Fiction in 2021 – sadly the magazine and site seems to be no more. The approach it outlines still applies to a lot of the posts, which appear on this blog and often my poetry. Guest blogger, Matt Gilbert talks about finding writing inspiration in the seemingly mundane……

Three new poems: Brussels to Bruges, Political Donations, No Smoke

Three new poems, recently shared on Twitter as part of Black Bough Poetry’s #toptweettuesday Brussels to Bruges  Considered through train carriage windows, agitated rooks and solitary horses twist necks to eye them. They’re everywhere. Squattingby ditch and stream, in tight organic knots – coppiced willows. Stools tracing lines across flat lands. Borders, vertical as much as horizontal. A coiled army…

Previously, on the me show

I have three new poems up on Northern Gravy, in their 12th edition. I have an unfortunate tendency to dwell for longer on rejections than acceptances when it comes to poetry. I’m trying to change that way of thinking and to celebrate the successes. I’ve tried several times in the past two or three years…

Calling Home etc: four recent poems

Three of these poems, are short, poem-sketches of moments in time. Brief, lyrical, imagist observations about people and places. The fourth, is an attempt to address wider world events, the drum of bad news, war and death, which, much as I wish I could blithely ignore, I find I cannot. It isn’t pretty in the…