poetry

Hey you. Nice to see you again. You’re looking well. Have you had a haircut? Sure? Well your hair looks great today, then. You’re welcome. I had a pretty Kinder Bueno 2009, all told. My first (maybe only!) book came out, I got to do gigs with Vic Reeves, Jon Ronson and Tim Key, I … Read more

So it’s nice to see my old chum and fellow Aisle16er Luke Wright has been back blogging after a long period of sporadic comms. In my continuing efforts to bore the tits off of all my readers equally (my video game posts have a consistent knack for making at least 50% of eyes glaze over) … Read more

This Thursday 17th December, I’ll be performing with all seven members of Aisle16 at The Monto Water Rats Theatre, on Grays Inn Road. It’s exceptionally rare that all of us are in the same place to do a gig, aside from the late night ‘Aisle16 and Friends’ sessions at Latitude festival. A good portion of … Read more

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmNb3xJFzkc] I wonder how this chap would feel if he knew that, within the latest versions of Pokémon, they have their own church you can visit, laid out like a conventional Christian church, where people worship the Earth and Pokémon. No joke. Plus there are Ghost Pokémon who are literally the resurrected ghosts of dead … Read more

So yesterday I attempted to write 100 poems in a day – and succeeded! Boom. It was a weird experience. The night before, I’d done my classic thing of feeling nervous and excited ahead of a big day, so I stayed up until 4am playing a Japanese RPG and reading Ted Hughes’ Crow (which I … Read more

The day of judgement is upon us – tomorrow I attempt to write 100 poems in a day You’ll be able to check my progress on the blog and on my Twitterfeed, and join in if you want to. Err… cheers to all the people who’ve sent me poem titles or generally said ‘Jesus… good … Read more

So, the 100 Poems In A Day Project has an official blog! Also, an official kickoff time. 9am, this Thursday. Aww crap. I’m actually going to have to do it now. Will you join me? You know, if anyone has ideas for poem titles on the day itself, do suggest them, and I guess I’ll … Read more

This wasn’t a speed poem. I took a while over it and have no excuses other than a dearth of craft. The Wall The men are building a wall. On top of the wall is a large cobalt blue radioWith armoured sides and black rubberShock absorbers,SingingLike a hornet trappedIn an ear trumpet.It is built for … Read more

I’ve already received a whole bunch of awesome suggested poem titles for the 100 Poems In A Day Project. There’s a great variety of facetious, serious, abstract and specific lines there for me – and everyone else who decides to join in – to work from. Thanks peeps! Please keep them coming! So, since I … Read more

I was chatting to poet, author and magma-arteried destroyer of worlds John Osborne this weekend, when he mentioned discovering that a poet we both knew had never heard of speed poems. Well, here’s a pathetically small potential controversy to rock my friends and the poetry world at large – up until a few minutes ago, … Read more

Hey, hey, hey, if you tune into to Radio 4 this Thursday, 19th November, at 11:30am, you’ll be able to hear a show about the Oulipo, where they chat to me and my fellow Aisle16ers Ross Sutherland and Joe Dunthorne about our Oulipo-inspired poems and our show about our attempt to infiltrate the Oulipo, Found … Read more

So yeah, those of you who came to the Local Boys Done Good edition of HOMEWORK will remember we did a show all about our hometowns. Well, guess what? If you missed it or just forgot it or loved it so much that you want to be locked in a cell with it projected onto … Read more

So, I’m in the midst of a rather pleasant weekend in Liverpool, doing a bunch of gigs at the Bluecoat. On Friday evening, I got to host an evening with Vic Reeves, where we introduced a sold-out crowd to his new book, Vic Reeves’ Vast Book Of World Knowledge. As you can probably imagine, I … Read more

Back at the beginning of 2007, the Onion AV Club’s Nathan Rabin coined the term ‘Manic Pixie Dream Girl’, to describe the archetype represented by Kirsten Dunst’s character in the movie Elizabethtown: ‘Dunst embodies a character type I like to call The Manic Pixie Dream Girl (see Natalie Portman in Garden State for another prime … Read more

Masquerade‘He goes by many names –Loki, God of mischief,Mara, the deceiver.In the dark arts of misdirection and illusionHe is peerless,’Says Cecil.I am looking at a green electricity junction boxConcreted into the ground.Cecil senses my confusion. His beam widensLike an interdimensional rift.

Little GodsStrange, omniscient Maxine watchesA couple conceive on the backseat of a Yatsuki GremlinListens to the creak of leather upholstery and ancient suspensionAnd the hushed whoosh of a snowstorm raging outside the carWhile, seventy years later,Their great grandson thumbs cartridges like little lipsticksInto a magazinePuts the muzzle to his throbbing templeAnd waits for the 12:15To … Read more

So this weekend I toddled north up to the Lake District for a little festival called Kendal Calling. I say toddled – I dozed in a van while Ventriloquist and the Tongue Fu band drove us the 6+ hours all the way up there on Saturday. I’d had to get up bright and early to … Read more

My word, I am pooped. This weekend just gone, I set off for four gigs over two days. My voice still hadn’t (and still hasn’t) recovered from Latitude, so I left little Tim Jr back in Cambridge and resolved to stick to spoken word. I was in fairly high spirits after my gig on Thursday, … Read more

So, after a day of sleeping and staggering groggily about the flat with Supernoodles dangling from my slack gob, I’ve officially recovered from Latitude festival 2009. My voice is still pretty buggered, so no arias for a week or so, but aside from that I’m compos mentis so woot. Despite intermittently shitty weather, this year … Read more

Apologies for the lack of updates recently. I know you must have been tearing at your hair and gnashing your teeth with sheer boredom, and for your fortnight of torment, I beg your forgiveness. A combination of tech problems, writerly busy-ness and lovely weather have left me with mere slivers of free time, and every … Read more

You know how, a few days after a celebrity death, you always get this surge in not terribly sophisticated jokes about their passing? My friend Tom once announced, several years after her death, that he had made up a Princess Diana joke. Tom: Knock knock.Me: Who’s there?Tom: Princess Diana.Me: Princess Diana who?Tom [beaming]: Dead! This … Read more

It’s appropriate that Glastonbury is organised by a farmer, because the ancient and fundamental principle of the yearly harvest also applies to the festival – if the weather’s shit, it’ll be shit. I hope that the weather isn’t shit at Glastonbury 2009, because firstly, have you seen the line up? WHAT. It’s actually mental. Blur, … Read more

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_pIbiZtKoE] Someone suggested I watch this video from back in 1998, of ‘poetry’s first pop group’, Atomic Lip. In the aftermath, I find myself uncharacteristically lost for words. Wow. Just wow. Actually spectacular. Anyone starting out in performance poetry could learn a huge amount from this video. Just study the choreography, their various delivery techniques, … Read more

Ahh. Finally, the new season of Homework is about to kick off. Homework is Aisle16’s London scratch night, a kind of loosely themed literary cabaret on the last Wednesday of every month. Each night has a main show, with support slots from the residents, and often a guest slot. Last year, despite drifting across three … Read more

So yes, here we are again. Another day, another performance poet interview. Goodness. That sounds a bit world-weary. I don’t really feel that bleak. I haven’t been updating with my usual high-fibre regularity for a couple of reasons, primarily because I’ve been busy writing actual proper articles that may wind up appearing in actual semi-esteemed … Read more