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Below you can find some quick links to some of my writing and other interesting places.
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Poetry
Performance
Live Readings
July 2005 - possibly my most auspicious performance yet at the Ledbury poetry festival.
For those unfamiliar with this event, it’s an annual one which is held in the small town of Ledbury in Herefordshire and has been described by Andrew Motion, the poet laureate, as the best of all such festivals. It lasts for 10 days and consists of many events held at venues all over the town. It’s poetry’s equivalent of Glastonbury I suppose, but most people stay in one of the local hotels or inns rather than a soggy tent and you’re lucky if you get a crowd of more than 30 at any one event. It’s more a way of seeing and often meeting lots of different poets and soaking up the atmosphere of the town itself, the centre of which is a masterpiece of medieval and Tudor architecture.
I was invited by bluechrome to read at their event at the festival as I've appeared in their last two anthologies. There were some big poetry names reading too at this event - Moira Clark, Geoff Stevens, William Oxley, Patrick Osada and Sam Smith to name but a few. My lip quivered a little at first, reading in front of these luminaries, but I think I got away with it!
This is me in performance at the Queen Elizabeth hall on the South Bank in London. I joined in 'A celebration of the people's game' which involved me reading a collection of my football related poems as part of a day of music, plays, poetry etc. I know I look a funny colour, but it was the floodlights, honest. And yes, I was over the moon.
Here I am once again in a top London spot (Covent Garden this time) where one of my poems, North and South, was selected by Roger McGough for a poetry on the buses campaign. This is the press launch and you can just about see me loitering against the bus, fourth window from the right. The highlights of the day were meeting Ivor Cutler (now unfortunately no longer with us) and reading my selected poem in the church where William Blake was baptised, St Peter's in Piccadilly.
There must be something about Covent Garden, as I was invited by ABCTales to perform (along with Eddie Gibbons and Liana Hemmet) at the Poetry Place in Betterton Street. This is the headquarters of the Poetry Society, and though I've read there before on open mike nights it was great to be invited and introduced properly as a chosen poet. We had a good time in the pub afterwards aswell!