Category craic

When the first review of a book you helped write finally appears in the press, it proper blows your socks off to find out it’s as good as this one for But after the gig…. Thank you, Vive le Rock!…

I’m a simple creature at heart, with no grand plan for my life other than to follow my nose and see where it leads me. It’s not the most complex of strategies, but it has led me to a place…

There haven’t been many idle moments of late, which suits me down to the ground, but a couple of days ago I stumbled across one. At a loss what to do, I found myself – for no particular reason –…

Don’t get me wrong, I love my poetry. There’s something about getting up in front of an audience, spinning your words, and showing them that poetry isn’t the awful dead stuff they thought they learned at school (it’s just people…

If there’s one thing the past few weeks have shown me, it’s that collaboration is good for the soul. I knew that anyway, of course – I’ve been working with Wolverhampton poets Emma Purshouse and Dave Pitt for the past eighteen…

Way back in late 2016 – when myself, Emma Purshouse, and Dave Pitt founded the Poets, Prattlers, and Pandemonialists collective – one of our major goals was to take poetry out of its small-but-beautifully-formed niche and plonk it down in…

Well, kind of. I was busy making a hot chocolate late last night (yes, that’s how wildly rock’n’roll life at mine is right now) and it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t updated the website in… what? Weeks? Ye…

A huge (and slightly belated) thanks to everyone who came along to last week’s benefit gig for Paulette Wilson. It was a last-minute venture, and we didn’t really know what to expect, how many people would turn up, or how…

This Thursday I’ll be taking part in a benefit gig in Wolverhampton. It’s got one simple aim: to raise money for Paulette Wilson, a grandmother living in Wolverhampton who’s currently under threat of deportation. If you don’t know anything about…

I don’t know quite how it happened, exactly how it is I fell through the cracks and found a way of life which allows me to put bread on the table while doing things I enjoy (rather than slaving at…

Like a lot of poets, I genuinely struggle with self-promotion. Really. Writing poems? No problem. Sharing them? Yep, that’s fine. Appreciating other people’s work? Of course. But when it comes to making a song and dance about – say –…

Here it is. The new book. a fine fine place. To say I’m proud of it doesn’t begin to do it justice, but – if I’m honest – the pride is shrouded just a little in a fog of exhaustion…