Category craic

I suspect every poet – and every person who tries to scrape some kind of living in the arts – has days where they wonder if what they’re doing has any kind of value. And lord knows we’re living in…

Winter can be a right old struggle, but this one has been considerably brightened by the news that my poem ‘El Vaquita’ was one of twenty-one poems commended by judge Kim Moore in the Verve poetry competition, which sought poems…

I’ve always been fascinated by other forms of creativity – ones that I have neither the talent for nor the patience to learn – whether that be painting, sculpture, music, or working in wood, metal, or glass. I find it…

It’s been a while since one of my poetry collections got reviewed, so I’m very grateful to Saturday Books in Dudley for this appraisal of thirty-one small acts… especially as they seem to have nailed what I think the book…

Last Thursday morning I started the car up and headed north. A long, leisurely drive up the M6 with Emma Purshouse so the two of us could do a gig in Gatehouse of Fleet in SW Scotland. It was good…

I spent yesterday sititng on a sofa halfway up Whitchurch High Street while the cavalcade of wonder and nonsense that is the town’s annual Blackberry Fair swirled around me. Cider stalls, cider drinkers, morris dancers, buskers, food stalls, musicians, and…

Odd things, poems. Prone to turning up when you least expect them. Last Thursday I woke up on a tour bus as it pulled into Wembley Arena – I was busy earning a crust with the day job as a stage…

Bit of a clickbait title, that. I haven’t taken up the offer of a well-paid role as writer of patriotic doggerel at Conservative Central Office – the offer hasn’t been made, to be fair, nor am I expecting it –…

Several years ago, over a boozy pint or three (or possibly seven, ed) in the Lych Gate Tavern in Wolverhampton, Emma Purshouse, Dave Pitt and myself decided it might be fun to work together, collaborate on projects, take it in…

This past week I’ve done two poetry gigs – one ‘live’ on the Isle of Arran, and one online in Shrewsbury’s virtual twin – and really enjoyed them both. Which shouldn’t be a surprise, really, as I’ve always loved getting…

Over the Easter weekend, I was working with fellow pandemonialist Emma Purshouse over at the newly-opened Stourbridge Glass Museum, writing poems on demand for visitors. I know some poets who’d rather lose their eye teeth than have to write under…

There’s a proud and wonderful tradition in poetry and song of sharing work which mocks our lords and masters. Work which is witty, and barbed, and furious, which climbs to the rooftops and shouts to the world that the emperor…