Category craic

Zoom may have been a godsend to performance poets over the past eighteen months as our normal venues shut their doors because of the pandemic, but nothing – and I mean nothing – beats a real live gig. And it…

This summer, from the comfort of my own armchair (or, indeed, curled up underneath a duvet) I’m covering a surprising amount of ground. Or rather, my work is. From August 6th till the 30th, a digital version of the pandemonialists’…

Back in December I wrote the first of the Tim and Steve dialogues, my attempt to shed light on – and have a few belly laughs at – the car crash that was Brexit. The dialogues quickly expanded their range…

Earlier this year, stuck in a lockdown which seemed to be going on for ever, I decided it’d be no bad thing to learn some new skills. All my videos to date had been pretty basic: captions topping and tailing…

Earlier this month, a weighty parcel of three hundred poems thunked onto the doormat. These were the entries into this year’s Welshpool poetry competition, which yours truly had been asked to judge. So for the past couple of weeks I’ve…

Over the past few weeks, I’ve barely written a thing. I’ve thought about it often enough, found a subject I think could be interesting, picked up the pen (or the laptop) and…. Nah. Nothing doing. There was a time when…

If you find yourself in Walsall town centre over the next six weeks, you’ll notice that previously empty shop windows are now filled with glorious art. It’s all part of the Re:Ignite arts festival (with financial support from the National…

Well, it’s all a bit different here, isn’t it? And yes, you’re right, it had needed doing for a while, but wasn’t it worth the wait? So far this weekend I’m spending far more time than is healthy scrolling through…

A couple of days ago, my poem ‘this is the best pub in the world’ was released as the latest in a series of ‘Winter Warmers’ celebrating the wonders of our local boozers. It’s one of seven poems commissioned by…

Late last year, after reading one too many online diatribes from conspiracy theorists who think M&S have put 5G in their underwear, and wondering how to best reply to such nonsense, I sat down and started writing. What I ended…

This blog is, first and foremost, a reminder for me. It’s reminder for those future days when the old imposter syndrome sides up and whispers nonsense in my ear, it’s a reminder for the days to come when finding any…

Earlier this autumn, I was asked by Mid Wales Art Centre to be one of six poets commissioned to write pieces in response to sculptures they had on show. To add to the challenge, as Wales was under lockdown at…