Why was doing drugs in semi-public toilets ever liberating? "Me, me, me..." is not what interests, well, me-these-days: reading Max Wallis and Alex Dimitrov.
Tag: poetry
… and post an old poem, new to this site
I wrote the poem "Total Information Awareness" in 2005. It was published in 2014. I have read it many times at poetry open mics and slams. What we are seeing in 2025, particularly the persecution of migrants, has been in production for more than 20 years. I knew. “We all” had the means by which … Continue reading … and post an old poem, new to this site
Poetry demands utility
I think this will turn out all right if I just come quietly.
I make models, ships in bottles…
These phrases, from a poem of mine (here) begin to articulate my understanding of what art, and poetry as a kind of art-in-words, does. Among other things, art mediates the distance between the moment and the eternal. Art represents the macrocosm in the microcosm, bursting like Michelangelo's Awakening Slave: a moment out of the stone … Continue reading I make models, ships in bottles…
Connections to the great unknown
I walked out humming the chorus to House Carpenter: "Save your love for loneliness, save my love for sorrow..." and said hello to neighbour, Peggy Seeger. In Oxford 2025 it is still just possible to be one degree of separation from Ramblin' Jack Elliott.
Was hit by a one-two of poetry
Was hit by a one-two of #poetry yesterday readin' Deep Wheel Orcadia (Picador, London, 2021), a sci-fi novel by Harry Josephine Giles (find their books and more here https://harryjosephine.com/) in trans-linguistic Orkney verse mediating & mediated in nowimmediateurgent language. Boom! And, Martina Evans, "Drunken Driving an extract" (The Stinging Fly 51.2 Winter 2024-25, pp24-33 https://stingingfly.org/magazine/): … Continue reading Was hit by a one-two of poetry
Time, perception and the infinite
Life is energy, movement, change, time. An implication of infinite space and time is that only the here and now exists forever. Thermodynamics. Energy moves: hot to cold. Movement is time. Movement is relative: this moves towards/away-from that; faster/slower, more/less. Movement is change: here to there. Change is time. Change is relative. Time is relative. … Continue reading Time, perception and the infinite
Dreamtime poetry
Art, as I have come to understand, is the means by which the dreamtime is carried across generations. The dreamtime is that from which "we" emerge/d, became something like what passes for self-aware, individually and as a species, some time ago; and, that to which we return, the same. Animals live mostly in the dreamtime. I debate … Continue reading Dreamtime poetry
Brum Radio Poets
Sunday 27 October 2024, 1000 GMT The monthly Brum Radio Poets are Leah Atherton and me, in conversation with Rick Sanders, aka Willis the Poet. We each read five poems. Listen on Sunday, and there will be a link in the Brum Radio Archive. Here https://www.mixcloud.com/BrumRadio/brum-radio-poets-with-rick-sanders-october-2024-27102024/ Friends! The studio session was energising and fun. I … Continue reading Brum Radio Poets
Forgetting reasons
Writing is always an act of recovery. Truths cannot be told. What was I about to say? Tinnitus of the edge closing in: call it a demented pleasure-seeker's journal, the slip into or off something more or less comfortable. Sell a million. Measure the benefit. That way more utility? Identity and tradition, culture and place, … Continue reading Forgetting reasons
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