February 2021 Recommended
03 Mar 2021 Category: link round up
At the end of this month there was a burst of sunshine and the daffodils we buried in November erupted in their pots. This sudden explosion of sun and colour always reminds me of this E. E. Cummings poem and this one by Jack Underwood.1
With the start of Spring and the vaccine rolling out I am allowing myself some tentative hope for the next few months. Brighter days are ahead, fingers crossed.
Here’s a few other things I enjoyed this month.
Film
I turned 33 in February2 and celebrated by...
The Power of Disco
26 Feb 2021 Category: erasure poetry
Taken from DIY Magazine October 2020
Disco ball image from Greyson Joralemon on Unsplash.
Writing Every Day
25 Feb 2021 Category: creativity
Some advice I hear repeated often is to write every single day. Like all advice, it’s a bit more complicated than it sounds. I think it is generally a good thing to get into a creative practice and is certainly something I have advocated for in previous posts. But every single day can be difficult.
My experience
Before lockdown, I would write most week days on my lunch break. During lockdown, it shifted to before work, as I didn’t have a commute and lunch was reserved for eating and getting my daily half an hour of prescribed vitamin...
Fuzz
17 Feb 2021 Category: erasure poetry
Taken from DIY Magazine October 2020
A new poem of mine was featured on Write Out Loud’s social media. Thanks to them. Find it here.
Sky Song
10 Feb 2021 Category: erasure poetry
Taken from DIY Magazine October 2020
I’ve been nominated for the 2021 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem for my poem After by Neon Magazine. I can’t quite believe it. Thanks so much to them.
No one could have predicted this
05 Feb 2021 Category: poetry
We’ve done everything we possibly can
they proclaim on nightly broadcasts,
shaking their fists for emphasis as if
describing ineffective ancient magic
runes in the air, as globs of engine oil
dribble down their chins, distracting
from the soft focus, where shadows
tear copper wire from the concrete.
We’ve done all we can, they inisist
in their two thousand pound a piece
newspaper columns, before huffing
furniture polish, snorting ground
rare turtle eggs and sitting down
to a subsidised pre-luncheon of...
Red Ink: Liam Bates
03 Feb 2021 Category: red ink
This is a series where I interview poets about their process in regards to a single poem. Today I am honoured to have the fantastic Liam Bates, whose pamphlet Working Animals was one of my highlights of last year. Today he’s discussing a poem that was first published in Anthropocene on 20th December.
Calling
I’m expecting the doctor’s call at eleven. I answer
at ten past. She asks me if it’s me who’s answered.
I say it is as if I’m sure of it. Her voice is wooly
and small, like...
January 2021 Links
02 Feb 2021 Category: link round up
This January has been more miserable than most, grey and cold with a lockdown over us. It feels like a lifetime since further restrictions were announced. So I’ve had a lot of time to stay inside and consume media. Here’s some things I enjoyed.
Books
Somehow I read ten books in January which seems like far too many, but there we go. The Testaments by Margaret Atwood was a sobering read about how totalitarian regimes operate on lies, and ultimately how they fall. There is hope, but it takes concerted effort and a lot of pain. I read it...
A View From a Bridge
01 Feb 2021 Category: photos
Bristol, you can be quite spectacular sometimes. Wordsworth should have waited sixty odd years and written about the view from this bridge instead.
A Breath
27 Jan 2021 Category: erasure poetry
Taken from DIY Magazine October 2020
Echoes and edges completely transformed my poem Circulation on their live stream at the weekend. Check it out below, my poem is at 1 hour 26 minutes.
https://youtu.be/IQX6ir4HksU
Red Ink: Pascal Vine
22 Jan 2021 Category: red ink
This a series where I interview poets about their process and writing in reference to a single poem. Today we have Pascal Vine, an excellent poet, a captivating performer and part of the team over at Bristol Tonic. He is discussing a poem he has performed for years.
Pride flags at dawn
You don’t want their god;
A god for the gently used,
The Pre-loved, still in packaging,
one channel, tv static god,
cosmic interference
but won’t put a good word in god.
A god who won’t hold your hand in...
In bloom
21 Jan 2021 Category: erasure poetry
I cannot look away from the whorl of galaxies
tucked into each curled petal, the supermassive
black hole that sits on top of a stamen, dragging
all light and time towards it. In the pint glass
sepals shimmer with the burning of millions of dead
stars, buds flicker with a pulse of decaying planck
seconds, the superpositions of many possible worlds
blur each leaf and thorn and somewhere in each bloom
I am meeting you for the...
Skeleton Trees
13 Jan 2021 Category: photos
Winter erases the land with a shaky hand. For a few months, we roam in the smudges, wondering where the detail went.
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