Erasure poem taken from Crack Magazine
]]>I buried more dreams beneath the floorboards for insulation, allowed them to grow mould spotted and damp. Still I did not sleep soundly. I knew that they would return for their dreams, some day soon. I imagined them all heading over the fields, a large crowd not stopped by frost or rain, for I had taken the dreams of many and named them Mine.
No one came and no one stopped me, so I declared all the surrounding land to be mine, planted thick hedges of briar and thorns and enclosed myself. The rest of their dreams I traded for gold, enough precious metal to hire men with weapons. I made them patrol my borders, watching for trespassers. Still I did not sleep soundly. My duvet felt like steel, my mattress like stone. I sent my militia into neighbouring territories to seek out those who might invade my land, take back their dreams that I hoarded. As my army conquered and placed a flag that read Mine, my dominion grew, but never by enough. Even as my land reached beyond the horizon I felt a gnawing for what lay beyond.
I spent my long nights patrolling my palace, looking out to my silent gardens, thinking I saw the shadows move, the mob come to drag me away and demand what I had stolen from them. I chewed on the last remaining scraps of their dreams, my teeth gluing together, the bitter taste making my eyes water.
Thanks as always to Bristol Tonic, whose prompt inspired this poem. I had a lot of fun performing it with improvised harp music.
]]>As we approach, the cloud swallows the sky
becomes a mountain, navy blue, with illuminated
golden caves. Above our heads it towers,
an impossible island on this empty plain.
We hold our breaths close, cling to them
like driftwood. As we drive into the dark
rain hammers down onto our metal shell
in a frenzy, yearning for destruction.
as white lines converge
scattered atoms of steel
shake in engine vibrations
fertiliser drifts from nearby fields
the empty tarmac sighs
someone else’s hands grip
a steering wheel as a car
drives on, into darkness.
This was actually made from a prompt at Bristol Tonic, which was “Forgotten plastic and flotsam people”
Hey everyone, thanks for coming to this seminar.
Today I’m going to talk about how to declutter everything you own in three simple stages. Of course, nothing can be truly owned. Everything is rented or on loan from this world; your car, your house, your body, eventually it will all have to be paid back. Stick around though, Stage three may surprise you!
Gather all your plastic containers, your tupperware of various sizes with mismatching lids. Don’t forget your single use wrappers, your Tesco bags and your crisp packets. Whisper all your secrets directly into the plastic, all your fears and regrets, all your feelings and mistakes and misgivings. Now you want to drive to the nearest beach - something that should be significantly easier in the coming years.
Just to catch you up in case you didn’t read the study materials, the shore is an argument between ocean and land that the waves are slowly winning. You will want to gather all your detritus, all your silly little thought loops that are now safely sealed away. Stare out at the water. Notice how your brain refuses to accept the vastness of the sea, always focuses on a small part instead- a nearby wave breaking and rumbling, the scratch of salt on your lips and fingertips, the shifting shingle slipping between your toes. Walk towards a horizon you will never reach. Throw your flotsam to the tides, donate your used memories to the waves. Plastic bags will become jellyfish drifting apart like the desiccated atoms in your body or societies faced with environmental collapse. In a fun way, I like to think of my rubbish as my greatest legacy, it will out live my skin and my species by thousands of years.
On the sand, everything is liminal including your temporary body. I like to believe I will live forever but I hold up my hand, notice for the first time my fingers are made from wave foam. I can see veins laced with micro beads and polymer strands. The hairs on my wrists are small sticks of coral bleaching in the sun and the heat. I have nothing left to discard. I have emptied myself into the deepest trench and now float, star-fished on the surface. Churches balanced on cliffs will soon collapse. Lying in the water seems as good a place as any to observe the slow erosion of everything we have built. I untether my body, allow my limbs to drift in unseen currents towards an uncertain destination.
That’s it! Enjoy your new decluttered life.
]]>Erasure poem taken from Crack Magazine
]]>With that in mind, here are some principles for art as self care:
Engage with a wide range of cool art from cool people. Follow your curiosity but also seek out new things and works you aren’t aware of.
Share what you like and write why. If you don’t like things, make private notes to yourself.
Use paper for thinking and playing, use screens for editing and refining.
Have a very small daily practise -less than five minutes. This could be a haiku or a quick sketch. Try to do it daily but don’t beat yourself up if you don’t.
Observe the world around you as much as possible. Concentrate on your senses. Write or sketch. Pull from these archives when stuck.
Embrace what if. Play with ideas and approaches.
Other artists have already made paths. Follow them for a while then branch off on your own.
Seek collaborators and opportunities, not publicity or clout.
Spend some time editing and refining your work, not to get it perfect but to see what happens if you improve it.
Create for the commons. All art is an ongoing conversation, so publish with wild abandon. Remember it’s no longer yours once it’s been released.
Don’t take comments to heart unless you trust the person and actively seek out their feedback.
Erasure poem taken from an interview with Merlin Sheldrake in Good on Paper.
]]>are dead screens. As I push forward,
I am a lone faulty pixel in darkness.
Puddles erupt in sudden static bursts.
This night lies between number stations.
I drive onwards, seeking the source,
shell swallowed by the detuned gloom.
As I did last year, I’ve decided to also summarise the year in a personal way, as opposed to my rants about politics. It’s reasonably long, so strap in.
I wrote late last year about my desire to slow down a bit, reflecting it in my review of 2022. I wanted a fallow year, to regroup and reflect more. For the first half of the year, I was reasonably successful. I had surgery to remove my gallbladder1 and as a result I needed to not do anything for a little bit. I was lucky to make a full recovery quickly, but the time off forced me to do less. Life moved on of course, and I ended up filling my time with more distractions.
I also moved to the countryside this year, which was a welcome change of pace. I’m forty five minutes outside of Bristol now, which is close enough to go into work but far enough that I feel a little removed from the city.
The latter half of the year has been tough in a few ways I’m not going into here, but it was healing to be surrounded by nature and to watch the seasons change.
I was lucky enough to go to lots of interesting places this year. Bilbao and San Sebastian were culinary delights, with incredible food and amazing culture. Bluedot festival was a lot of fun 2, with science talks, comedy and excellent live music. I also spent a week in Cornwall for my wedding anniversary, watching the sea and reading.
Although some things have been a struggle, I am lucky in so many ways. I am reminded of this daily.
As I wrote here, I deliberately wanted to avoid submitting to journals this year. I took the pressure off myself and instead focused on writing poems. I aimed for one a week, which I didn’t always hit. But that’s ok, because I think I’ve successfully reset my writing process, slowing down making poems and taking more time for editing. I’ve also found a lot more joy and fun in the process itself. I’d like to keep the attention more on the process of writing, not the end result.
I read 38 books last year, a little less than my usual.
The Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemisen was my clear favourite speculative series I read last year, with a wildly inventive setting and unique, well realised characters. Somehow, Jemisen manages to keep the balance between tiny moments of character and huge moments of world building.
Close behind was Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse, which is a fantasy novel based on pre-Columbus American legends. It also has excellent world building and a jaw dropping ending.
Other novels I enjoyed were Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, which is about games and the joy of collaborating with others. It avoids cliché and goes in some really interesting directions. Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield also avoids cliché, lying somewhere between social realism and horror to create a compelling tale about grieving someone while they are still alive. To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf was a reread, but I lost myself to the beautiful music of her sentences.
Wintering by Katherine May was my favourite non-fiction book I read, dealing with the necessity of rest and recovering from unexpected sad times, and acknowledging and accepting them.
Poetry wise, I loved Deep Wheel Orcadia, a sci-fi novel written in verse and in Orkney dialect. It was beautiful and profound, and completely unique. I read a lot of books by Bristol poets as well, with The Nation’s Saddest Love Poems by Sam J. Grudgings being sad, tender and only slightly horrific. Faulty Manufacturing by Josie Alford is a brutally honest exploration of her complicated feelings after the death of her father, with end lines that absolutely cut you deep. Finally, Health Hireth by Taran Spalding Jenkins is a pamphlet of lyrical beauty that explores myth, illness and language, with poems written in Kernewek and translated back into English.
I think with all my reading this year the things I’ve enjoyed the most have been doing something new or different, expanding the possibilities of language and story.
An unintentional side effect of moving to the country was I listened to a lot more new music, as my commute into the office twice a week is the perfect time to stick on an album.
My favourite album of the year was Heavy Heavy by Young Fathers. It’s an incredible genre hopping album full of surprises and twists and turns, sometimes rap, sometimes soul, sometimes choral unity. I was lucky enough to see them at Bluedot and it elevated the album for me, as live they are powerful and full of intense amounts of energy.
I also listened a lot to After the Magic, by Paranoul, which is intense in a different way, mixing elements of shoegaze and indie rock together to create a heady sonic mix. The production makes everything clear though and it never gets lost in the muddy sound the way some post rock stuff does. Jeff Rosenstock’s album HELLMODE was also a highlight, being pop punk songs about healing and improving.
In quieter moments, I looked to Does Spring Hide It’s Joy, a two hour cello drone album by Kali Malone. I found the extended cello notes to be hypnotic and mesmerising. A late entry was King Creosote’s I DES, a beautiful folk album about death and grief, with some dancier tracks. It’s lush and beautiful.
Other music I enjoyed includes Radical Romantics by Fever Ray, Integrated Tech Solutions by Aesop Rock, Live at Bush Hall by Black Country, New Road3 and The Record by boygenuis. It was a really good year for music and I hope to carry on listening with the same intensity. The more I explore new music, the more I find.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild & The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom- I spent a lot of this year exploring Hyrule. Breath of the Wild is slower and more contemplative, whereas Tears of the Kingdom is more frantic. Both games offer a rich open world to get lost in, full of detail and unique moments. Exploration is rewarded and you always feel like you are forging your own path. I explored almost every nook of Hyrule and enjoyed every moment of it. Truly, both games are stunning works of art.
I also played a fair bit of Fortnite. I’m terrible at it but it’s a good social experience.
I also spent quite a lot of time this year planning and running a new Dungeons and Dragons campaign, having wrapped up a heavily modified version of Lost Mines of Phandelver. I’m the DM and its a lot of fun seeing the unexpected ways sessions turn out.
Inspired by C G P Grey, I like setting themes for the year instead of resolution. Last year my theme was “A fallow year”, which spoke to what I wanted to do- slow down, reassess and find joy in things. I think I was mostly sucesssful.
This year, I’d like to build on that but not hermit myself away so much. I have a tendency to avoid the rest of the world, having mostly solitary hobbies like writing poems and swimming. I’d like to strike a balance between resting, working on projects by myself and meeting and engaging with cool people. My theme for this year is therefore simply “connection”- with the moment, with my work, but most of all with others. If you’re reading this far and you’re a cool artist looking for a collaboration, drop me an email. If you’re a friend, lets catch up.
I hope the next year is good for everyone reading this.
All praise must go to the team at the BRI, for their care and attention. The NHS is such a precious resource, we must fight to keep it. ↩
It was also very wet and muddy, but that didn’t matter. ↩
I also saw them at Bluedot, they were also excellent. I love how they have pulled themselves out of the ashes and formed a whole new experience after their lead singer left. Turbine/ Pigs is maybe my favourite song of the year. ↩