Original Horseshoe Press Pamphlets from 1990 -1992 The Horseshoe Press was first used as my self-publishing name in 1990. I have just revived it as a method of disseminating more recent work. I was then working at The Poetry Library in London and part of my job was photocopying thousands (literally) of poetry magazine and…
poetry
Burning Books : where did it all come from…
Having self-published the latest pamphlet in an intentionally ongoing series ( I aim to publish a ’round-up’ pamphlet twice a year from now on) here some author’s notes on the poems. The latest is ‘Burning Books’ Horseshoe Press Pamphlet No. 2 and I thought I’d try and describe what influenced the poems and…
Saturday Night Blues – Sunday Morning Shifts – Working Class Writing?
A seasonal Amazon worker USA The following was written as a comment on facebook about the Tim Lott article on the Guardian published this week. This sparked some interesting comments on the notion and as Lott specifically flags up Sillitoe and this now a City of Literature I thought it might be worth expanding on….
The Drifting Village: Collected poems 2000-2015 released as pdf
The Drifting Village Released into the wild today as a downloadable pdf. The first of an irregular series of pdf pamphlets released as and when I feel like it.Basically a resume and calling card showing the fairly small output of the last 15 years and hopefully leading to more poems in the future. I have…
The strange case of POSH Mark Haddon…
Part of my new found ‘freedom’ is the ability to find bargains ( both cost me 50p which at 25p each makes it the cheapest pair of books I bought all week) and secondly having the time to actually read the damn things… So not only are they like buses but I have read both…
Skeleton at the Plough…my Scottish Ghost.
I took on this present nine month career break (ends Friday) in order to confront some ideas I had about myself. Number one was that I was a poet. Correct only in terms of the statement ‘I was’. However, despite the RIBA Edwin Smith commission, I am no nearer resurrecting that particular career than I…
The Bear Pit – Oxford Channel 6 TV – 1999
Filmed for poetry slot on Oxford 6 one of the first local TV channels in the country. Filmed direct off TV hence quality. Summer 1999? I am stood on location i.e. in the Bear Pit it still there 🙂 I am a lot younger (40) thinner and beardier… The Bear Pit – Long Wittenham –…
The Broken Brush: Writing and Painting?
I have not posted in this writing blog for a while due to a full-time commitment to painting in preparation for the Lady Bay Arts show in West Bridgford on the weekend of 16th and 17th May. The actual physical act of painting has made me look at my writing ‘block’ in a different way and…
Dead Cat Bounce
The photo above shows in their entirety the new  poetry books I  have aquired since the defining moment of the Salt pamphlet ‘Last Farmer’ in December 2010. The only other books missing are the Helen Mort Wordsworth trust pamphlet and my fellow Salt Modern Voices. I have separated them as I regard December 2010 as a break…
Substitute: My problem with poetry
Now I have always had a problem with being a ‘poet’. I come from a straightforward working class council estate background and the only thing worse than being a poet there was becoming a ‘fine artist’ so I killed two birds in one bush there then with my double non-career. I remember digging up a…