politics
Submit to What? The Fallacy of Poetry Submissions.
Over the last six months I have wasted time on submitting to a list of poetry magazines. When I began my career (in brackets like above) there was no choice. Pre internet the only viable visibility for a poet was through the list of poetry journals which I had to photocopy as a minion at…
DIESEL ON GRAVEL – 1986-1989 First Flash Fictions
Poems written in London and Oxfordshire. Published in early 1990s in Last Gasp pamphlets. Last Gasp was a poetry open mic I helped run with poets Giles Goodland and Bridget Kursheed in Oxford. From 1986 I was heavily influenced by Raymond Carver and especially his book FIRES. Indeed I attended his memorial readings event in…
Poetry in England Part 2: Poetry Flies
POETRY FLIES I came from Oxford I didn’t go to OxfordI visited Cambridge once I didn’t go to CambridgeI do not have a nice tidy clique to accept my poetryEven when I write nothing for thirty years I didn’t keep writing when I should haveI didn’t stack chairs for the powers that beOr fawn over…
POETRY IN ENGLAND
wrote this many moons ago nothing changedthe description of Les Murray reading at the end is true POETRY IN ENGLAND There is something about poetry in EnglandThat is awfully nay terribly Middle ClassSomething not quite right in the hands of a workerSibilants dribbling like snot from the poor man’s nose Wiping its sleeve on the…
NORFOLK IN SPRING
The taste of salt on the tongue Kids gone to uni now empty nester Husband in marketing doing well Always wanted to write Met a small press woman Now I got a pamphlet Next year a prize Discovering a new poet every day over coffee in Waterstones Elizabeth Bishop is amazing I really struggled with…
#nationalpovertyday
New Poems: Dead Centre
DEAD CENTRE If England was a target and you were looking at cross hairsIn the centre of the cross hairs would probably be DidcotThe most normal town in England according to the pollstersThe 11th worst place to live according to crap towns My home town, the town my family still live in, die inA town…
Thames Valley Texas
I shall be reading from new Horseshoe Press pamphlet ‘Thames Valley Texas’ next Tuesday at the Organ Grinder on Open Books second birthday. Without the hard work of the T S Eliot of Bus Drivers there would be no Open Book so thank you Neil Fulwood here’s to the next two years… http://www.openbook.org.uk/
The End of the Line for Books?
I recently posted a Ted Gioia substack repost of a Elle Griffin report on Major Publishing traits none of it good…’nobody buys books’ … https://www.elysian.press/p/no-one-buys-books Before long nobody will even print them especially in poetry. For the paper poetry magazine the writing been on the wall for a while see my response to Wendy Pratt…