I wrote this statement in 2010. Nothing has changed. I am using this ‘credo’ as the basis of my new ‘great leap forward’ with the Thames art and technology idea.. Delineation of ‘Theory’: An artist’s personal statement Throughout my ‘art-working’ life some things have remained stubbornly, one might even say obsessively’, constant. Be it…
Fishing in Fog: Thames Valley Texas
FISHING IN FOG A winter Sunday, fog and frost Two figures climbing a stile Boots crunching crisp grass underfoot Head toward the Thames at Clifton My father not yet seventy, still working And I back home for a day’s fishing Struggling with tackle and reels in the cold Sit expecting nothing, no fish bite in…
Back on TRACK? : Oxford and Nottingham
Back in 2010 I started off with the title Track for a multimedia M.A. that finally did not happen. However the seeds of some kind of project centred around the impact of the railway on the movement of people and ideas started then. This is now bearing fruit as a double project centred on my…
New Poems
ROOM FOR POETRY I have a room for poetry Two bookcases of neatly filed books Arranged by region of course Then chronologically They have been gathering dust for years Unread, unopened, a wall of doubt Twenty years I have been a closed book Until today the penny dropped The dam burst, the Bastille fell Words…
Lost Nottingham: Paper Boats on Private Road
PAPER BOATS ON PRIVATE ROAD A lone slim figure in Sunday best gets off the tram on Woodborough Road, Hesitates then proceeds down Private Road until it dog-legs east at his destination As he turns along the high brick wall he hears children’s laughter, a maid calling He stands at the gate hidden by trees and calls, the maid comes to…
Lost Nottingham: Picasso’s Peace Train
PICASSO’S PEACE TRAIN The black clouds had been building up all week Thunder rolling down from the Peaks on Nottingham, Grey drizzle trickling from the glass roof at Marylebone Station Dripped on to Pablo Picasso’s neck as he boarded the train to Sheffield Monday 13th November 1950 early morning the train’s steam billowed Through…
Lost Nottingham: Charlie and the Lace Factory
CHARLIE AND THE LACE FACTORY Monday 4th May 1904, Grand Theatre Radford Road, Hyson Green Evening performance of Sherlock Holmes over, Charles Chaplin aged 15 Collar askew from a swift costume change leaves Billie the page boy behind And cheekily slaps the final drop curtain just below King Charles head The sun-light overhead…
Burning Books – hiding in plain view?
Last year I did a reading for Nottingham Poetry Festival in which I produced a small ‘polemical’ pamphlet called ‘Burning Books’. The pamphlet was a one off and most of the poems after ‘outing’ in paper form were then hidden away as ‘too political’ for my readers by myself! I censored myself which crazy but…
Man With No Name – poetry V song
An authentic?( Adrian Slatcher)song that is a poem in disguise written in mid 1980s when I harboured ambitions to be the English Nick Cave 🙂 The song ok the ambition a little over ambitious:-) The war in question is the Falklands and the story true my step-grandad died of a heart attack in his pantry…
Songs as Poems – Poems as Songs – Substitute already written?
Poem or Song or poetry by other means….???? ‘Un-American Way’ 1999… UN-AMERICAN WAY Did you hear the guns a rattling out on the Kentucky hills As mud spattered up from your prison truck’s wheels Did you smile every day as you washed the days away Imprisoned for having nothing to say?* Did you dream in…