This January I had a residency in Desperate Literature, a bookshop in Madrid. I did a reading and produced a little book with some of my poems. Send me an email if you would like a copy, or stop in at the shop if you are in Madrid.
Whenever you release one of your volumes some animal part of me, think a rat, scans it
for buried reference to myself…
My poem ‘A Rat’ is in the second issue of Letters to Barnacle. Yup, you can buy it on Etsy.
I had a chat with David Turner from Lunar Poetry Podcasts and read some poems. There’s also a transcript available for this podcast, which features Matt Abbott as well. Lunar Poetry Podcasts do loads of good interviews, so you should keep up with them.
I dream I fuck an old woman and wake up more anxious than usual…
I wrote a poem called Bed Sex, for the Glasgow based zine, Letters to Barnacle, which is inspired by James Joyce’s filthy letters to Nora Barnacle, check it out, the whole zine is dead rude.
Forza Zine is a beautiful and thoughtful publication, put together by my very good friend Rory Porter in Glasgow. The first issue is a collection of words and pictures centred around the themes of home, place, space and exile. I am pleased to have one of my poems, Times and Places i included in it and illustrated by the wonderful Liepa Kuraite.
Times and Places How odd that you wake up with the man you love in a friend’s flat, but because of your dreams he seems different and then once he’s gone their flat is sad and cold? and you feel sad for them and the way their toilet is discoloured. Then, you think you’re walking to Brixton but you end up in Clapham, which is just as grim as places like Moreton from your childhood and you think you’ll never get to Brixton but then things become comforting, and old and to do with trains. This day could be happening at any time from 1990 to now, anywhere between Birkenhead and here and it’s been 17 years to the day that your brother was born And you soothe yourself that that wasn’t so long ago, But why? As if you could get back there, as if you’d want to.
We made this great video based on my crowd pleaser ‘All the People I’ve Slept with This Week’.
Directed and edited by James Baxter of Baxter Media.
About six months ago, my friend Louise Evans and I decided to “do a book”. She sent me five pictures, which I responded to with a poem, and I sent her the same amount of poems, which she illustrated. We called the end result Exchange.
We’ve printing them, binding them by hand, and having a super cool launch party at The Feminist Library on 13th September, as part of their Salon series.
They’ll be copies of Exchange to buy, and readings from me, Johanne Haugue, and Tracy Mathewson. Tracy will also be playing some accordion music, and they’ll be refreshments, and the library’s amazing book shop will have a stall.
Entry is by donation, with £3 as a suggestion.
