Forthcoming gig/ Emma Hammond's "The Story of No"

Yes, I know, it's been ages since the last blog update. But as it seems like I begin every new entry with an apology, I won't bother this time. Moving house is a mighty old chore, especially if you're moving into a new place that needs considerable volumes of work done to it - I'm typing this entry right now from the one inhabitable room on a laptop with a newly cracked screen (if anyone has one they'd like to sell to me, you know where I am) while builders have left their bricks, concrete, wood and rubble in the downstairs area.

Still though, I'll be out of the chaos on the evening of Thursday 26th November and doing a gig for the Girlfriend in a Comma spoken word night, alongside musical comedian and poet Cecilia Delatori and award winning American poet Molly Rivkin. It all kicks off at 8pm at the Full Stop Cafe at 202 Brick Lane, E1 6SA. If you're on Facebook, you get the simple and easy diary details here.

It's been a long time since my last gig as well, largely due to various bits of chaos (good and bad) that took over my life from the Spring right through to this Autumn. I've given some material a test run at Poetry Unplugged and it felt very, very unusual to be back out doing poetry again, while at the same time reminding me why I enjoy it so much. I complain and whinge as much as the next poet about the fickle waves of fashion in the scene, but the reality is that none of it really matters that much - twenty years down the line, just getting a chance to mess around with new ideas is still simultaneously nerve-wracking and thrilling.

Meanwhile…

It's been my absolute pleasure to review Emma Hammond's latest collection "The Story of No" for the Morning Star newspaper. Like any other daily newspaper, The Morning Star doesn't have room for 1,000 word dissections on new poetry collections, which is a deep shame as this a book I would have been fully able to give that treatment to. Early drafts of the review sailed way over the word limit. The poets I tend to respect the most are those who have a very recognisable style and world-view of their own, and Emma has that in spades - her influences always seem to be as much rooted in the 60s/ 70s poetry underground as they are modern spoken word and satire, and it meshes together unbelievably effectively.

You can read the review here, and you really should buy the book.

Do Nothing

All right, poetry folk? Yes, I know. I know. I've been very quiet for some time now. No blog updates, no new poems, no gigs, not even the odd open mic appearance. I'm not going to pretend that anybody cares all that much what I get up to - very few people care all that much about what any poet bar the most popular ones have to say - but I do feel the need to at least justify it to myself. Even if very few other people are saying it, I do still have a voice in my head asking "Are you sure you're not on the verge of giving poetry up for good?"

So this could be denial, but nonetheless, here's the main reasons for my silence:

1. Life got complicated and busy.

There are numerous things going on at the moment. For starters, I'm trying to buy a house, a process which seemed pretty simple to start with provided me and my partner weren't too fussy about our final destination, but has obviously bundled a lot of stress and uncertainty into my life. These elements spur some people on to brilliant work, but the effect they tend to have on me is that I lose focus.

And also, there are other events and worries which are private business and therefore outside the remit of this blog. That good old whiskery fun-loving guy Uncle SpareFunTimes isn't my friend right now.

2. Because life got complicated and busy, I've felt the need for light relief much more.

So when I've finished work at 7pm, my first thought hasn't been "I know what I need right now! A nice foaming nut brown ale and a two hour poetry gig, with me trying my new pieces out at the open mic beforehand!" It's been "God, I think I need a drink, some decent company, a good conversation, and preferably that pub up the road with the really good jukebox with loads of Northern Soul on it".

I know the love some people have for poetry is greater than their need for social interaction, but I'm afraid I can't push things that far. I need to speak to people as well as listen to them sometimes.

3. In terms of live work, the circuit isn't really very geared up to work like mine at the moment, so I'm disinclined to waste energy.

I've been doing this for twenty years now, and I hope to carry on for another twenty at least, and I'm able to recognise the temporary nature of dominant styles and trends. The poetry circuit is very geared up towards young, snappy, immediate work at the moment, whether that's hip-hop or comedy influenced, and it's presently harder than usual for subtle or reflective poetry to get slots on bills, especially if it's being delivered by established stalwarts (and I'm quoting the last couple of descriptions I had from promoter's bills with 'stalwart' here, not making it up) rather than fresh new names. Ten years ago, I'd have panicked about this. Right now though, it illicits a big "meh". It will pass. Trends in the arts are much more fleeting than you'd suspect, trust me, and vacuums get very quickly filled.

"But you've made what you do sound really boring there, and I saw you at a mixed comedy/ poetry bill this year and you weren't, you went down quite well". Thanks for saying that, sir! What can I get you to drink?

In the meantime, there's no point in me knocking myself out at open mics or slams (which, in terms of the latter, I don't really do anymore anyway) if it doesn't pay any dividends. I don't really feel I need the practice time unless I'm working on new material, and even if I do get a really positive audience response, it's not going to do much to convince the average promoter that the work I produce has a place in their scheme of things. Most have already made up their minds. They already know who I am, where I am, where they can contact me, and what I do. So, being pressed for time and money and energy at the moment, I'm treating this as a "will go out and do things when I feel I need to" situation. (And I probably will be back out very soon, because I can feel myself being pulled towards it as I type this).

4. I've been writing a lot of stuff that doesn't necessarily lean towards live performance.

Short stories, prose pieces, quite layered poetry. That's when I've been writing at all, of course. This year hasn't been that productive, I admit.

5. We need another night like "Walking The Dog" again.

No, I mean it, we do. If somebody just ran a poetry night with a nice load of drinking and socialising on the side, where people were chatting happily in the break and catching up with each other and meeting new and interesting people rather than pushing product and networking, I'd go to it.

Anyway, that's my excuses for being quiet. I'll update the blog in another three months with more excuses if things flag further still. 

The Alarmist - RIP

Last night (Thursday 14th May, if you're reading this days after the event and are the most unreasonable kind of diary-keeping pedant) saw the launch party for the last ever edition of "The Alarmist". The passing of any good literary magazine is nothing to celebrate, but the death of an angular one with so much colour, wit, intelligence and accessible experimentation is particularly tragic. By combining brilliant, highly original short stories and poetry with humorous shaggy dog stories and biting bits of comedic verse, it was a reasonably left-of-centre literary journal and casual lunch-break reading dip combined. If there's another magazine out there doing something similar - at least in the English language - I'm not aware of it. Literary publications frequently suffer from an overload of pomposity, and "The Alarmist" replaced that with playfulness.

The front section of issue 5 is taken up with a large essay on how and why the magazine failed to last for more than two years, and it's well worth a read on their website if you've even the faintest interest in how independent literary magazines operate, or are thinking of starting one up yourself. If your ambition only stretches as far as producing a small black-and-white periodical with local distribution, it's probably not that relevant - but anyone who wants to attempt something bigger (or pull their small regional effort up to the next level) will probably learn a lot, or at least be forewarned about the pitfalls.

The regrettable lesson coming out of all this seems to simply be that the more ambitious you are, the more likely you are to fail. "The Alarmist" started out by giving away free artefacts such as poetry scratchcards - an utterly fantastic idea which is almost impossible to believe nobody's thought of before, until you get a sense of the scale of costs involved. Later issues just focussed on original design and striking content, and on that level the magazine really hit its stride around issue 4, which contained the most consistent stretch of stories, poems and artwork (lest anyone think I'm being biased about a magazine that published my work here, I didn't feature in issue 4 at all).

I'm occasionally asked why I don't start up my own literary magazine. The answer is simple. I don't have the time or money to do it myself, I don't believe that the magazine I would most enjoy producing would sell very much in an already deflated market, and I don't have a cohort of people willing to help me make it a workable venture (and that cohort extends far beyond people working to get the damn thing made and distributed, and into the realms of people willing to plug the damn thing on social media and elsewhere). But even if I did have a willing cohort of people, I probably still wouldn't have the time. The world is filled with writers hungry to get published somewhere - most magazines worth their salt get hundreds of submissions between issues - printers being an unreliable pain in the arse, bookshops not paying up on time, and poetry nights to sell your wares at. It's a big task to take on, and anyone who starts it with the best of intentions has my admiration.

The final "Alarmist" launch last night was odd to say the least, in that there was a poster outside 93 Feet East in Brick Lane advertising the poets on the bill - our names will probably never be emblazoned around Shoreditch again - and the terrifying comedian and winner of the Malcolm Hardee originality award Candy Gigi ended the night with aggressive audience participation and psychotic invective. But it suited the occasion, and was the most explosive finish everyone could have hoped for. If anyone wants to watch grown men being terrorised at high volumes by a barking wild-eyed woman with fruit, vegetables and cream, it's worth every minute. You probably won't even realise that you need to see this outside of the environs of the shit end of Walthamstow Market, but you do.

Anyway, buy issue 5. A poem of mine is in it. Then buy as many back issues as you can. Then please - go away and produce an interesting magazine yourself, no matter how much Gary and Mansour make you feel as if you shouldn't. 

The Alarmist - Issue 5 Launch - 14th May

I have some rather sad news to report. Issue 5 of literary magazine "The Alarmist" looks set to be the very last. For the last couple of years they have been producing a finely designed journal containing intriguing short stories and poetry. Each issue has been progressively more interesting than the last, but it would seem that the cost and effort of  keeping a full-colour specialist literary journal going has been a serious challenge.

I'll be performing at the launch for the final issue on 14th May, appearing alongside Candy Gigi, Evelyn Mok, Jay Cowle, Wesley Cooke, and Thomas McColl. It's £8 on the door if you want a copy of the magazine, £5 without. It's taking place at 93 Feet East on Brick Lane at 7pm, and the full Facebook details are here.

Hopefully we can all finish on a high. The line-up seems brilliant, and "The Alarmist" has discovered plenty of good names and given them a good kick to continue writing - let's get together and celebrate that, shall we? 

Two forthcoming appearances

Due to an enormous amount of other non-poetry related work in the pipeline, I've been very quiet on the live circuit of late. But...

I have two live appearances coming up very soon, and I'd be grateful if some of you could take this opportunity to drop by. Firstly, I'm doing a Feature spot at the Torriano on Torriano Avenue, Kentish Town, London, NW5 2SG on 19th April at 7:30pm. I'll be appearing with the excellent Amy Acre and Helen Moore, and floor spots will also be available. Facebook details, for those of you who do Facebook, are here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1550853345194825/ Everyone else, get your diaries out.

I'll also be helping Clare Saponia to launch her new book "The Oranges of Revolution" on 10th April at the Poetry Cafe, Betterton Street, WC2H 9BX, again at 7:30pm (https://www.facebook.com/events/942151585802826/) Both I and a number of other contributors will be reading from her book as well as delivering some poems of our own. You can also expect appearances from Helen Moore, Graham Buchan, Fatemeh Shams, SJ Fowler, Fran Lock, Wendy French, Benedict Newbery, Ceri May, Graham Bendel and Caroline Teague.

Clare says: "The collection addresses the Arab Spring, UK riots of 2011 and beyond. Above all, it’s about opening communication channels, vital to society's progression – hence the crew: their varied styles, voices, themes, thoughts and energies."

See you there. And hopefully this is the start of my gig diary starting to fill up a bit more again as I actually give it the focus it needs. Not many poets have agents, you know, and I'm no exception…

Incidentally, a question I get asked frequently by people who like what I do is "Why don't you do more readings/ performances?" The answer to that is "Well, I would if I was asked". I probably only turn down about 10% of the gigs I'm offered, and that's usually due to unavoidable clashes with other things in my diary. If you want to encourage bookings and support what I do, or indeed what any artist does, the simple answer is to do what all modern people have to do - talk about it online, tell people about it, spread the word. That's the way good promotion works these days - word of mouth. So if you like that struggling band, writer, comedian, artist or publication, talk about them. We need a campaign in this respect, I swear. Everyone is tweeting or talking about the same bloody things. If just 1% of everyone who tweeted about Jeremy Clarkson or Kanye West also tweeted about a poet each, we'd all be up and away.