I will once again be running a poetry workshop with the Gloucester Poetry Society at the Fountain Inn in Gloucester tomorrow (Thursday 29th of June 2017). The workshop starts at 7 pm and is free to attend – afterwards there ware recording sessions and interviews which you can watch or take part in.
I’ve been meaning to point these guys out for a while – Button Poetry youtube channel is amazing and well worth a watch!
My July events plus any of the regular things I can get to in Gloucester, Cheltenham and Stroud.
Poetry performance – Thursday 6th Come To Where I am From at the Fountain Inn tix are free
Poetry performance – Crypt Slam in Gloucester
Fantasy Headdresses and Accessories Upcylced Workshop and poetry performance with Food For Thoughts – Sat 15th July – Art In The City – Gloucester
Poetry Workshop – Thursday 20th July Villanelles Fountain Inn Gloucester.
Cuddly Science Amazing Archeology and Fabulous Fossils (also includes poetry honest!) -Sat 22nd July at the Gloucester Cathedral Festival of Archeology
Awesome poet Spoz – check him out 🙂 He once described me as the “Cadbury Rapper” but the least said about that the better 😀
I can’t help but see it as a metaphor The Billboards and the when and where they are Buses and vans with adverts on Placed just so, by the so and sos
Strong and stable blew over in the wind Blocked the roads Congesting the arteries of commerce Is it ironic or perverse?
Strong and stable behind gleaming bars The rich hiding within high security yards Tyrannical with an iron fist Lock it all down…
Drown the the questions With a filibuster or two
A nations of many But only hope for the few
It will certainly be strong and stable Strong and stable fences But not walls No of course we don’t do walls We are British and that’s… an American thing.
And I wish My conservative friends That you would actually talk About what the plans are As it looks to me Like a population cull Done on the sly With conviction, vindiction And a lot of contradiction As if you don’t really mean it As if you’ve not really thought it all through Please tell me there’s a plan That does not involve The old bones freezing, kids starving, And the disabled dying?
Cuts that kill And desperation Writ on the walls By those who’ve gone Beyond crying
Please tell me you don’t want Us all dead, crippled or silenced?
I ask but you remain quiet Ignoring my pleas to be educated To your dreams and aspirations And I remember that Tory Means thief in the old sense In a real senseless sense And I wonder at your sense And ask for justifications
Strong and stable is only As strong as a nations Foundations Build them for the people Not of the bone and blood Of the people Because those foundations slide In their own decay.
And I will protest And Protect Come what May.
A few years back I came across the poet Salena Godden, I believe the point at which she locked into my brain as someone to listen/read was a poem about tit being more or less feminist than each other 🙂 the poem kept being taken down off of the various sharing platforms and I was tagged by a mutual friend who thought I would like it – and I did and I have since seen her at some of the festival and events I have ended up at.
So I thought I would share her with you lot.
Back in 2012 to my amazement I ended up performing in Gloucester Cathedral – this was just at the point where in Russia Pussy Riot had been jailed for performing in a church.
This is a video of my performance and my little speech about being lucky.
This book in by the amazingly multi-talented poet, writer etc… AF Harold who I first met through Anna Saunders who started the Cheltenham Poetry Festival. I have performed with AF a couple of times and it has always been an amazing pleasure.
From kids to grown ups he can captivate and entertain. Basically go get the book you wont regret it – it’s gettable here:
Tonight I am In The Slammer the Cheltenham Poetry Festival Slam with a host of fab poets at the Playhouse Theatre, Saturday I’ll be in the Cafe Rene Gloucester for more poetry with Food For Thoughts and Sunday I will be back over into Cheltenham for more Poetry Festival goodness in the Waterstones! Tuesday I’ll be back at the Rene and Saturday in the Brewery Gloucester for Pint of Prose, then I’m running a workshop on the 25th at the Fountain Inn Gloucester and then spouting some sea shanty poetry at the tall ship festival and then back to the Cheltenham Waterstones! May has been a pretty poetic month!
This was the Patreon Bundle for Love: A Stranger Dream when it was first launched 🙂 I thinking of adding some amendments and launching it as a deluxe bundle.