Poem A Week #7: A very tentative ‘like’ poem

Warning: contains mild romance

Poem A Week #6: It’s 9:32 in the Big Brother house

PAW #6 is a slightly surreal look at how bizarre even very recent past can seem. It’s about Ant, and Dec, and table tennis, and the fact that we never, ever, learn.

Poem A Week #5: Nightswimming (after R.E.M.)

Poem A Week #5 is about the dislocation I felt when moving house from Birmingham to Cardiff, and what I did to remedy that. It’s about ancestral memory, and the sea’s power to make a new place feel old.

‘Nightswimming’ was shortlisted for the Bare Fiction Poetry Prize.

Poem A Week #4: Imposter Syndrome

I don’t often write “motivational” poems. Poem A Week #4 is a motivational poem. It’s about feeling not good enough but then (SPOILERS AHEAD) actually being good enough.

Poem A Week #3: Breaking Cobs

The 3rd Poem A Week is about the Midlands: my birthplace, one-time sexual hunting ground of Lord Byron, and perennially ignored b-road between the affluent south and the quaint, charming north. It inspired much of Tolkien’s Mordor, but it’s home.

Poem A Week #2: Future Nan

Poem A Week #2 is here. This one’s about generational bigotry, formatting errors, and amateur musical theatre. Yay! And it’s sort of set in THE FUTURE. Can we teach old dogs new tricks? Or encourage old dogs to be nicer to other, different, dogs? I like to think so.

Poem A Week #1: Punchline

Today sees me launch Poem A Week, which is my does-what-it-says-on-the-tin attempt to upload to YouTube a poem a week for a year. The first poem is called ‘Punchline’ and explores masculinity and mental health, lad culture, bad jokes, and escalators.