And......BREATHE!

I can't believe where the time has gone but it's been an extremely busy March. I've worked in Schools from Nursery right up to Senior, planned and delivered the World Tour of MK, launched my first collection, read and performed in loads of places, judged a Poetry by Heart competition and simply loved being a freelance creative!

A short breather over the Easter weekend and then the marathon of writing that is NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month for the un-initiated) This is a challenge to poets to write a new poem every day of April and post it on a blog. I've really enjoyed the exercise over the past two years and it has triggered some interesting and unexpected poems. So please check my blog each day and help spread the word.

Have a wonderful break over Easter. Keep writin' and reciting'

Mark x

Education, education, education

It's been my busiest time in schools from Seniors down to Nursery and I've really enjoyed it. Lovely response from students with enthusiastoc responses. Here's a poem one of the classes and I wrote together.

Keep writin' and recitin'

Mark

We are

 
We are:
Messing around with friends
A Disneyland parade.
The Goblin King made from Lego
Dogs with puns for names (Pepsi and Max)
 
We are:
Aaron Lennon just after he’s scored
The best ride at Alton Towers
A big bacon sandwich
(But not just before the best ride at Alton Towers)
 
We are:
A sixteen ounce steak (medium rare) with matchstick fries
A perfect backflip from a bridge into water
The finest hot chocolate with cream and flakes
We are funny, like my brother flooding the toilet!
 
We are:
A family visit to Anfield stadium
We are watching “The Watch”
Then watching it again straightaway
We are shopping with Georgina
 
We are:
Jumping into a pool on a hot summer’s day
The top score at Bad Piggies
Thirty prawns scoffed in a minute
(Another kind of bad piggy)
 

We are:

Tickets to West Ham for a birthday
A holiday in Spanish sunshine
Proving to my sister I AM right!
We are, being surprised by a hamster!

 

For the Welsh in general and my wonderful Welsh friends in particular

It seems it is all too easy these days for the Welsh to become the punchline to cheap shots by lazy comedians. So I wanted to celebrate my Welsh friends. Here's a little poem for them.

 

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus

A celebration of my friends who are Welsh on their special day.
 
Here’s to the celtic children;
the blessed of Dewi Sant.
Singers of songs and
weavers of harmony.
For those born with a kiss of
poetry in their souls and
dragon fire
in their bellies.
For the hookers and flankers,
the ones that cheer them on.
For those who rage with Thomas
And those still sad he’s gone.
Wearer of leek and daffodil,
alchemists of word and art.
This poem is my love spoon.
Place it close to your heart.

A week is a long time in Poetry

Some weeks feel ordinary but some weeks seem to last a lot longer than seven days because you packed so much into them. It is the unexpected little twists and turns that I now have time to explore that is making life so rewarding as a full-time poet.

Last Monday morning I woke up with that lovely glow you get from a great gig the night before. Allographic in Cambridge is a wonderful monthly poetic oasis meticulously run by fab poet, publisher, promoter and prorammer, Fay Roberts. This was the latest leg of the Rhythm Method tour with the Antipoet and it was a great night with strong performances from support poets Leanne Moden and Patrick Widdess. The Antipoet and I did our thing and the crowd loved it so a great night was had by all. A few pennies covered the petrol and a few book sales meant there could be jamon the scrape of dripping this week. The glow however was not to last.

My habit is to wake up to radio 4's "Today" programme which because of industrial action by journalists was missing and replaced by other programmes. This just didn't seem right and had me feeling off kilter all day. On the drive into the office (a mere ten minutes) the idea of a poem began to form and by the time I got there, a little octet of lines had more or less arranged themselves into a little poem. I was so pleased, I almost called it a day right there and then (I'm freelance;  I can do that if I want to!)

I blogged it (see the post below) and it got a nice reception on Facebook too. Encouraged by this,  I sent it in to Radio 4's Feedback programme who really liked it, called me, recorded it and put it on the show. My debut on Radio 4 and I had no idea on Monday morning that by the end of the week I'd be broadcast there. All thanks to the power the of being cheeky and trying to make doors open rather than wait for someone to open them for you.

In other news, I spent the weekend mainly singing with a small choral group called Heart & Music. A group of a dozen or so singers get together to stage fund-raising concerts for churches and charities. The group are lovely and we have fun rehearsing and doing the concerts and as part of the programme, I perform a short poetry set and if I sell any merchandise, I make a contribution to the charity. Part of my mission is to take poetry to new audinence and this has been a wonderful platform for me. We staged 2 concerts this weekend and the reception to the programme as a whole and my set of poems was terriffic. Many are yet to experience Performance Poetry and it is wonderfully rewarding to see the penny dropping and people really warm to it as you perform. The applause was great and I sold quite a few books and I've had to reorder as my first print run has almost run out.

We raised over £1000 for the respective charities and really enjoyed ourselves so you can't ask for more than that. I can't wait to see what this week will bring! Here's a poem written for my friends in Heart & Music

Keep writin' and recitin'

Mark

PS: I also heard I have a poem in the soon to be published Volume 3 of Best of Mancheter Poetry :)

Friends in High Places

 
Many don’t or won’t believe
thinking my poetic licence
has stretched truth too far this time
but my friends turn angel when they sing
 
Voices that hug and caress
soothe and bless
until the world dissolves
to a feather-down bliss
 
Each note a kiss
of such tenderness
they reach  the ears
like a lover’s whisper
 
You’d pass them in the street or
meet them at work
and never guess their gift
their voices can lift
 
launch, take flight
each intricate part
so seamlessly woven
in choral art
 
that moments stall
lose their way
but stop to rest
in perfect suspended chords

Some say they won’t believe

unless they see their wings
You need to close your eyes to see
but my friends turn angel when they sing

No Radio 4, no point.

The world was rocked this morning as Radio 4's "Today" programme was not on air due to a strike by journalists over proposed job cuts. I respect and support their right to strike but the day seems out of kilter without the right programme and voices to welcome you in the morning. It inspired this poem.

Keep writin' and recitin'

Mark

Radio Forlorn

There was no “Today” today.

I’m told there’s a “Today” tomorrow.
But the absence of “Today” today
Has filled me with anguish and sorrow.
I think tomorrow, I’ll record “Today”.
So if the next day they’re on strike.
I can play yesterday’s “Today” today
And then again, whenever I like.

Snow and Snot.

What should have been a busy week was wrecked by the weather and that special kind of evil for spoken word artists; the nasty, hanging-around, chesty, sore-throaty, snotty coldy sort of illness you can do without. In spite of a couple of cancelled gigs and a School Slam, I managed to get some admin and marketing done and managed to rebook most stuff.

So this weekend is the New Act of the Year final where I’ll be carrying the torch for Milton Keynes and Poetry so I’m looking forward to that with that specific mixture of excitement and fear that performers know only too well. Many thanks to the twenty of so friends that are coming down in support.

There is another high profile gig on the horizon and I’ll post details of that next week. I was also delighted to get a mention in the Chortle website weekly round up for a comedy tweet this week. See the bottom of Chortle's Round Up Page

Here’s a little poem about the weather and how we (don’t) cope with it! 

Best wishes, Keep writin’ and recitin’

Mark x

Big Freeze

 
I’ve had enough of the
Snow in this nation
It’s like we’re been placed in
Suspended animation
 
Gigs have been cancelled
Meetings postponed
I long for the face to face
Instead of laptops and phones
 
There’s been too much coffee
And too much coughing
Too many plans
Have come to nothing
 
I’m going stir crazy
I’ve got cabin fever
I’m drugged  up on Benylin
And let’s face it, we either
 
Learn how to function or hibernate
When weather turns nippy
They manage it in Canada
So how hard can it be?

Where’s the Dunkirk Spirit?

Our Stiff Upper Lip and cool head?

Give me a call in the Spring

I’m off back to bed.

Underground, not Overground today

So instead of  a nice busy day with PAID things, Mother nature has contrived  to cancel my lovely Poetry Slam at a local school and a paid gig in Gloucestershire. To be fair, I'm quite pleased to be at home instead of making the long return journey in distinctly iffy (official met office term) weather.

If we can just extend the Tube to the whole country, we wouldn't have these difficulties and I join with many in wishing the Underground a Happy 150th Birthday this week. Not even the Wombles would be overground today I fear. I always find the tube an inspiring method of travel as a poet. perhaps it's the close proximity we're forced to take to strangers and the frisson this creates. I love people watching and maybe it's the jumble of life stories that are represented by each person that you see. I sometimes play a game where I imagine the life, personality and current concerns of strangers on the tube: as if they appearance is an actual avatar that tells you their life story. Who they are, where they work, married, single, straight, gay, where are going right now. One day, I will be brave enough to pick someone at random and follow them to see if I'm right. NOT in a stalkerish way. In a brave, exploratory writery sort of a way.

Anyway, the tube has inspired a number of poems over the years and here's my latest one.

Keep writin' and recitin'

Mark

The Girl on the Jubilee Line.

 
It’s too early on the Jubilee line
and too many stations until mine.
The high voltage jolt of caffeine
from two hours ago
has dissipated like
sunburnt mist.
 
A girl with caramel for skin sits opposite
losing her fight with wakefulness.
Eyes melt, head wavers
Like harvest-ready corn in the gentlest of breeze.
With hair corralled by an Alice Band
she gives herself to the gods of sleep.
 
I’m dozing too by now, 
Subconsciously counting stops
instead of sheep when a savage,
panicking shudder jerks us awake.
The first thing we see
is the depth of each other’s eyes.
 
Her eyes ache to close again
which they do as
a warm, lazy smile crescents her lips.
We have shared a secret,
intimate as long-time friends
becoming one-time lovers.
 
Her breathing settles,
keeping rhythm with the universe;
wave in, wave out.
Later at Bond Street,
she scrums a path to the platform,
the last leg, I guess, of her job-bound journey.

An angular, scissor-faced women

with damp bird-nest hair takes the spare seat.
She is all edges, petty stresses, 
fuss and agitation and we do not connect at all.
I start to miss the girl
whose name I will never know.