Sublime Lungs - Launch

21 April 2026 at Heron Books. What a lovely evening. 

It was a pleasure sharing my new book with the kind folk who gathered in Clifton's best bookshop to welcome Sublime Lungs into the world. Thank you all!

Lyra Festival - first weekend

Yay! The Bristol Poetry Festival, Lyra, kicked off on Friday 17th April with a panel discussion on why poetry now and the Queer Cabaret. My take aways were on the importance of keeping on writing with hope even in the dark times, and the need to grow poetry audiences to lift us from being the Cinderella art form. Perhaps a change of name as Spoken Word did twenty years ago. I've been mulling this and have come up with Word Shorts. I'm going to start referring to my work like this and see what happens, so we have no more children screaming outside Michel Rosen's set on Saturday 18th that they hate poetry. At the Cabaret Keith Jarrett's performance was awesome and I'm glad I had the chance to tell him so.

Saturday 18th for me was all about the Braid Poetry Walk around Clifton. I had a lot of fun devising the route, researching the writers associated with Clifton and chosing what to read. And with my Braid colleagues we put together great poems from our oeuvres to share with the twenty plus folk who came to enjoy the architecture, history and literature of the part of Bristol I call home. It was enthusiastically received and we've been asked to do it again next year. Hurrah!

The rest of Saturday I admit to being absolutely shattered, but I did manage to enjoy John McCullough, Karen McCarthy-Woolf and Matthew Rice. Even if I did drift off for ten minutes, at least I didn't snore. The readings from Gaza poets were very moving indeed. The notion of going to the beach and looking at the sunset while holding on to the idea that the sea cannot be taken away will stay with me.

Sunday 19th and we missed the start of Inua Ellams' improv reading due to my inability to decipher the programme. We caught most of it and enjoyed his dexterity in finding pieces to read suggested by words from the audience. Interesting too were his comments on writing: how everything starts with a poem, even if it then becomes a play or essay or story. Bravo.

The highlight of Sunday, and probably the whole festival, was the stunning performance of her new book, Maryville, by doyen of Spoken Word and T.S. Eliot superstar, Joelle Taylor. Marvellous. I was moved to tears and the standing ovation she received was never more deserved. Do not miss the chance to see this show. Seriously. 

Tracey Emin - Second Life

A fabulously sunny day and I head indoors for the exhibition of the year, maybe. If you don't love Tracey, then you'll disagree I'm sure. I, however, find her painting, especially, incredibly moving as expression of women's pain. We all have it in various forms, and here it is writ and coloured large.

It was good to see the blankets, neons and iconic bed and the paintings again, and some new things - the bleeding stoma self-portrait photographs are very hard to look at. By this point in the exhibition I was overwhelmed and crying. I had to sit down and rest.

Although there is a lot to see, you don't need to read every piece of paper as it's all in the catalogue. Of course, you 'll have to acquire that. And you'll have seen the films before. Still they draw a crowd. 

I'd have liked much, much more to look at. More sculpture beyond the maquettes and one large one - there's one outside also, which small children were busy climbing all over as, Easter holidays and what else is it there for? I'd have appreciated her lockdown watercolours, more birds, neons and embroideries. The show could easily have been twice the size, and why not? I am greedy. More, more, more, please like the insomnia photos, the paintings of her Mum and, and.

One thing I can't quite understand is why you would bring children to this exhibition. Far too many awkward questions to be answered. I'm not sure I'd want to handle that until they were teenagers. But hithee and soon.