I haven't updated this for a while. It's been a busy summer with the opportunity to perform at Kaya Festival along with the likes of Craig Charles, Asian Dub Foundation, The Selecter and Judge Jules a real highlight. This weekend I'm at the Hub Festival in Cardiff. I'm looking forward to joining the Megaverse programme of poets and spoken word acts hosted by Will Ford between 3 and 7pm on Saturday at the Urban Taphouse. 
Among the other poets performing is Des Mannay who joined me at Kaya Festival at the start of the month. We performed in an atmospheric room in a mansion which was probably haunted before enjoying the rest of the festival. As Des later said: "We smashed it! Then we spent the rest of the day drinking, meeting other artiists and DJ's, drinking, watching bands, drinking, meeting old friends, drinking, making new friends, drinking, eating festival food, drinking.... and erm - did I mention drinking?"

​Here are some photos from Phunked up Photography.

We even made the South Wales Argus:

It's been an interesting NaPoWriMo so far. I've been using a few sources for prompts and often find the poems I write come from a combination of two or more prompts. On the first day the NaPoWriMo site prompt was to write a lune – a form similar to haiku with a 5-3-5 syllable count. Turning to Robert Lee Brewer's Poetic Asides the prompt was to write a foolish poem. These prompts resulted in:

Their words seem foolish
because we 
never taught them ours.

On the Found Poetry site Collier Nogues set a prompt that involved creating a poem from a few sources by taking a document adding lines of poetry, yours or other peoples and turning the whole thing into a poem. I took a letter from the tax office, some lines from poem's in Simon Armitage's collection Zoom and some of my own to produce this:

Acknowledgement

Thank you for the crumbs, staples and eyes of potatoes you have supplied. We have sniffed, chewed, dissected and incinerated them and can confirm we will not be asking for anything more as you head into perfect darkness in boxer shorts and bare feet.

I've also engaged in some completely new forms like Woody Leslie's wordblock poems. I had an interesting time piecing this together:

Other poems have come from simply being out and about, such as this one that I wrote on a coach trip:

Long distance coach trip

Not long after we depart the woman sat next to me yawns, lets her head sink onto my shoulder and clutches my arm murmuring 'Frank.' I haven't the heart to tell her I'm not Frank. The man in front reaches for the armrest. He grabs my leg and pulls it up next to him. Instead of realising his error he digs his elbow in as he continues watching Lethal Weapon on his laptop. It's late when we reach the next stop and no lights come on when the door opens and more passengers embark. The last is a fat man peering through thick glasses. He stops at my seat and flops down on top of me. He pulls my right arm across his chest and inserts my slender fingers in the seatbelt lock. As the coach drives on I fall asleep to the slow muffled beat of his heart.

If you need some inspiration for your poetry check out my book Poetry Non-stop available now on Amazon.

I was honoured to be featured in this piece about World Poetry Day in The South Wales Argus along with a couple of other local poets. There are a couple of my poems along with some nice photos. My colleague Mike at Newsquest did a good job with the headline too. Read it here.

My new book Poetry Non-stop is coming out on March 17th. It's a guide for poets of all levels to writing a poem a day for 30 days coming out ahead of National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) in April. I'm really excited about this book. I know it will inspire whoever reads it to write some fantastic and original poems. I hope I get to read them. Grab the book early while the price is low and get set for NaPoWriMo. 

I am taking part in an exhibition on Friars Walk, Newport's new shopping centre, at the Cwtsh community and arts centre. The exhibition features a huge lineup of writers and visual artists. I produced a written piece based on observing the people in the area and it will be accompanied by a photo taken by organiser and talented photographer John Briggs, who also took my photo on the homepage. The area, people, architecture and history of the place is sure to inspire a variety of responses which I look forward to seeing.

The exhibition opening event is on Saturday 7th February at the Cwtsh, Stow Hill, Handpost, Newport, NP20 4HA from 2-5pm. Full details here.

Welcome to my new website. My old site is still available here. There are lots more poems and photos there which I haven't managed to move to this site but I'll be adding plenty more material in the coming months. I hope you like the site and would welcome your feedback.

2015 was a year of many highlights. I went to Iceland, The Secret Garden Party and the Edinburgh festival; I had lots of material published including poems in Agenda Broadsheets and The Interpreter's House; I also had several jokes broadcast on Radio 4 Extra comedy show Newsjack.

Local events such as poetry at The Murenger, Rhyme and Real Ale, Megaverse and Roath Writers have been an inspiration and a great platform for my work. In turn I've provided a platform for other poets via my podcast Headstand. There have been some great poets and inspiring conversations on the episodes so far and I look forward to bringing you more this year. In fact I look forward to doing more of everything: writing, travelling, performing... Happy 2016!