Biography

Since dipping my toes in the water of performance poetry in London in 2005, I've been performing in Milton Keynes and beyond since 2006.

As co-conspirator in Milton Keynes' Poetry Kapow (with the thoroughly amazing Ms Fay Roberts) we're trying to keep poetry associated with drunken revelry and overgrown anarchy as cultivated by our friends at Monkey Kettle magazine.

I can loosely divide my poetry into "Performance-grade" and "other", although there is occasional crossover. At the moment, I'd list the main inspiration as "stuff that makes me angry" although that doesn't stop me writing about the beauty of music, the seasons and the irrationality of love.

As part of a growing crew of Milton Keynes poets, we've been touring various cities enjoying a range of different events, and showing off to large numbers of people. As well as finding new favourite performers to argue over, and to invite to Milton Keynes.

Some of my performances to date include: Poetry Kapow and Tongue in Chic, Milton Keynes; Ripping Pages and Raising the Awen, Northampton; Pure and good and right, Leamington; Night blue Fruit, Coventry; Perverse Verse, Leicester Square; Bedford Arts Festival; Coventry literature festival; Utter at the Edinburgh Fringe;

I will always rhyme several times in the same poem, and always try to recite from memory.

Samples

REQUIEM

I eat beyond hunger
I drink beyond thirst
My Cup overflows
And it grows
'til it bursts

Freedom to speak
Freedom to touch
Speak your mind
No Time
Take sides
Take too much

Doomed generation
Got to have it all
Never go offline
Never miss a call.

My grail bubbles over with my growing needs
Paying off my impotence
My greased palm bleeds.

Virgin soils
Flood and spoil.
Hands grow dirty with blood and oil.

Possession, Corruption
Sedation, destruction

Put it on your wishlist
Spoil it in a day,
Tear it off in disgust
And throw it away.

Build the instruments of degredation
Climb high and piss over all creation
Pay lip-service to a fairer trial
Gilding the lily of gross denial
Drink up all your pleasure because it feels so good
Just because you can, doesn't mean that you should.
And during self-congratulation
And a toast to all our health,
there's a voice in the dark somewhere
Singing to itself.

It's a requiem
To a forgotten hope.
Our belief in salvation looking for a rope
Our lust for survival praying for cyanide
Familial honours
Awaiting suicide.
It's a requiem
To our abandoned dreams
Destroyed by wanton wickedness
And advertising themes.
It's a requiem
To the forgotten ever after
A lonely, shaken voice somewhere
Drowning in the laughter.

CONCRETE
Living in the city
Feeling unpretty
Growing slowly dizzy over the nitty-gritty.
Where the air is full of poison
And the night is never still
Handing out promises
Never to fulfil

And it doesn't like your face
When you cannot stand the pace
You're looking for a bridge to jump
Over the rat-race
Sanity is relative
Under these demands
Don't dare to crack up
You won't get a second chance

Making last-ditch phone calls to hear a level voice
"Can't speak to you right now"
Better make another choice
Because you're looking for an exit in the shadows of your life
With the train tracks calling you to cut you like a knife
Don't know why you cannot handle it
Looking at your friends
Seeing how they're doing fine
Burning at both ends

You underestimated
This life so over-rated
Emaciated
With your hopes so soon degraded.

In the place that you call home tonight
You let the clouds descend
Let the voices slowly shatter
As you begin to mend
Try not to think of morning when you'll hear them all again.

And in the sanctity of solitude you sleep in some distress.
Dreaming of train-tracks
And emptiness.

UN-CHIC IN PARIS (nb, Paris is pronounced as French, silent S)
There's the click-clack
Of the well-turned heels
On the Champs-Elysee
There's the "Mwah mwah"
Of the mademoiselles
In the bijou cafe.
There's the Ooh La La
Of the Moulin Rouge
And La Maison de lingerie
And then there's me.
Un-chic in Paris.

There's the click-click
Of my camera
Which with my notebook are my sole company.
Freezing my arse off
At Cemetrie Pere Lachaise
And struggling to order a cup of tea.
Unimpressed by the museums
And DREAMING of London
Where at least, they're all free.
Broke,
Lonely
And un-chic in Paris.

I traverse the whole city,
Yet stumble over words.
Scale fairy-tale Montmartre
And share my lunch with the birds.
In this bitingly cold sunshine
Some deepest joy is stirred.

Un-chic in Paris?
Magnefique in Paris!
I stumble yet I manage to speak in Paris.
There are some misunderstandings,
But I recover from them.
Alone,
But never lonely
With just a camera and a pen.

All poems are copyright of the originating author. Permission must be obtained before using or performing others' poems.

Last blog entry

Previous: Mercy killing - my paean to shopping, because it is my local sport...

View or make comments. (1 comment)

Read other blog entries by Danni Antagonist