Biography

Performance poet based in Harrogate, N.Yorkshire. Winner of Ilkley Literature Festival Open Mic Competition 2008, York Poetry Slam Champion 2011, 1st prize winner of Huddersfield Grist Competition 2011.
My new book "Gringo on the Chickenbus" is now published by Stairwell Books. A hilarious and heart-rending poetic account of my travels around Latin America, it is beautifully illustrated by my partner Robbie.
It is available from my website http://www.birdbard.co.uk/index.html for £7.50 by Paypal, or if you catch me at a reading I'll sell you it at a discount.
I'm always available for guest readings and other performances - get in touch!

Samples

This poem very kindly won me the Open Mic prize at Ilkley in 2008:

My Carbon Footprint.

I woke up one morning to a knock on the door
and a uniformed man with a clipboard.

"Mr.Ellis? Your carbon footprint."

"My what?"

"Your carbon footprint!
You evidently haven't been reading the news:
there's a new directive from the EU.
All your emissions of CO2
are being delivered back to you
to dispose of by any legal means you choose."

And towering above him was this column of soot
moulded in the shape of a Wellington boot.
He'd dragged it up the drive and leant it on my porch
denting my Ferrari and my Cayenne Turbo Porsche.
If it was half an inch it was 27 foot.

I said, "Is that MY carbon footprint?"
trying to sound innocent.
"Must be a misprint!"

He checked his papers. "No...it's right:
15 tonnes are all your flights
to the south of Spain, and then the lights
you never switch off account for five...
there's food-miles when you buy African battery-cage eggs...
and that twice-daily school-run you always drive..."

I said, "C'mon! I got kids! They haven't got legs!
Where'm I gonna put it? The front's full of motors;
the back's got the hot-tub and the patio heater.
The loft's choc-a-bloc with the kids' computers
and my flatscreen's in the spare room: it's two and a half meters!
I'll take it to the dump."

He said, "You can't do that: the landfill's full!"

And then I got the hump:
"Are you saying I should put it in my heated swimming pool?"

I looked at it again: a prehistoric stone,
inky,
eerily glistening.

"I'll have to burn it then."
The man got vitriolic:
"I DON'T...THINK...YOU'VE REALLY...BEEN LISTENING!!!"

So I signed his bloody form,
pondering where to park it
when the problem solved itself.
There was a freak storm
and a sudden catastrophic melt
of glaciers in the Arctic.
A tidal bore
funnelled into the Nidd Gorge,
inundating Harrogate,
myself,
my 4x4 and...
my carbon footprint!

"Shit!" I thought, "I'm dead."
But I woke up in bed
and the wetness was a sweat deposit.
It was all a bad dream
on a neo-Luddite, lentil-eating green theme

...or was it?

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