Just a quick shout-out to say that Friday's Poetry Kapow was a handsomely-dressed bunch of poetry fun. Thanks to our open-mic poets, featured artists, contributors of STUFF, light and sound and bar-folk, documentors, fortune-teller (!), and other willing punters and participants. Video and audio recording will be available soon. Thanks to photographer Anna Berry for her stunning gallery of the eve...

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Eat, drink, consume, die

All the rest is punctuation.

Blue cross, star buy.

Fulfil your obligation

More junk, more diet.

That'll keep the kiddies quiet

Else, God knows they'll start a riot.

Smoother lines and plumper pout.

Scratch away the self-doubt

Or just scream to drown it out.

Save my breath up for the gym

Dumb me down and make me slim

Force-feed porn on wider screens

To violate ...

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Had a gorgeous time on National Poetry Day. Not because I got to see the poet lauriete, I'm a bit of a fan, but she's not much of a reader; not because I saw John Hegley perform a couple of favourites and not because Dreadlock Alien gave us some high-octane spirited performance as usual.. but because performance poets love to stand at the back, drink and bitch about everything. Made some great new...

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Metrolyptic

Warp, weft and cryptic.

These knotted streets,

Painted, Scripted...

Look up:

This crumpled mountain

Embraced by ocean,

Awash with the splashed emotion

Of those thrusting themselves

Into this attrition,

Battling the elements and competition.

Look up:

This imposing fortress.

Stacked bombastic monument of grandeur,

Daily announcing itself with noisy candour.

Whilst a washin...

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Unfortunately, I don't have time to go into too much detail here, but I have a lot that needs to be said about a certain poetry event which happened last night.

A group of 5 of us travelled into London to take part in a slam, as well as to watch a number of "featured" performers. Many of the performers were excellent, and there were certainly a lot of good things about the evening.

However: terr...

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Sometimes, there are those days where nothing quite goes right, your timing goes awry, people let you down or perhaps you just disappoint yourself with your efforts. And just occasionally, crazy ideas work out just fine, everything's ready on time, people exceed expectations with their generosity and talent, and you kick yourself for ever doubting it all.

But I've now seen artists building a gard...

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Spent the evening at a "Crucible Session" with the usual suspects of milton keynes' poets. Basically our best performers are putting some of their favourite pieces to music, or adding some dramatic effects and other voices for our annual celebration of live music and performance, called Stony Live. So I got very excited about all the drum-banging and the prospect of playing a cantankerous french g...

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