Robert Garnham

Biography

Robert Garnham has been performing comedy poetry around the UK for ten years at various fringes and festivals, and has had two collections published by Burning Eye. He has made a few short TV adverts for a certain bank, and a joke from one of his shows was listed as one of the funniest of the Edinburgh Fringe. He was recently an answer on the TV quiz show Pointless. Lately he has been writing short stories for magazines and a humorous column in the Herald Express newspaper. Robert tours the UK and has appeared at most of the big poetry nights as a headliner or a featured artist, such as Bang Said the Gun (London and Manchester), Evidently (Manchester), Milk and Raise the Bar (both Bristol), Jawdance (London), Big Poetry (Torquay). In 2019 he was the featured artist with Hammer and Tongue and undertook the UK tour to all of their different events, from Brighton to Cambridge, Oxford to Southampton, London and Bristol.

Samples

Poem Alack!, do some settle In Somerset. Sunset set, sat unset And stomach upset, Somerset. Somersaulting vaulting sum of greater parts, Haunting, dauntless Taunton, Summer parks. I'd settle soon in Somerset, Besotted thus with summer sex, Haystack fumbles, aching, wet, Hanging round at nights with the Badger set. Think of all the joy I'd get In Somerset. Although, I do suspect, A sudden thought remains unsaid, I don't like barns, or farms, Or country vets And that is why I'll settle not In Somerset. POEM I have probed the depths of literature But my friend Mark only remembers The one poem I wrote, The one called 'Plop'. And it goes something like this. Plop. Pah-lop. Plop. At nights I reach in an thrust my hand Deep into the fiery furnace of metaphor And I grab the human condition And I throttle it. And I squeeze the truth out of it. And I tear the words from the sky. And I wrestle with sentences like a demon. I am the king of ink, Monarch of the pen My nib moving faster and faster as my fingers Grip the shaft of the brio, Spilling on to the page beauteous visions, Truth, honesty, existential angst And what it means to be alive. And yet Mark's favourite poem of mine is Plop. Pah-lop. Plop.

Shows

Static (2016) Juicy (2017) In the Glare of the Neon Yak (2018) Spout (2019) Yay! - The Search for Happiness (2021)

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