The newly-appointed poet laureate of Milton Keynes, Mark Niel, has joined in the lively debate initiated on Write Out Loud about his new role. WOL veteran Graham Sherwood, himself from Milton Keynes, kicked it off on a WOL discussion thread, wondering if it was better to be a performance poet rather than a non-performing poet to gain such a post, and about the whole idea of appointing poet laureates for specific areas. 

Mark replied: “I believe that a non–performer can be a poet laureate as well as a performer. In fact most of the regional schemes I know of, the laureate is decided by a written competition. I do write for the page as well as performance and I hope this versatility will allow me to choose an appropriate style as suited to the occasion. Great emphasis has been placed on the 'honorary' and 'ceremonial' aspects of my role. The etymological roots for both these words meaning 'cheap, as in unpaid'!

 “We have a strong local scene here and increasingly our poets are getting out and about, some of them have been ‘scouted’ for commissions and performances by festivals and organisations such as Apples & Snakes. The laureateship follows hot on the heels on the election earlier this year of a Bard for Stony Stratford (which lies within the boundaries of Milton Keynes). Happily, we all get on well and support each other’s activities. For the past three years, we have been going mob-handed to open mic nights in London and across the Midlands, terrorising audiences with our close-harmony poetry and trying to show there’s more to Milton Keynes than concrete cows, thousands of roundabouts and Legoland houses.”

Mark’s website is A Kick in the Arts www.akickinthearts.co.uk and his blog, How to be a busy poet and still live in poverty, is at www.pawhouseboy.blogspot.com