My writing life began with poetry at the age of five, but on a chequered journey I moved on to songwriting, playwriting, screenwriting and stand-up comedy before I rediscovered poetry, my first love

I've had work published in Acumen, Magma, Staple, The Interpreter’s House, Other Poetry, Orbis and other magazines. You'll also find my poems in anthologies: Lines in the the Sand a book of anti- war poetry for children, Shape Sifting and Images of Women.

My heroes and heroines include Clytaemnestra, Samuel Beckett, Florence Nightingale, Bob Dylan, Sylvia Plath,  Euripides, Leonard Cohen, Bertolt Brecht, Penelope Shuttle, Al Gore and Mr Clayton who taught me English in Year 7.

I’m on the board of Magma magazine and also co-organise a monthly reading called The Shuffle at the Poetry Café. I hugely enjoy doing readings myself, and I don't get outrageously nervous; once you've experienced telling jokes to an audience of two drunken Hungarians and a dog, no act of self-revelation is ever scary again.

I was resident poet at Good Housekeeping Online where I wrote a monthly column,  won first prize in the London Art Poetry competition judged by Andrew Motion, and first prize in the Ledbury Poetry competition 2007.

My pamphlet, Rock’n’Roll Mamma is out from Flarestack. It is clothed resplendently in pink with orange-end papers and you can buy it for only £3.50 from Amazon or from
Flarestack Publishing, 8 Abbots Way, Pilton, Somerset

Or give Charles my publisher a call and he’ll post you a copy

01749-890019 OR email tarotqua@madasafish.com

My full collection will be published by Flipped Eye next year.