Welcome
My pamphlet, Rock’n’Roll Mamma is now out from Flarestack. It is clothed resplendently in pink with orange-end papers and you can buy it for only £3.50 from
Flarestack Publishing, 8 Abbots Way, Pilton, Somerset
Flarestack Publishing, 8 Abbots Way, Pilton, Somerset
Or give Charles my publisher a call and he’ll post you a copy
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.
About me
Farewell My Lovely
Polly Clark’s new collection. Expect strangeness and wonder. Go with it. Be transported.
Stepping Stones
Interviews with Seamus Heaney by Dennis O’Driscoll. A wise and easy read.
Shelley’s Boat
an account of the last days of Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was not very nice to women.
It’s Like this
Rikki Lee Jones. She has a gorgeous voice and some wacky interpretations that will surprise and delight.
Slipway Fires
Razorlight. Am I too old for that stuff? Can’t help loving those melodies, although my son tells me the lead singer is ‘a bit of dickhead’
Playing ‘Song Without Words’ on the piano. Makes me weep.
New Art from the Middle East at The New Saatchi Gallery , Gripping, gruelling political artworks in a spanking new building and it’s ALL FREE! It’s a must-see.
England People Very Nice
at the National Theatre. If you want entertainment and not enlightenment, go for a roller coaster ride through several hundred years of immigration to Britain.
We Will Rock You
So I gave in in the end, and went to see this tired old warhorse of a musical. Pathetic plot - storytelling at its crudest - but the music still hits you in gut.
