Commonword Blogs

Welcome to my new blog that I have been asked to write as part of my residency at Commonword, which was my prize for winning the Dike Omeje Slam Poetry Award 2008.
I'm going to use the blog to share new work, discuss goings on in the poetry world and generally muse about the strange process of thinking words in your head, putting them on paper, memorising them and/or reading them out in public, and trying to get people to give you money for doing so.
I'm setting myself the target of writing a post at least once a week, which will include a new poem, even if it's just a haiku. One of my (and I would imagine many writers') problems is that I don't maintain a regular practice, but tend to write in furious bursts of intense, late night, deadline looming panic. As a result I always find myself trying to write the final draft first, but really only ever perform the first draft, meaning my writing is never as good as I think it could be. This blog is an attempt to rectify that, and get people's input into my re-writing, if they're interested enough to read it and comment back.
So, this week's poem I'm sharing is one of two new pieces I wrote for the Blue Festival at the Royal Exchange last week. It's from a new work in progress called Parental Advisory, which looks at the link between violence depicted in the media, particularly in (mostly hip hop) lyrics, and violence enacted in society. I'm hoping this will be my second solo show, and will incorporate spoken word, rap, beatbox, movement, dramatic monologue, visual images and original music created by breakbeat producers, Atomic Hooligan.
I've attached it as an image, because whilst it's a performance poem I'm working at trying to make all my performance work effective as page poetry also. This is not just because I want to be able to sell books as well as cds, but because I feel that while there is a difference between poetry intended to be read and poetry intended to be read aloud, it's often a false distinction and that any poetry worth its salt should be able to be breathe in both atmospheres, so to speak. So this is my first attempt at something like a concrete poem; one that looks like what it says. The poem doesn't have a title yet, though I'm thinking of calling it 'Faster than a Speeding Poem'. It's based on a quote by the Arts Council's diversity director in a recent issue of Time Out, who was talking about using the arts to re-empower young people and stopping them getting involved in 'the stupid things we've all seen on television. We would like to replace the bullets with poems'.