second moon

_{Clouds out of control decoct anticipation. What use can any of us have for two moons? The miracle of order has run out and I am left in an unmiraculous city where anything may happen.}

_{Samuel R. Delany, Dhalgren}

you might notice that i haven’t been adding to this blog as much – it’s because i’ve started a new project in critical writing, a substack mailer called the second moon letters.

so far, i’ve written about texts by Nuar Alsadir, Hoa Nguyen, Nat Raha, Renée Gladman, Erica Hunt, jayy dodd, Samantha Walton, Jackqueline Frost, Tom Betteridge and more.

it’s free to subscribe and i aim to update at least once a month! comments, and suggestions for poems to write about, are welcome.

when will my love return from the culture war?

new suns tonight are turning themselves out

with psychedelic accuracy. they slough off

wide sheets of muslin fog, and tread

across the suddenly open sky —

.

two idioms clash in their charter;

i wonder if the old kings knew 

what they were authoring, but there is little 

less fearsome than a slip of the pen

.

and so do old retainers leave off their faithful posts;

from their accounts a melting world entirely

of wax — a sheer cell wall that runs

but is fixed to lots of things about the place —

.

some of the people in the villages may have related 

their ancestral conviction that “this way leads

to danger”, but those leal ranks and others like them

were burdened by scant concern for their material limbs

,

they emerged raw from the bellicose tumble

they had taken into the bracken, 

their thorn-wounds shining with glory,

their gums crying smiling tears —

,

they stamped out the night’s fires in the houses

and warmed themselves by the bitterness of their tread.

in their pursuit of whatever they regarded as golden 

there was a bright and timeless horror at its heart

new pamphlet

parts of this poem were published in Splinter #6, edited by Gizem Okulu and David Grundy; Mote #4, edited by Dominic Hale; and the anthology Makar/Unmakar: Twelve Contemporary Poets in Scotland, edited by Calum Rodger (Tapsalteerie, 2019). many thanks to the dedicated editors of these publications for their trust in me & in this long poem.

please-fall-in-love-and-leave-me-alone-vesselwork-2020Download

more poetry workshops

so, i’m still running the weekly workshop at Category Is Books – every Wednesday, 7pm, pay-what-you-can – do join us for a session if you haven’t already! over the last month we’ve been focussing on individual writers, looking at a couple of poems each week and discussing them – here’s an indication of what we’ve been working on, and some writers/books we can look at as we move into June (we may have to adjust the schedule a little, but this is the plan):

1st May – Caspar Heinemann, Novelty Theory

8th May – Julian Talamantez Brolaski, Advice for Lovers and Of Mongrelitude

15th May – Francesca Lisette, sub rosa: The Book of Metaphysics

29th May – Nat Raha, of sirens / body & faultlines

5th June – **guest workshop from Gloria Dawson on Harry Josephine Giles, ‘Abolish the Police’**

12th June – Laurel Uziell, Instant Cop Death

19th June – summer solstice ritual

26th June – Jay Bernard, Surge

3rd July – Verity Spott, Prayers, Manifestos, Bravery

10th July – (open session)

poetry workshop schedule, january-march 2019

dear friends,

here’s a (slightly late) list of the poetry workshops i’m going to be running at Category Is Books in the first quarter of 2019:

9 Jan: Expression

16 Jan: The Line

23 Jan: Boredom

30 Jan: The Word

6 Feb: Inspiration

13 Feb: Draft

20 Feb: Edit

27 Feb: Perform

6 Mar: Repetition

13 Mar: Harmony

20 Mar: Thickness

27 March: The Cruellest Month prep session

in April, we’ll move on to ‘The Cruellest Month’ a Poetry Writing Month series where we attempt to write a poem a day – if you want to join this punishing challenge, put your nose to the grindstone along with us xxx