Tuesday 1st April 2025
My once-fortnightly session of song making with Andi Oates again. One song now mixed and mastered, two others ready to be finalised in the near future.
Monday 24th March 2025
Poetic Flaws/Flaws night at The Three Daws. I read my poems The Missing Tights, A Guide To The Other Side and Deal Wiith Your Smoke Alarm To Restore Your Inner Calm.
Thursday 20th March 2025
Off to Rams/12 Degrees microbar in Rochester to perform in the Open Mic section, reading a poem I wrote today called The Scent Of Love From Above.
Wednesday 19th March 2025
Midweek trip to The London Palladium with my sister Helen to see John Cooper Clarke and friends perform poetry!
Sunday 16th March 2025 Part Two
Hot-footed over to The Mole Hole after the Peaky Blinders event to read within the Open Mic section of Holy Moly Spoken Word. I read my poems: Memory Jog Femmes Gliding Down The Thames and An Empowering Prayer To Speak And Share.
Sunday 16th March 2025 Part One
Peaky Blinders re-enactment gig at The Rose pub in Northfleet, a first-time venue for the troupe. Again, I read my bespoke Peaky poem as part of the act. Really well attended event.
Thursday 13th March 2025
My big night! A book signing evening for my debut book of Poetry ‘The Road To Poetry’ at The Mole Hole Micropub in High St, Gravesend. About 16 attendees. I used my new roller banner for the first time and read a variety of my self-penned poems in 3 sets, with a drinks break and a very enjoyable Question and Answer session. A proud moment to host this event in the bar in which I first started reading Live poetry in October 2023. I even sold a couple of books…
Thursday 6th March 2025
Attended The Stage Door pub in Dartford to support Harry Watson who was reading her poetry alongside musicians in an event styled to honour International Women’s Day.
Sunday 2nd March 2025
Peaky Blinders afternoon gig of re-enactment and music at The Somerset Arms pub in Gravesend. I read a couple of poems at the Mic stand: Let US Be Your Reminders Of The Peaky Blinders and Fancy A Jobby As A Victorian Bobby. After the event, the pub had its weekly karaoke night and I sang She’s Lost Control by Joy Division and Somebody by Depeche Mode!
Monday 24th February 2025
Poetic Flaws/Floors night, run by my friend Anthony Hart is here again. I got to read four poems, two of them for the first time in public. They were: Caped Crusader My Sock Invader, The Tips Box Karma Test, Sweet Anna & Co At Camden’s Fiddlers Elbow and Crying In The Shower.
Saturday 22nd February 2025
Rehearsal session in Northfleet for our Peaky Blinders Reenactment Group: practising our dramatic walk-in scenes for upcoming pub gigs (at which I read one or two Peaky-themed poems).
Tuesday 18th February 2025
Recording session with Andi Oates in Maidstone again - more work on my poems that we are converting to songs. Our collaboration is a two-way thing: Andi is helping me on a lyrical journey and I am helping him develop his ‘Zero2Demo’ dreams of getting people to sing with his musical arrangement/coaching.
Monday 17th February 2025
An after-work train dash up to London’s The Roebuck pub with poetic colleagues to support Dr Lee Campbell’s book launch and Spoken Word evening. Arrived to late to get my name down to read but a great venue and experience all the same.
Sunday 16th February 2025
Great turn-out for Zack Davies’ Holy Moly Spoken Word. As part of the Open Mic section, I read two new poems (Creatively Free Writing My Poetry and Let’s bloom Through Any Gloom) with a pre-written favourite Glorious Gravesend.
Thursday 13th February 2025
I performed three 15 minute Sets of Live poetry in between the musicians at The Stage Door pub in Dartord. I mixed Poetry with a Love-related theme, in honour of Valentine’s Day, with some favourites from my book The Road To Poetry. A lovely evening and the audio for my set was recorded by host Dann.
Monday 3rd February 2025
Back working with Andi Oates of Scars Of Sense (band) in Maidstone on a second poem-to-song conversion. We selected ‘Turning Tears Into Cheers.’ Andi has already created the music for it whilst I need to now go away and work on my vocals!
Monday 27th January 2025
It was the 4th edition of Anthony Hart’s Poetic Flaws/Floors Spoken Word evening at Gravesend’s The Three Daws pub last night. The pub’s faith in Anthony’s event was rewarded again with a room of about 15 drink-buying attendees, eleven of which were readers. In keeping with the now established format, every speaker was filmed by the host (if social media permission was granted) and would talk about the inspiration for each piece. The quality of the delivery AND the content itself were first class. For my part, I read my poems “Daddy Pig’s Epiphany”, “The Mouldy Tangerine” and “Through The Looking Glass.”
Daddy Pig’s Epiphany was written about my experience of joining Slimming World and losing 3 stone in weight.
The Mouldy Tangerine is a poem about removing the festering component of a group to save the collective.
Through The Looking Glass is a poem imagining that I could greet my younger self and deciding whether I would warn him of trials to come or stay dumb. It is now an important poem because it is the first I have converted to song, in collaboration with Maidstone-based musician Andi Oates of the band Scars of Sense.
Sunday 19th January 2025
The first Holy Moly Spoken Word evening of 2025 was held at The Mole Hole pub from 7pm to 9pm (after which I retired to the Three Daws pub over the road to chew the cud with co-Poet Anthony Hart). We were thoroughly entertained by the comedic but often hard-hitting poetry of the guest headliner Wolf Howard toward the end of the evening, after two halves of Open Mic poetry by some familiar and new faces. Always fantastic to see someone read at the venue for the first time (Martin in this case). Readers tonight included: Owen, Jade, Nick The Hat, Anthony Hart, Zack Davies (our host) and David John Griffin. For my part, I read my newest poems “Ignore The Bark Of Your Office Narc”, “Social Top Trumps Is For Chumps”, "Your ‘Phone, Your Friend” and “Using Your Voice Is A Choice.”
I also successfully tested out my new phone tripod to record my performance with less shake than usual!
Monday 23rd December 2024
‘Poetic Flaws / Floors’ poetry night convened at The Three Daws pub in Gravesend, Kent, for the third time. A smaller gathering due to festive commitments by several regular readers but we were treated to Live poetry from host Anthony Hart, London-based Lee Campbell and a first-time reading by Gurbir Dhillon. The smaller group size also allowed discussions on plans for 2025, in terms of a potential Festival of poetry in the town and also ideas on growing this group. For my part, I read several of my self-penned pieces but managed to leave my set list in the pub! Three of us had a pre-Xmas drink afterwards in The Goose pub. Roll on Twenty Twenty-Five!
Sunday 15th December 2024
A great turnout for the final Holy Moly Spoken Word evening at The Mole Hole in Gravesend, Kent for 2024.
The evening was headlined by Koushik Banerjea and amongst his set was an excerpt from one of his long-form pieces that cleverly described the futile racist fervour whipped up when Alan Minter and Marvin Hagler squared up in a big Boxing bout in September 1980..
For my part, I read my poems ‘Vision Board Adored’, ‘Mozart Crystals’, ‘The Accidental Timber Merchant’ and ‘A Festive Wish Before We Close The Door On Twenty Twenty-Four.’
Saturday 14th December 2024
At a North Kent Peaky Blinders re-enactment group gig at The Northfleet Veterans Club, Northfleet, Kent, some decent money was raised for the Ellenor Hospice charity. There were at least 12 Peaky members in attendance (my daughter Beatrice, 10, attended in 1920s costume with me too) and we staged our usual dramatic walk-in at the start of proceedings. I read my Peaky intro poem ‘Let Us Be Your Reminders Of The Peaky Blinders’ and then our group leader Shane “Arthur Shelby” Milligan entertained the audience with his singing. Some of the highlights were: bingo, a raffle and specially made Peaky Blinder cupcakes. I also signed some copies of my book ‘The Road To Poetry’ for my colleagues in our tribe!
Thursday 12th December 2024
I travelled with friend and fellow Poet, Mr Anthony Hart, to the Big Trouble Spoken Word Christmas Bonanza at Rams / 12 Degrees micro pub in Rochester, Kent. The lovely hosts David Dykes and Beth Goodwill treated us all to Xmas nibbles, Xmas crackers with self-typed notes, hats and the usual brilliant poetry in the now customary speed-dating ‘one poem and sit down and repeat later’ format. David kindly asked me to open the night with a 10-minute set of poems from my new book, The Road To Poetry. I repeated my new ‘thing’ of asking the audience to call out page numbers at random and I delivered whatever poem featured on that page. There were several Poets on the night I hadn’t had the pleasure of hearing before and I was really blown away by all the talent in the room.
Friday 29th November 2024
I was invited by my friend / Yoga teacher / photographer / poet James Clark to attend an evening of Spoken Word at House of Leyla (147 Milton Road DA12 2RG) in Gravesend. House of Leyla is a high-class yoga studio and wellness workspace with mocktail bar and treatment rooms close to the Clock Tower statue. A lovely place with lovely people for sure.
There were a variety of speakers on the night. As well as poetry, we enjoyed a psychology talk, singing and a free-style floor show by young gymnast Penny! Penny (aged 9) also wowed the audience by confidently reading her poem – with a microphone - about saving the Swanscombe Peninsula.
For my part, I read in two sessions my poems “Risk It For a Biscuit”, “Resignation Letter No Longer An Upsetter”, “Sapele’s Odyssey” and “A Blinding Induction After A Peaky Seduction.” For the second session, I invited the audience to call out a couple of page numbers from my book The Road To Poetry in order to deliver more random choices of verse.
Tuesday 26th November 2024
An after-work drive to Maidstone tonight to put the finishing touches to my very first poem-to-song project. A successful evening saw my friend/musician Andi Oates (Scars Of Sense band member) oversee me cracking out the chorus and bridge that I was previously awkward with. The next step is for Andi to refine it before it gets mixed and mastered by his contact. I have listened back to a sample of the song several times and I’m very pleased and excited about it: I look forward to creating another 3 or 4 to compile my own E.P. in due course!
Monday 25th November 2024
Only the second ever meeting of the Poetic Flaws/Floors poetry club at The Three Daws in Gravesend, hosted by Anthony Hart. A fantastic evening and even better verse spoken by the performers in a jovial, supportive atmosphere. The popularity of the event from its first session in October saw us upgraded by the pub to a larger, more comfortable room. My personal highlights of the night included: a discussion about the medical condition gout, a duet poetry read by Jack and Tamilore, a brilliant Medieval folklore type short story by Neil (and interesting discussion about the shop Cash Converters) and an older gentleman from a nearby function room - a history society evening - telling me he paid to see John Keats' death bed in Rome! I tried something new tonight and invited the audience to call out random page numbers from my recently-published book The Road To Poetry and I read whichever poems featured on those pages: Without Doubt It Was A Bout Of Gout, The Hollywood Divorce,The Accidental Timber Merchant and Mums Who Can Catch / Weeing In The Sea.
Sunday 24th November 2024
A bit of an experiment. I attended The George Inn in Queen Street in central Gravesend to support a 4pm band gig by The Johns (who I have got to know recently). Probably one of my favourite "cover" bands because they play all my kind of stuff, especially The Doors. They allowed me, as did the Landlord, to read a bit of Poetry in their half-time interval. I battled through a little set against a somewhat distracted and lively/busy boozed up pub! A great experience for me but - to put it mildly - one of my biggest challenges in reading Live poetry to date!
Amongst the poems i read were: Glorious Gravesend, Busy Scissors and The Road To Poetry.
Sunday 17th November 2024
The monthly Holy Moly Spoken Word poetry club (hosted by Zack Davies) met at The Mole Hole Micro Pub in Gravesend High Street. Chika Jones was the headline Poet in an evening of three parts. In the Open Mic section, I read my new poems:
“Tis Okay, Maybe I Was Meant To Keep My Blood Today Anyway!”(07.11.2024)
“The Horror Of Burglary”(14.11.2024)
And
“That Painful Show, So That We Could Grow”(14.11.2024)
28th October saw me attend the inaugural meeting of the brand new poetry club called Poetic Flaws/Floors, hosted by local poet Anthony Hart. It was held in the smallish library room in The Three Daws pub in Gravesend, Kent and attended by 12 people, some reading, others observing/supporting. A great night and a great start to this new venture. Anthony Hart was the person that first invited me to a poetry club called Holy Moly (run by Zack Davies) in The Mole Hole micropub in the same town back in October 2023. That bar-side chat put me on my own poetry and public speaking path.
