A new page for my second appearance on The Verb, a brilliant, inspiring day at Media City in the company of Ian McMillan, Charles Fernyhough, Jennifer Hodgson and David Morley.

Amazing to be able to write this new piece of poetry, or theatre / performance as I see it, for The Verb and on such a wonderful topic and project. One of my favourite commissions I’d say.

"The Worm in its Core was commissioned as a new poem / performance by Radio 3's The Verb, hosted by Ian McMillan, for broadcast on January 15th 2016, in response to Hearing the Voice - a project which explores, and demystifies auditory verbal hallucinations. A great privilege to write something responding such a vital and intelligently conceived project, and to share it on The Verb, which has always maintained a laudable balance between all forms and modes of literature, bringing them where they belong, together, in brilliant conjunction."

http://www.eyewearpublishing.com/about-us/pop-up-shop/ Thanks to the generosity Eyewear publishing and CB editions, Todd Swift and Charles Boyle, respectively, I'm delighted to be part of a project running on Portobello Road, just ten minutes from my door, right on my backyard, on July 5th.

"Summertime – and though for poets and independent publishers the living isn’t exactly easy, it’s time to come out onto the street and play. Specifically: THE SHOP. For the first week of July, 1st to 7th, Eyewear Publishing is joining forces with CB Editions. We will be taking a pop-up shop in Portobello Road, London: number 201, a block along from the Electric Cinema. We’ll be selling books from our own presses and those of some others (Arc, Five Leaves, Flipped Eye among them, and not exclusively poetry), and there’ll be photographic prints by Ken Garland and other things. And balloons. The shop is essentially a shop, and is hardly the most comfortable of reading venues, but there’ll be events in the evenings and pop-up readings by various poets during the daytime."

The week features friends like James Byrne, Sandeep Parmar, Astrid Alben, Michael Horovitz and many others, please do wander down if you're free, I'll be bringing some books and a buddha box and smashing out some poetry on Boxing and Prisons.