“It’s Smita Lemn do you have a minute” Each time I was in a meeting but the third time I finally spoke to the BBC Producer Smita Patel. “I know you’ve done a lot of work for radio four” said Smita, I noted to myself that by now she had done a little research. Patel then followed a lengthy ramble to which I had to say, “what’s the upshot Smita”. In my world it is very rare that I have to say so clearly more than once “smita, what’s the upshot” meaning what’s the outcome. I sensed very strongly that there was something an outcome about this call but I couldn’t have expected what was to come.   more »

I sent the reply today to Smita at the BBC. Mrs Catherine Greenwood is the foster mother whom with her husband for the first eleven years of my life, abused me (there is no other one word for it) and whom has for the first time - having been approached on various occassions over the years - informed the BBC that I have been lieing for twenty years. No change there then.   more »

Patel spoke in the way a news or current affairs worker, with clipped assertiveness. The question arose, as it had to. My foster father died some years ago, but my foster mother was alive. “Shall we find her” I paused. I replied each time “If you would like to”. I was aware that the narrative path Patel was following was nudging towards my my foster mother, the surviving member of the couple who abused me.   more »

my Ghanain driver’s been working all night. It doesn’t stop him sharing his taxi driver philosophy. We discuss Zimbabwe and Britain’s duplicitous role as both coloniser of its past and arbiter of its present. "White people", he tells me, "you can not trust them, I’m not saying black people are perfect, but you can’t trust white people". I know why he is saying what he is saying. However you look at it, if a white person said the same about a black person it would have a totally different root cause. "How did they hurt you" I think to myself. "How did they hurt you".    more »

Here is the final verse of the poem I read at Glastonbury as part of Music Through Unconventional means, with shlomo and the vocal Orchestra.   more »

In the sixties and early seventies, in Ethiopia, Addis Ababa was swinging. Addis was the Monaco of Africa. The men and women wore the best Italian clothes and the clubs were swinging. Drive-by Coffee houses would begin the evening and stay open as the club revelers returned from the dance. . By day time the Ethiopian jazz musicians would be playing in the Imperial Guard Band for the Emperor and in the night they’d play the hip joints of downtown Addis.   more »

"Whereas received opinion states Two’s company threes a crowd in terms of the Liverpool poets, two’s company, three’s allowed. Under the Influence of Mersey Sound, How it came about and what the influence is, is some of what I would like to share this evening.   more »

One of the greatest ensembles of our time - San Fransisco chronicle A performance of definitive greatness. - Daily Telegraph Last night I took part in an historical moment by being part of the audience at the final concert of The Alban Berg Quartet. They are a world class quartet and have been together for over thirty years. One year after the death of Thomas Kakuska they have decided to gracefully end their illustrious career. I was commissioned to write a poem for them and did. It is called Rosin and was placed inside the final programme of this concert after which I read the poem for them, to them at a private reception held in their honour on 6th floor of The Royal Festival Hall.   more »

Tonight I’m curating an event to launch Architecture Week through Futurecity arts at Chelsea Space Gallery. It will be the first public reading of The Gilt of Cain, the poem to be placed inside a sculptor near Liverpool Street Station as a commission from The City of London Commission on the abolition of the slave trade act.   more »

Tonight’s full moon viewed from the top of the hill amongst sleepy whisps of clouds is a bit gorgeous. It happened on the late night walk. “Look” bridget said. I couldn’t see a bean,   more »

We shall be teaching these fifteen people, strangers, to write and to be with the most important part of their lives, creativity. They will be lawyers and scientists, restaurateur and arts administrators. They have leapt from their comfort zones into the unknown. They have taken a risk without which there is no benefit.   more »

After the protest the journalist and I go over the River Thames to The South Bank. It’s buzzing. Elbow are rehearsing with an all male choir in The Blue Room situated in the lusciously named Spirit Level beneath the royal festival hall. I walk into the room and there they are in all their glory. Rehearsal is the greatest thing. Mary King is directing the Male voice Choir while Elbow play and Guy sings. The string section is lined up against the wall. The joint is right “lemn” Guy Garvey says “Guy” I say at precisely the same time. Hugs all round and kisses for Mary King. I then stand back and listen to the magic.   more »

Here are the two poems read on BBC radio Fours Saturday Live today and broadcast to the nation.   more »

Don't get me wrong I know this feels like sacrilege especially to either the uninformed, the unflexible, the inexperienced, or boundary poet, (a boundary poet is one who clings to boundaries without exploring the unknown), but they would be ungracefully wrong, in truth it is truly an exercise in the power of creativity to seek out it's reason. If I match my experience to the process of excavation I am bound to find the poem. All my senses are alerted, cranked up. It is somehow magical. If not the end piece then the concentrated act of seeking the poem is for me, an affirmation of why I'm alive. to seek creativity. and I've found it. It's as if the ink is running a split second ahead of my writing and I am following it with the pen.   more »

On Sunday 15 June, US President George W. Bush is visiting London as part of his valedictory world tour, and will be having tea with the Queen and dinner with Prime Minister Gordon Brown.   more »

Out of the blue, today I receive a call "George Bush is coming to London, on Sunday"   more »

I amateurishly remind Patti that I have read with her before and that I shall be reading with her tonight. She doesn’t remember but she’s nods graciously. Autograph hunters descend the second before we enter the stage door. I immediately get out my pen and set up a little table and chair so they can form a Que only to realise my name is not Patti Smith.   more »

Mid poem on the second reading a drunken man walks to the stage and starts shouting to me. It would be ignorant to ignore. None of the organisers offer to help and instead they watch as I cope. Eventually after repeating our conversation on the microphone “you’re name’s michael…. You want to say something… on here....”. I invite him on stage where he gets seriosly involved in a Donald Duck impression.   more »

I walk into the artists section of the dining tent and introduce myself to John Bird. Within the first two minutes of meeting Mr Bird he says “I used to be a racist. Now I have a pubjabi wife and support Obama”.    more »

“Mummy mummy Granny’s Cafe” an excited child says to her mother as they speed past “look look Granny’s Cafe”. There’s an innocently irritated expression on her mothers untidying face.This is a literary festival she scowls. “It’s the granary cafe” she says “GRA-NA-RY”.   more »

The train is now passing through town of Honeybourne and thankfully the onslaught of rain has stopped. Above my desk at The Southbank centre it reads “It ain’t where you go, It’s where your at”. The line comes from a song I wrote abut seven years ago. After all any seemingly big move has never been to find a better place outside oneself but to satisfy the place within.   more »

“What a good looking young boy” says the hotel owner Mr Gwynne as Mrs Gwynne busies herself past him and back into the kitchen for the keys to my room. They’re cheery enough. They could be two friendly voles in toad of toad hall. This small bed and breakfast Belmont House, is warm and friendly and perfectly situated in the centre of Hay. I am here for the Hay on Wye Literature festival, the most famous literary festival in the United Kingdom tucked gently but confidently into the collar bone of The Black Hills of Wales.   more »

The festival bus takes ten minutes and arrives at a field with gigantic white tents. It’s like a quidditch world cup final. The Sky TV banners flap high in the sky. A mini white city of canvas concert halls has been erected with a warren of walkways that lead to a bewildering program of events. The sound of applause spills out into from somewhere: where (?) nobody knows. This festival is gorgeous. I enter the green room a place where artists settle, drink, chat.   more »

Of my own free will I joined Face book. The free will went a bit like this: One minute I was fixing up some dinner and then I heard a bleep from the computer screen in the office and then I heard myself saying “Must. Join. Computer. Facebook. Must. Join. Computer. Facebook.” And it was as natural as that.   more »

There's five minutes until the day begins. It's nearly midnight. I open the kitchen door and.....   more »

I am searching for flowers. I am getting more and more tense as I reclose each door. What does it matter anyway I tell myself. You can't miss what you didn't have. I've been telling myself that one all my life. It's just that today is the day that I do miss what I didn't have. I'll allow myself that.   more »

So there we were writers the three of us, fed up. By fed up I mean, we had just eaten! A cab was hailed, Gwenyth went to her hotel in Kings Cross while the journalist and I continued. Home draws closer under a full, full moon. The best performance of the evening goes to The Full Moon.   more »

“If as Marx said ‘Religion is the opiate of the people’ then surely nationalism is the crack cocaine” – Gaim Kibreab Birkbeck College.   more »

I first met Tenzin in South Africa where he read his poems on stage at The Poetry Africa Festival in Durban. He was campaigning for Tibet - by walking - long before it gained the worlds attention. He has walked around the world to raise its consciousness of Tibet. Amazingly this has happened/is happening. This is his latest post   more »

In the evening I travelled to Hammersmith and the home of George Devine, the founder of the rebirth of The Royal Court Theatre. His home has a blue plaque on the wall and looks out upon the Thames. Five of us, the judging panel for The George Devine Award finally whittled down the scripts to one clear winner. The prize is £10,000, ($20,000) - it's alot of money   more »

Spoke to a mother and wished her happy Mothers Day. It was Mothers Day yesterday in America, where she lives. So I called a day late, but still I called. It’s the first time in my adult life that I’ve wished a mother Happy Mothers Day.   more »

Last night I joked “I used to be angry, now I’m a rebel with a mortgage, and a nice deli round the corner – with great humus”. The humus was here and the bread and the salad and the sun and the cricket and The Journalist and the newspapers and me. I should be reading the scripts for the Royal Court. But not today. Not today. About the anger. I am no less angry than I was before, I am just more defined about where my anger should be directed - so too with love   more »

The back stage is full to bursting with people, except the poets. Paddy O'Connell the MC arrives. The audience goes quiet. The Saturday Live Theme tune plays. And the poets begin. There is a lot of hilarity in the reading and the poets are skilled and slick. They are rehearsed and refined, they are witty and full of wonder. The lighting is perfect. Paddy is wonderful and the joint is jumping. It’s a reading that I want to watch but under the circumstances I have to take part. I have an absolute feeling of not wanting to go on stage. It is less and less enticing as the evening unravels. The poets are everything that I knew they would be, which is a shame.   more »

I have never been jealous of anyone. Irritated, most definitely, but hardly envious. That the exploration of ambition is fuelled by envy is strange to me. Ambition is a wonderful thing: I don’t see why it should ever be coupled with bullying or autocratic behaviour. What I do see are ambitious people who lack the emotional resources to further their ambition and this leads them to employ there frustration as a weapon to metre out on others as they bludgeon their way forward with a trained smile.    more »

Unfortunately we at The South Bank were thrown into a situation of damage limitation and needs must. I was determined that the replacement for wonderful Fi must be someone of equal quality. For a moment I thought it was all going to become ridiculously and unneccasserily adversarial between the BBC and The South Bank, two organisations that I have the utmost respect for.   more »

The Prime Minister John Major will never know how close he came to death. I realised the man driving me to the airport was not just any driver – in fact, he wasn’t a driver at all and that it was no accident that in the forty minutes that I had been in the car I had heard so much.   more »

I was leaving the country and couldn’t practically deal with this. Rachel at the south bank immediately took up the reigns and reared up her horse and galloped onwards. Martin Colthorpe head of programming ran alongside and dived on the back. Within hours of getting the news in England as my plane skidded off the tarmac at Gatwick Paddy had said yes! We had sorted it. Go team!   more »

The evening fades and I sleep beneath the oak tree and dream of green skies and branches growing from my eyes. There's a knock at the door. There's a knock at the door. Someone is knocking on the bedroom door!!! .    more »