“I’ll be a well dressed emperor if you say so, via my facebook, and if you say so on your facebook then you too can be a well dressed emperor on my face book”. The fact that none of the Emperors are wearing clothes is no longer the issue. A “name” can so quickly feel established through this exchange that poets feel that they have “arrived” before in fact they have left anywhere.   more »

Tonight was Patience Agbabi’s book launch of Bloodshot Monochrome at The South Bank. The event is part of my artist in residence programme. Dave Haslam was the Dj and the poets were Salena Godden Rommi Smith and Patience Agbabi in the Blue Room. John Berkavitch, Julian Daniel and David J in the Gamalan Room. The venue was The Spirit Level at The South Bank.   more »

On Sunday Riz Ahmed was on stage at The Baftas as a cast member of award winning Britz. On Monday I was giving an award meanwhile Shlomo was less than a mile away, a nominee for the prs music awards. All of these people are Southbank artists in residence. Something is happening.   more »

I got to sleep at 1am and wake at 6am. At 7.30am I am on my bike and I arrive at The South Bank at 9am for a BBC television interview on top of The Royal Festival Hall. There are magnificent blue skies stretching above the houses of parlaiment and the whole of London.   more »

It was only a matter of time that I would get myself a gun and walk out into my front garden firing it with ricocheting self made sound effects “Peeow peeow!!”. Lancashire was my grand canyon, Chief our golden Labrador my long suffering steed. I had the gun, with caps, the white vinyl holster with silver press studs and I was the fastest draw in west ashton in Makerfield.! A gun toting rootin tooting two foot tall John Wayne   more »

he most intense time was midnight outside the iconic Bush House having done the interview for The World Today with the films director Mohammed Al-Daradji, we discussed Iraq, he spoke passionately “To many it is just statistics “oh a man killed here, a suicide bomb there” I have lost five members of my close family”. Mohammed then listed each member of his family: when and how each member was murdered by suicide bombers or American bombs.   more »

On the way out of the Broadcasting House I watched Lesley Sharp politely signing autographs from the gull like autograph hunters hopping outside. She graciously stood for photographs in a picture of patience, as if she was saying to herself, if you can wait in the cold I can stand for a picture.   more »

The audience sold out The Blue Room in The Spirit Level, beneath The Royal Festival Hall. They spoke to a rapt audience and took questions. If you’d have seen how eloquently he spoke at Camden Library on a wet winter evening then you would know. You would know just as I did that the audience deserved to hear this story. This event symbolised The Southbank arts centre for me.   more »

I wake at 7.30am and by 9am I am on my bike speeding through Hackney, gliding into the Regents canal entrance near Borough market up and off the canal into Angel, zooming past Saddlers Wells Theatre then Exmouth Market, swooping to Holborn where I get a freakin’ puncture.   more »

who runs the world, governments or multinationals. Is it a side effect of globalisation, that governments become the servants of commercial companies? Can global companies effectively run governments? Are multinationals the new aristocracy aping its family structure while promoting an inherent aquisition of land and virtual ownership of the people upon it.   more »

whether surreal or naturalistic, bitter or sweet, dance or poem, artists and their creations make life better. Art of itself is a statement against globalisation. To create something original is a statement against globalisation. And to view it, to seek it out, is to be a part of that   more »

I find myself in the position of the radical deflated balloon. And we all know what the head teacher said to the radical deflated balloon. The headteacher said “you’ve let me down, you’ve let yourself down and you’ve let the whole school down”. All I could think was, what a title - The title of this article, of the email is be the title of the poem.   more »

As the wildlife expert said to the chameleon “you’ve changed”.   more »

This website is the best example of how poetry can be presented on the world wide webble that I have seen so far. The poets name is Kwame Dawes who spent some time in residence at a hospital in Jamaica http://www.livehopelove.com   more »

One of Massive Attacks choices for Meltdown at The South bank later this year was Gil Scot Heron.   more »

The drumming stops dramatically. Pah Pah Da Dah Pah! The police partand the torch comes through in the hands of the minute Vanessa mae. It's so close I could touch it. Just as I have that thought one of the chinese securioty guards spies me. "The torch is slightly bigger than she is " said one drummer to another.   more »

(London, April 4, 2008) – In welcoming the Beijing Olympic Torch Relay outside 10 Downing Street, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is sending the Chinese government exactly the wrong message on its ongoing crackdown in Tibet and on human rights advocates in China, Human Rights Watch said today.   more »

I wrote the lyrics to a song called “In The Name of The Torch”. On Sunday hundreds of singers will be outside of The Royal Festival Hall on the banks of the Thames River as The Olympic Torch makes its way through and onwards to 10 Downing Street.   more »

All three of these would qualify because Shakespeare, Nick Cave and Zaidi Smith all have poetry in their work. That’s the tip of the iceberg. The finance worker who writes poems, The Poetry Library which gets every copy of every book of poetry published in England, the security guard who writes poetry: all of these qualify for the long list.   more »

Saw Mr Martin Luther King Junior speak today, in the ballroom at The South bank.   more »