Living Alone: An Experiment

Lonely the loquacious rain; lonely spring
-loaded; lonely faking a yawn and curling

its arm around you. Lonely in the morning
trying to slip socks on toes with loose nails.

Slovenly the fridge-raider. Lonely over-
thinks it; only the pickpocket in

fingerless gloves, a lovely hand on your leg.
Lonely forgetting to call lonely back.

Lonely ticking friendship on dating sites
and meaning it; sorry assiduously

taking notes. Lonely at the party,
mind kept running outside, driver screaming

‘go!’; the front-page splash, mics pistoling you
on your doorstep, begging for a quote. Lonely

the cut-out sprung in a house of horrors
as a prank. Lonely banging its head

over and over into a mirror
in a last-ditch attempt to vanish.

—

Incidentally, you may want to check out this as well, where all the other Barbican Young Poets’ work was published 2013-14.

Momentum: Translations

It’s been an amazing few days working with the Barbican Young Poets at this year’s Weekender. We were commissioned to write responses to United Visual Artist’s exhibition, Momentum, and have spent the Weekender performing this work inside this space and working with the public to produce even more poetic responses, which I think will eventually be collated/curated here. The act of summoning an audience in this space, playing off its aura as spoken word syncs with the blip & flicker of lights, was special. My first extended experience of facilitating poetry with the general public (some precocious child-poets in particular) has been hugely invigorating. While it’s around, definitely go experience Momentum if you can.

Apart from that, I’ll take a moment to mention that the Barbican Young Poets scheme is coming to an end for the year, so that means the showcase is just around the corner (Facebook event here), and the seventh installation of Burn After Reading is back on Friday at the Gallery Cafe, where I’ll be reading as well.

That’ll do for now! Cheers.

The Invention of Snow

snow n. (1) the day struck dumb
hoarse months succumb to
bed-rest numb like cotton-wool
(2) dusty murals to morning
get your gloves mum says look
don’t touch (3) cake-mix draped
in folds upon uneven roads the sun
cranes over the clouds shoulder
to lick the bowl (4) matchstick limbs
wrapped in the paramedics
emergency blanket (5) a nice idea
(6) a blank canvas building blocks
balled in supple palms
jejune schema of a family of three
v. (7) the big boys come
brick praxis   the taste of war
turns sour the blunt
clatter of compacted ice on skull
n. (8) a patch scavenged in remains
stained red with mud (9) the decay
of months and januarys
optimism the slurry in the gutter

~

From “What we thought was true” – the Barbican Young Poets’ anthology 2012-13

Lethologica

Credit: Susana Sanroman

Here’s the poem on Kumquat: http://kumquatpoetry.tumblr.com/post/48109336668/lethologica-by-cameron-brady-turner

I read this recently at March’s ‘Brain Waves’ Barbican Weekender arranged to celebrate advances in neuroscience and the human mind. I offered up this on dreams. As someone who thinks in words, dreams often feel like they are hiding more than they let on – like coming across a word you’re familiar with but can’t remember the meaning to, or experiencing that tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon where you can’t find the word to articulate what you mean. That’s what this poem’s weird aesthetic attempts to capture. It was good fun reading on the day alongside visual art put together by Reza Ben Gajra; there was Blair Witch footage, ominous plug-holes and skulls.

And happy world poetry day, all! Come to the Barbican on the 27th and I’m reading a much less obscure but similarly unwieldy poem about going to Alpha meetings as a fresher. It’ll be good. http://t.co/leQJjVedAD