For the sake of posterity, I will (occasionally) update this page with one-off writings, events, performances or other hybrid pieces which I in some way had a hand in.
Two poems, 'A184 Hymn' and 'On Not Finding Bede', in landmark anthology, Land of Three Rivers, by Bloodaxe Books (November 2017)
The Eclipse - An incredible, people-powered tabloid: bringing non-mainstream media to the good people of Tyne & Wear
Singing the World: A Dawn Chorus at Cheeseburn Grange Sculpture Park, Northumberland, August and September 2017
Steps in Time was an app-based poem-walk of Newcastle and Gateshead, developed for the 2017 Newcastle Poetry Festival by NCLA. I wrote a poem about Newcastle's medieval Black Gate, called 'Pons Aelius City Limits'.
Stringing Bedes: A Poetry and Print Pilgrimage - Website here
TEDxTyneBridgeYouth. In 2013 I co-curated Newcastle and Gateshead's first youth-led TEDx event, helping young people in the region to develop TEDx talks on issues to do with social justice, feminism and entrepreneurship.
So (,) Shields
Older Stuff...
myheartinahashtag was a meta-flash-fictional story, written and produced collaboratively with my friend and fellow writer, Amy Mackelden. Commissioned for the new blog, A Wondrous Place, which explored what it means to work and live in 4 of the North’s key city zones – Tyne and Wear, Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield – we wrote a five-part open love letter to the North East, exploring notions of love, loss, longing, identity and belonging. You can read the full text, and view accompanying images, here.
One Day All of This Will be Fields was a one-off,
multidisciplinary performance piece which aired at the close of ‘I Don’t Think
We’ve Met’ – the collaborative performance evening which closed Trashed Organ’s
inaugural Festival of Belonging Fringe. Working with artist Helena Venaki, I
wrote a series of brief monologues, exploring and challenging notions of
memory, identity and place. We then spent a weekend gathering film and
photographs, and with the assistance of Helena’s sister, assembled the following
video. For the live performance, Helena’s friend, Hannah Costanzo, added a
level of theatrics to the piece, bringing it all, spine-tinglingly, to life.
The video above is the one we projected at the Bridge Hotel on the evening of the
performance. A transcript of the text is below.
April.
Dusk. Our Pearl Wedding. The ironing board left in the dining room. Steam still
rising in notes from the flower-patterned cover. A laundry basket stacked with
cotton shirts, leaning into the wall. Dregs of daylight slipping through blinds
tipped slightly. Hands drinking from a stream.
***
‘We’re
here, kids: Plankey Mill!’
Cross the wonky suspension bridge,
through a track in the forest, the sun not heavy enough to sink to the sticky
floor.
‘Did you bring your rods?’
Fishing in the river Allen. Dogs
swimming; tails like rudders.
A camping stove. A gas canister.
Fried sausages and cold beans straight from the tin. Ghost stories in the tent.
Shadow puppets by torchlight and nylon. An eagle; a butterfly; a rabbit.
***
‘You were
there, weren’t you? On the bus back from Land’s End? Your Dad had bought a bag
of mussels. He bit into them like pistachio nuts and chucked the shells out the
window. Had four pints of lager in the Ring O’Bells then drove the coach to Penzance.
Said if he got us lost we could always follow the trail of cracked, black
shells back to Sennen Cove and start again.’
***
‘The way
to judge the quality of beer is by how well it sticks to the glass as you drink
it.’
‘How do you know?’
‘You
want that pint pot to be lined with a fine, cosmic dust or the tree-rings of an
old Oak by the time you’re finished.’
‘Right.’
‘Do you want to play a game?’
‘Depends.’
‘What we do is put a handkerchief
over this glass and a penny in the middle, then, using a ciggy, we each take
turns to burn a hole in the hanky. Whoever makes the penny fall in the beer is
the loser. You can start.’
***
‘I was
born the year after the War finished. Course it was a shite time, but I didn’t
know. We made do with powdered eggs and pea soup and now there’s a whole shelf
of multicoloured cakes in that Tesco. Who’d have thought it: eggs, in the oven!’
***
‘Souter.
Aye, she’s a beauty to see when you come out of that pit at Marsden. That’s
what me Dad said, like. Here’s the knocker-up rapping on the window. Here’s the
sound of the kettle, whistling in the day. Here’s the sound of hob-nailed boots
clomp, clomp, clomping to the hall. Here’s the sound of my Mam puckering up;
the sneck creaking; the bolt un-twanged.’
‘Good morning, good morning!’
‘ Here’s
frost inside my window. Here’s the
knocker-up, rap, rap, rapping.’
***
‘Well,
I’m just—’
‘Are you lost?’
‘Don’t be daft! There’s the water
tower. I live over there. Just been walking the dog, if you know what I mean,
ha-ha!’
‘He’s lost, poor sod.’
‘One day, all of this will be
fields.’
‘Was
fields, you mean, Da?’
‘Peter? Is that you, son?’
‘That’s right. Fields. As far as the
eye could see. And one day…’
‘Don’t tell your Mam, she hates me
going to the pub in the afternoon.’
‘Hello? Ha.’
‘I’d walk miles with me Dad: we’d
often walk to Newcastle. We were fit as butchers’ dogs. Now? Well I’m just—’
‘New houses, eh? Racked them up
quick. There was nothing here, you know. Just field after field. One day, all
of this will be fields.’
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