Poetry
I have written poetry for over 25 years and became particularly interested in Performance Poetry when I did my dissertation on the topic in 2007 for my Joint Honours BA in Creative Writing and Writing For Stage, Screen and Radio. I have performed at a variety of events and venues since then, including theatres, art galleries, pubs, markets, festivals, variety cabarets, universities, parades and on BBC Radio Manchester. I have a chapbook coming out in early 2025 with Written Off Publishing entitled '1000 Years'.
Cut It Out & Smash It Up
This performance fuses cut-up poetry, live art, audience participation, exorcising the ghosts of a painful past, extreme catharsis and smashing plates with a hammer. Its first version was created for the Arts and Homelessness International showcase at the end of my Associate Leadership Programme, with the audience making cut-up poems from mystery envelopes of lines of my various poems about homelessness whilst I read lines aloud from plates and smashed them with a hammer. It's second version, performed at Short Supply Manchester's Scratch! involved a live wall painting with the audience after the plate smashing. I feel like this idea has so much potential and cannot wait to see where it goes next.
Not Like It's Gonna Kill You
Broadly Speaking, 2023.
It's A Poem, Duh!
International Women's Day, Girl Gang Manchester & The Met Theatre, 2023.
He's The One
Birds and Words, Leigh Spinners Mill, 2023.
The Loos Of The Noughties
Selina Helliwell Productions & Manchester Art Gallery, 2023.
CW: Adult themes & language.
Floorboards
'When She's At Home', Arts & Homelessness & Old Diorama Arts Centre, 2024.
CW: Adult language.
Mancunians Are Waterproof
Open Mind's 12th Birthday, Peer Hat, 2024.
CW: Adult language.
Can't Win (Clean Version)
WOW Fest, AVIVA Studios & Factory International, 2023.
1000 Years
GRT History Month, CultureDale, Leeds GATE & Halifax Market, 2024.
More Pride, Less Fall
Bi Pride Main Stage, University of West London, 2024.