Outside The One Stop

This week I am chuffed that a my 52 (“highstreet” theme, week 8) poem, Outside The One Stop,  is on the Morning Star’s poetry section HERE.

I’m also mega-incredibly excited that next week Hollie McNish is coming to ConFab Cabaret here in Malvern on Wednesday 18 June (Oliver’s Bar, Belle Vue Terrace, Great Malvern, WR14 4PZ).

Here she is doing poems that have gone viral on YouTube:

 

Fabulous events are like buses: wait for ages and then two arrive at once. So, on the same night ConFab hosts Hollie McNish, John Cooper Clarke is performing in Colwall, just over the hill.

A couple of years ago I heard a poem (on the radio? I really can’t remember) and thought, ‘That’s the same rhythm and form as John Cooper Clarke’s “Evidently Chickentown” using repetitive profanity to beat home the monotony of a dismal existence.’

Here’s the fabulous Christopher Ecclestone rendition:

I finally tracked it down today with a bit of googling. Here’s an interview where he mentions it. And here is the precursor poem, from WWII.