WITH MUSICIANS

I have worked a lot with different musicians. I was part of the poetry, voice and harp quartet ‘Phoenix’; and in addition to the DAISI and Phoenix work I have also worked with a cellist, a guitarist, a drummer and a keyboard player on compositions and performances.

IN THEATRE

Plymouth Theatre Royal Union Street Project

I was one of a number of poets (others were John Moat, Selima Hill and Lawrence Sail) commissioned to write poems to form part of the exhibition for this theatre project, a performance linked to bringing one of the older parts of the town into focus; and to appear on Plymouth buses. (Plymouth is a port town, and Union Street has a certain reputation.)

All Out Performing Arts Company

In the early days of my freelance career I worked briefly alongside theatre practitioner friend and colleague Julian Barnicoat. My task was to research and create the narrative line for a community play at Brentor village, on the edge of Dartmoor, based on the history and legends centred around Brentor’s volcanic hill (for those of you who are interested, this is a St Michael’s hill, marking a significant ley alignment that can be traced from Greece via Europe to St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall, then passing through such sites as Glastonbury on its way across England). Julian then wrote the script.

WITH OTHER WRITERS

A Hawk Into Everywhere and The Present Where

One of the most exciting collaborations in which I’ve been involved was an email exchange with friend and colleague Rupert Loydell. We agreed to create between us 100 prose poems of 100 words exactly (plus envoi) in 100 days. We achieved this, and the results were published as A Hawk Into Everywhere. We followed this with a shorter looser project.

Rupert and I also worked on a 3-way long poem with Bob Garlitz in the States.

I am currently (October 2007) also collaborating with another American poet, Jeff Sheppard.