DIY Poets Quarterly Gig At The Maze 8th February 2018 Reviewed By Frank McMahon First up was co compere Sue Allen who did some poems that she described as “being out of her comfort zone,” with lots of word play. Poems such as No Place for Poets with its image of “crushed between bus stop and litter bin” created vivid and sad images. I was also particularly impressed by Burning Through Skin. The night’s other compere Andrew Martin delivered a…
DIY Poets started fifteen years ago with the production of issue 1 of our free A6 zine. We wanted more people to read poetry. I had never seen anyone read a book of poetry on the train. We put the zines out in local bars and cafes. We got Arts Council funding for our first couple of years. We originally met monthly in the Peacock on Mansfield Road. Another aim of DIY Poets is to encourage poets to submit their…
A Poetry Collection by Andrew Martin ‘Andrew is a poet with strong political beliefs and a massive environmental and social conscience, which shines through in his poetry. He writes from the heart with a deep sense of integrity, and his poems are instantly recognisable, with a wit and wisdom that allows him to discuss big ideas in ways that are still fully accessible. Whether he’s talking about birch trees or global migration, fox hunting or bras, the British weather or…
By Lytisha Tunbridge Full of the excitement of the successful launch of Every Last Biscuit, I decided that it was the time to branch out and take myself, and my pamphlet on tour. Abroad. So, just before Christmas I hopped on a train over to Brussels and secured myself a slot at Speakeasy, the monthly spoken word event. I happened on the Christmas Special so the event was somewhat larger than normal and there were about 150 people packed into…
RAPTURE by CAROL ANN DUFFY PICADOR 2005 (PAPERBACK) You know how we all have favourite books, that we come back to time and again, well for me Rapture is one of those. I’m not usually fan of love poems, I find them insincere and overly sweet. But Duffy finds a way of exploring love in all its many forms without turning to syrup. For example, she can demonstrate a reawakening of love: “I found the words at the back of…
The first Derby Poetry Festival took place in November organised by Derbys Wordwise promoter, Jamie Thrasivoulou and DIY member, Trevor Wright. With support from Derby News and Derby City Council, it featured a variety of poetry workshops, open mics , junior and adult poetry competitions and headline poets. Writing East Midlands and Derby Live kindly supported an afternoon of refugee poetry at the Guildhall where the excellent anthology Riding on Solomons Carpet was launched, from the Write Here Sanctuary project,…
I have a serious Amazon habit – I know it’s contentious but there you have it, can’t stop reading and it’s so easy to order from Amazon… At the moment, I’m reading Carpentaria by Alexis Wright, who’s an Australian Aborigine writer. It’s kind of magic realism writing, really absorbing, a long read, and not a particularly easy read but fascinating. I’m loving it though it’s taking me a long time to get through it – some of it is so…
The Perils of Optimism by Frank McMahon This is the ninth volume of poetry from Nottingham’s ‘Bard of the Brief’, DIY poet’s founder Frank McMahon. A very prolific writer over the years (he confesses to having written over two thousand five hundred poems) his talent show no sign of waning. Written in easily digestible bite-sized chunks, the topics addressed in this collection range from Christmas in the trenches to cars with KKK number plates, from running to Heinz baked beans….