Publications

Poetry

A digitally designed Chapbook on H.P. Lovecraft’s landscapes, fiction and legacy.

‘Prepare to embark on an extraordinary voyage through the enigmatic realm of H.P. Lovecraft’s Arkham in this innovative chapbook. Crafted through a unique blend of artistic expression and technology, this daring work introduces readers to a captivating fusion of maps—concrete poems created by Lovecraft’s texts—and fragments of original poetry’ – Nat1 LLC

Wool and Iron – The Word’s Faire

Part of a wider collection based in the valleys and fields of West Yorkshire. Image by Horia Pop.

Two Poems – Stand Volume 22

Poems exploring the idea of time travelling luddites, and the Bronte sisters’ father.

King Ludd – Midway Journal Volume 18 Issue 2

Part of a collection examining the origin of the term Luddite and landscapes of West Yorkshire where it was formed.

Enoch’s Hammer – Threads of Time Anthology

A poem about the Luddite rebellion of 1812 and the sledgehammer workers used to destroy the machines.

Flying Pickets – Prole Issue 35

Part of a sequence examining the 1986 Wapping Dispute in which nearly 5000 workers were fired and a year-long industrial dispute followed.

Passing Through – Litfest Histories Poetry Map

A poem exploring the events and landscapes of the luddite rebellion of 1812 in Huddersfield.

Maps to Arkham (Exham Priory) – Internet Void

The final poem of a psychogeography-infused sequence looking at some of the most infamous landscapes in H.P. Lovecraft’s horror fiction.

Honeywood Sales – Audience Askew

Poem in the shape of a luxury flat bio. Featured in Audience Askew’s fourth issue.

ZX Spectrum – ANMLY

A visual sequence constructed from a ‘Quick Start Guide’ from a 1980s ZX Spectrum Computer. Published in ANMLY’s Issue 33.

….And the Pussy Cat – ArtAviso

Exhibited as part of ArtAviso’s Door to Door exhibition on found text responding to A Children’s Treasury of Verse.

Source – Streetcake Magazine

A visual poem appropriating late medieval texts from the British Library Archive. Published in Streetcake’s Issue 73, part 2.

Moonshot (extract) – Unlost Journal

Four poems from the Moonshot sequence feature in Unlost Journal’s Issue 25 Introduction to Palmistry.

Moonshot (extract) – Poem Atlas Refraction Exhibition

Two poems from the Moonshot sequence combining The Conservative Manifesto 2010 with an 1896 edition of Edward Leer’s Nonsense Poems.

Holy Art – Metamorphosis

Three poems from the Moonshot sequence which probed the boundaries of a visual form.

The Window – M58 Poetry

Based on a document from the parish records of Cockington village held by the South West Heritage Trust.

JET FATHER ACCOUNT – Lighthouse

Issue 21

A Metal Window Dictionary (lut lut lut extract) – MIR Online (March 2020)

A Metal Window Dictionary, A Village Manifesto, If the Latitude is Known, and As Coloured Green.

Outside the Court – Stand Magazine

Volume 18: 2

Five Ways to Read a Village – Post-Road

Volume 36

Beyond the Valley – Ope: An Anthology

Brittle Star

Issue 40

Envoi

Issue 174

Ink, Sweat and Tears

Other publications include Dreamcatcher,

Angle and Smoke

Essays

Maps to Arkham: Lovecraft, Landscape and Visual Poetry

The horror writer H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) is an enduring figure in contemporary genre writing and his legacy continues to shape the field of weird fiction. But he is a controversial character and, on a line by line level, a poor writer, and responding to his work prompts multiple challenges for the contemporary creative writer. My collection, Maps to Arkham, seeks to understand and disrupt this legendary figure through a series of visual poems which respond to Lovecraft’s attitudes towards language, walking and the landscape. This essay examines the artistic process of détournement, as theorized by the avant-garde Situationist group, and other visual poet’s approach to the concept, and contextualizes my own digital appropriation of Lovecraft’s fiction. This approach provides a framework by which experimental poetry can write through a historical figure, both confronting and parodying them, and poses questions for the role of design software in visual poetry.

Poetry and COVID-19: the benefit of poetry and the poetryandcovidarchive.com website to mental health and wellbeing

A co-authored article with Professor Anthony Caleshu and Dr Rory Waterman, published in Taylor and Francis’s Journal of Poetry Therapy.

From June 2020 to June 2021, the website poetryandcovid.com (now archived as poetryandcovidarchive.com) served as a platform for poetic responses by people from around the world to the COVID-19 pandemic. The site featured 1000+ poems by 600+ poets and received c. 100,000 views by people from 128 countries. The poetry, their author’s testimonials, as well as “comments” submitted to the organisers and public website, expressed how people felt during the pandemic. In the project’s final three months, the website hosted a survey adapted from the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS), targeted at understanding the value of poetry, in general, and the website, in particular, to mental health and wellbeing. 400 people took part, 373 completed the WEMWBS, and over 250 participants provided “final comments”. The results show that the writing and reading of poetry – as well as the website itself – were of considerable benefit to mental health and wellbeing.

Walking Through: Nostalgia, Mythogeography and the Rural Dérive in Peter Riley’s Alstonefield

Landscape poet Peter Riley uses the Situationist dérive in order to negotiate the cultural landscape of the British countryside, his collection Alstonefield (2002) forming a psychogeographic investigation into spaces of nostalgia, contradiction and pastoralism in British ruralism. This essay will argue that Riley adapts the urban dérive for a contemporary rural landscape, exploring the radicalisms of pastoral tropes and exposing the spectacle in British rural perceptions. Using the framework of Phil Smith Mythogeography, a contemporary theatrical adaption of the Situationist dérive, my aim is to explore the role of walking as a negotiation of rural spectacle within the wider Radical Landscape Poetry movement. Peer-reviewed journal article published by Taylor and Francis’s New Writing.