I have written 100s of poems but only some are on this website. However, there isn’t a great deal of interest in poems I have found. Most interest is in full length novels. They take a long time to write.
It took me a long time to realise what sort of poetry I was writing. I was introduced to confessional poetry at uni in 2015/8. I realised most of mine was confessional poetry. However, I don’t want to put all that online free for all to read. So where do you draw the line? I could put on some of my beat/avant-garde poetry, but where does it cross the line into personal? My poems often feature political comment. But since 2020 I woke up big time and, I didn’t realise then, my views are controversial, or not, who really knows now? Also, a lot of my old ideas got thrown out of the window. See other articles on this website to find out what I’m talking about. Suffice to say, when you add political content, it’s possible some of ones old ideas can suddenly look very silly in light of new events. Finally, a lot of my poems are experimental and better not to have them all public. So many of my old poems are very naive.
My favorite poet as a kid was Edward Thomas. Then I liked Bukowski. I definitely like avant-garde poetry, modern stuff. I quite like Sophie Robinson‘s stuff. Some of the beat poetry (like Michael McClure) was ok, but the main bulk of the beat poets and their motivations trouble me.
When I write poems I don’t write pages and edit down, I grow the poem up. I’ve known some poets who write pages and whittle down into a few lines. I used to read my poems at events in London and Norwich. I did have a bunch on YouTube but that platform troubles me.
From 2020ish I was writing both wacky avant-garde and confessional poems. There were too many wacky ones but they were sprinkled with confessional also, not to mention political stuff. So, though I wrote a lot, some are crazy and I can’t sort the wheat from the chaff. Again, with the lack of demand I might aswell just keep all poems on my laptop and not put them online. See my misgivings about the website in general in the about section.
I actually find most of them unbearable. Perhaps it is me being very self-critical but when I check them out I feel most are terrible. Perhaps this is the perfectionist in me. The early stuff isn’t 100% bad the access course and uni stuff is all awful. Only 2018/9 was a bit better. Then 2020 blew my writing to bits. Gradually 2024 I’m feeling the ebb of poems coming back.
I did put all my poems in a self-published book called “SHATTER“