“A kind of anti-Laureate who makes Philip Larkin sound life affirming” Robert Lloyd Parry, Ham & High
Paul describes perfectly the benefits of becoming a poet in this poem:
Work-Shy Writer
You get lazy people
in any field, I write poems
instead of novels. You start
at nine and finish at half
past and have the rest of
the day to yourself. Money’s
crap though.
Paul Birtill, 1998
Terrifying Ordeal: Poems
The crap salary did not deter Paul, who writes plays as well as verse and has had several poetry collections published.
However, I eventually retired from performance poetry due to recurring bouts of stage fright and a lack of dependable income. (I became a hypnotherapist instead.)
If you’ve ever found yourself saying “I don’t have time to write!” then poetry could be for you. It doesn’t have to take up much of your time. Radge Poet Ian Allsopp once wrote this little gem:
Do One Word Poems Work?
Yes.
I’ve made a short film of me performing one of my old poems to show you how easy it can be. (If you don’t have time to make video of your poem did you know you can create an audio download instead, in just 60 minutes?)
A poet finds delight
In the empty sky at night
The stars don’t shine they glitter
The birds don’t sing they twitter
The sun don’t beam it radiates
The rain don’t rain it contemplates
The worms that wriggle
When bluebells giggle
And rinses out our yesterdays
To make room for tomorrow
The city’s a hive of activity
Of multicultural intensity
And humans contain astounding extremes
Of venomous lies and heavenly dreams
These are fractions of fiction and things still unwritten
And writings a bug that has to be bitten
If you can never completely describe it, you know it
You know you are thinking a bit like a poet!