Realtime Notes Volume Two is out today. To mark the occasion, I have secured an interview with myself, which you can read below. Volume Two is available here for £10 plus p&p, or you can buy the two-volume set for £15.
Congratulations on releasing Volume Two of Realtime Notes. Can you incredibly briefly sum up the project?
Yes, it’s a series of poems written in rapid response to current events, both personal and political. I write at least one a day and haven’t missed a day in two years, two months and seven days. I post them on Instagram.
Do the books contain all the poems?
No, more like half of them. Volume One covers the first year, Volume Two covers the second. Including all of them would have made for two cumbersome tomes and a laborious read. Stripping it back means you keep the narrative flow, but tighten it up. The poems are in chronological order, so it’s like reliving the year as it happened.
Is Volume Two better than Volume One?
Maybe – it’s slightly thicker because I wanted to keep more poems in. And the plot lines are dramatic: US midterms, the release of the Mueller report, the fall of Theresa May, the rise of Boris Johnson, the testimony of Christine Blasey-Ford, the deaths of John McCain, Doris Day and Jamal Khashoggi, spies in Salisbury, shootings in Christchurch, a fire at Notre Dame and a trip to Trump Tower.
What are your favourite individual poems?
Hard to say, but I quite like this one I wrote on my birthday last year. I like poems that mix the mundane and humdrum with the existential and geopolitical.
In terms of likes, the most popular poems tend to be the angry ones, like this one I wrote when Boris Johnson was on the verge of winning the Tory leadership.
And the death poems are always popular, if that’s the right word. There’s something about writing and reading those poems in-the-moment that turns it into a different experience. (Sorry about the bad photos by the way.)
It doesn’t matter. So why should people buy these books?
I hope poetry and non-poetry people will get something from it. For anyone who thinks of poetry as difficult and impenetrable, it should be refreshing as most are quick to read as well as write. But I think it’s also a dense and rich text that’s full of wordplay and formal elements that reward repeat reading. Because of the nature of the project, it contains all the stuff of life – from putting the bins out to joining a protest march, sitting in a soft play centre to visiting Trump Tower. There’s comedy, slapstick, sadness, melancholy, joy, rage, love, loss. Plus lots of Brexit.
Will there be a Volume Three?
I don’t know. I’m still writing so I suppose those poems will have to go somewhere. I like doing it and feel like there’s more to do. It started in a random and unplanned way and I suspect it will end similarly.
How did you print them?
I bought a book in the Penguin Modern Classics paperback series and found a printer credit – a company called Clays in the UK. They’re surprisingly approachable and happy to work with indie publishers. I really like the production of the book – feels like pleasingly decent quality, but also functional and straightforward. The content is the main thing and the books are intended as a rough-and-ready vehicle for it.
Are the books available in all good bookshops?
No – only from asburyandasbury.com/shop. I haven’t figured out how distribution works and will happily take advice if there are any experts out there. The National Poetry Library and British Library have copies, so I have some baseline literary credibility.
Any events or readings coming up?
No – I did a talk at D&AD Manchester and the Off The Shelf Literature Festival in Sheffield and enjoyed both. So I’m looking for other opportunities and open to suggestions.
Thanks for making the time for this.
No problem. I’ll just go and take a bad photo of the Bercow poem to finish.