Tom Warner

Tom Warner and Sean Wai Keung (+ open mic)

Odds were,
your one would always be
the one in a thousand
born with the feet turned,
tipped like horse’s hooves.
Two to one said,
this one, laid for months
with plastered legs,
would be a son.
But here is my girl;
correction and provenance.
And my girl will be a salt
never trodden
beneath the feet
of men.

Some memories are honed and barbed
and finished to a crystal point to catch
a smell of grass, a synonym of love.
Others come like mice to kitchens,
unlatching bones to slip inside.
Of course you cannot let them stay,
tiptoeing on those pink and padded feet,
or sitting back on naked tails
to palm the fur around their ears,
but you’ll never stop them coming back
to this warmth and these crumby scraps.

Your name comes up between the words;
thinking time in the fluent writing
of narrow streets and stand-up cafes.
It goes like a bat above a garden,
not quite quick enough to be unnoticed.
You are the rumour no one wants to hear,
a conspiracy between the receptionist
and whoever else is on the other end.
They shake you out on a table cloth,
smooth you from a son’s smart clothes
and stitch you into fraying pockets.
Your name is mentioned at least once
every half an hour on commercial radio.
It seems you’ve made headline news
and play some part in the coming weather.

To celebrate these publications, Tom & Sam will be reading from their work and having a few drinks.
TAKE 5, 17 TOMBLAND, NORWICH NR3 1HF

TUESDAY 15 APRIL, 2014
7.30pm

Click here for news and photos of the Orchestra Live! Music Mix concert at Yarmouth Hippodrome. The concert included a performance of ‘Sixty Yards Over No Man’s Land’, with music written by Guy Barker, and words written by students of Wymondham College and Langley School and arranged by Tom Warner.

Tom has been working with students from Langley School and Wymondham College for the BBC and Orchestras Live, in collaboration with musician and composer Guy Barker.

The MusicMix project will culminate in two live concerts and a feature on BBC Radio 3 in Spring 2014 to commemorate the centenary of the start of the First World War.

Tom Warner would like to thank Najwan Darwish, Ahdaf Soueif, Omar Hamilton and everyone involved in the Palestine Festival of Literature 2013.

Tom read and conducted workshops in Jerusalem, Ramallah and Birzeit as part of PalFest 2013.

In this unique event Cheltenham Poetry Festival present a reading by Tom Warner and a showing of a film inspired by the poem by Alice Oswald, made by Marc Tiley. Click here for more details.

Click here to read Tom Warner’s British Council blog article about his recent trip to Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Dear World & Everyone In It is a ground-breaking new poetry anthology presenting the work of over 60 of the most talented and interesting young poets currently writing in the UK. Chosen by one of the country’s leading young poetry editors, inspired by American precedents, and growing out of The Rialto‘s recent series of young poets features curated by Nathan Hamilton, it is the first British anthology to attempt to define a generation through a properly representative cross-section of work and a fully collaborative editorial process.

Dear World & Everyone In It is an indispensable summary or starting map for anyone wanting to explore and enjoy more of the current UK poetry landscape or seeking to better understand what’s going on out there.

Featuring: Tom Warner, Rachael Allen, Andrew Bailey, Emily Berry, Ben Borek, Siddhartha Bose, Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, James Byrne, Stuart Calton, Tom Chivers, Tim Cockburn, Becky Cremin, Emily Critchley, Joe Crot, Patrick Coyle, Amy De’Ath, Laura Elliott, Stephen Emmerson, Amy Evans, Ollie Evans, S.J. Fowler, Miriam Gamble, Jim Goar, Matthew Gregory, Elizabeth Guthrie, Emily Hasler, Oli Hazzard, Colin Herd, Holly Hopkins, Sarah Howe, Tom Ironmonger, Meiron Jordan, Katharine Kilalea, Sarah Kelly, Luke Kennard, Laura Kilbride, Michael Kindellan, Agnes Lehoczky, Frances Leviston, Eireann Lorsung, Chris McCabe, Michael McKimm, Fabian Macpherson, Toby Martinez de las Rivas, mendoza, James Midgley, Marianne Morris, Camilla Nelson, Kei Miller, Tamarin Norwood, Richard Parker, Sandeep Parmar, Holly Pester, Heather Phillipson, Kate Potts, Nat Raha, Sam Riviere, Sophie Robinson, Hannah Silva, Angus Sinclair, Marcus Slease, Andy Spragg, Ben Stainton, Keston Sutherland, Jonty Tiplady, Emily Toder, Simon Turner, Jack Underwood, Ahren Warner, Rachel Warriner, James Wilkes and Steve Willey.

Tom has two poems in the current issue of the Indian magazine, The Caravan.

ABOUT THE CARAVAN

The country’s first and only publication devoted to narrative journalism, The Caravan occupies a singular position among Indian magazines. Our stories present a unique mix of detailed reporting, lively and vivid writing, and a commitment to the art of storytelling whether the subject is politics, culture, travel or art.

Click here to read George Szirtes’ blog on ‘Under Natural History‘.

Tom Warner and Esther Morgan will be reading for Poetry Unbound 2 at The Forum, Norfolk and Norwich Millennium Library on 20 August 2012, 6pm – 8pm. entry is free and refreshments will be available.

Thursday 26th April 2012 – 7pm at Europe House, 32 Smith Square, London SW1P

Damir Sodan – Tomica Bajsic – Dorta Jagic – Ivan Herceg – Sonja Manojlović

Jeff Hilson – Tom Warner -– Tim Atkins – Mark Waldron – Marcus Slease – Andy Spragg – Claire Potter – Saradha Soobrayen – Joe Kennedy

Click here to visit the Sabotage website and read Sean Hewitt’s review of the Escalator winners reading at CB1 in Cambridge on 28 February 2012.

Tom’s poem ‘Day Thirty-Two’ has won The Plough Prize 2011. You can read the winning poem and others at The Plough Prize website here.

Imagine the art of doodling dies out
with the corded phone and the message pad
on which we explore the storm of a signature
or idly draw our own prisons.

Fully digital, there’ll be no escape,
from double history or the monthly team meeting,
aboard sailboats bound for those desert islands
we discover in the margins of a page.

How will we visit our corners without the pyramids
and chessboards of these unfocused sketches?
Lost in the spaghetti junction of ourselves,
afloat in our think bubbles.

Tom’s poem ‘Toe’ will appear in the anothology Body of Work: 40 Years of creative Writing at UEA (Full Circle Editions) to be launched in London on 1 December 2012.

I spent National Poetry Day (yesterday) at St. Augustine’s Priory School in Ealing, West London. I was at the school for a reading and Q&A with sixth form students, followed by a workshop with Year 9s. The students asked some interesting questions about constraint and the creative process.

In July I was asked to write a poem for an anthology celebrating forty years of creative writing at the University of East Anglia. I’d bumped into the Creative Writing Professor in Norwich and he’d asked if I’d have a go at writing in response to a Derek Mahon poem called ‘Head’. Mahon’s ‘Head’ would appear last in the anthology and my poem, should I choose to take up the challenge, should be titled ‘Toe’ and would appear first; a kind of top and tail, or tail and top. So, ‘Toe’… and it needed to be about inspiration/creation, either stubbing a toe or building a golem beginning with the toe. So, ‘Toe’… and I had little over two weeks to write it. Two weeks in which I was working in schools and away at Latitude. Not long. So, ‘Toe’…

A few days from the deadline I considered requesting an extension, but, as I said yesterday, deadlines are good, as are constraints on subject; they squeeze and steer the writing. I still don’t know how I feel about my ‘Toe’. It’s kind of mine and not mine, but it is there.

Thank you to the students and teachers at St. Augustine’s for an excellent National Poetry Day. Here’s ‘Toe’.

Toe

It makes sense to start with the toe and work up.
I pull off my sock to check my own dumb digit,
get a sense of proportion, follow tendons and joints
to the nub that’s furthest from my head and mouth.
It’s best not to think too much, just get something down:
a big toe from which to build the foot, the shin, the head.
I warm a pound or so of clay between my clammy hands
and roll out the capital letter of his body’s first line.

When he’s complete, I’ll prop a ladder against his chest
to scratch a title into the bluish slab of forehead,
then wait for him to move a toe or suck up breath.
Tonight I’ll lead him, broad-backed, into your city,
leave him to sleep in oily lock-ups and walk the streets
with nothing but this poem rolled beneath his tongue.

After an excellent week working with students and teachers for Stalham High School’s literature festival last month, I’m honoured to be adopted as the school’s honorary poet. I look forward to working with Stalham again in the new academic year.

Click here to read Molly Naylor’s article on the Well Versed project at The Rialto blog.

Well Versed was a pilot project of poets working with teachers to improve the presentation of poetry in primary and secondary schools. Tom and Molly Naylor and students and teachers at West Earlham Primary, Wicklewood Primary and North Walsham High.

Tom has two new poems appearing in the inaugural issue of the North Chicago Review due out in Summer 2011.