Poetic Peckham

This Friday we saw NEW HOPE FOR THE DEAD in a hay barn amphitheatre in a carpark in Peckham. I like seeing people climb into windows made of hay and then fall back out. I like Campari cocktails and cheap white wine spiked with elderflower cordial even more. The night was one of good smells, end of the world viewscapes, backward caps, pulled up socks, and poems about YouTube sensations and the arts cuts.

The night is a literary review hosted by Florence Welch and Stuart Hammond. They had seven living writers read words they had written before reading words by someone dead. The readers were Sam Buchan-Watts, Rachael Allen, Matthias 'Wolfboy' Connor, Sam Riviere, Heather Phillipson and Craig Brown.

Thinking about the internet often makes me want to cry so I'm not sure how I feel about writing about it. The poets Rachael Allen and Sam Riviere managed to do just that very beautifully and succinctly. You can read Sam Riviere here and Rachael Allen just below.

Random

Boxxy you are the home of the anonymous.
I liked to read on you all my false news
it went across your head like
The Financial District and how you glowed
with it. I got tipex and painted you
as an angel on my childhood rucksack
and wore you proudly to school

you’ve got the kind of fame of girls
Who killed other girls in childhood
I wonder if you’ve ever seen lamposts
In LA? Do they have crabs where you are?
Sometimes everyone thinks you’re dead.
I saw a rainbow today but it had nothing
on you. Your eyes held entire months
of teenage summers when my skin smelt
of a scented diary from the garden centre
or an Impulse set from Safeways
anyway I think where we lost you was
somewhere in the Californian sun squint and glare