Poetry reading at The Troubadour, Brompton Road, London 25 Jun 2018

It was such a pleasure to perform again at Anne-Marie Fyfe's Coffee House Poetry night at The Troubadour. Places for the reading are given by invitation only, and this was the last night of the season till October. I was thrilled to be reading alongside journalist Mark Hubbard, who prior to delivering his poem "Public Property" gave an anecdote about the time he once interviewed Colonel Gaddaffi ("Mark you're sweating, are you frightened of me?") It was also a joy to hear and read alongside rising newcomer Katarina Grabowski.

The theme of the evening was Silence, poems along that theme. I read my poem Cut Up: "the silent scream of images too terrible to be unseen". I dedicated the poem to Tamir Rice and Antwon Rose. Today would have been Tamir Rice's 16th birthday, and today was 17 year old Antwon Rose's birthday. Both unarmed boys were shot by policemen (Tamir Rice when he was only 12) that had previously been deemed unsuitable and unstable to work on the police force. Both officers falsified documents to get a job with a new police department. Officer Michael Rosfeld who shot Antwon Rose three times, had only been sworn in to that department three hours previously. These senseless murders have in part been caught by footage obtained by mobile phones, they've been picked up and shown over and over again in our 24 hour news cycle and are instantly accessible on social media.

While I hope this raw footage brings the murderers to justice, this also means sometimes someone's last moments on earth, filled with fear, can be scrolled over, retweeted, and even put on mute. In the smallest of ways I was glad to remember Antwon and Tamir, and I was reassured that the audience tonight at The Troubadour shared my feelings, and was gratified by audience members that came up and discussed it with me afterwards.