Shakespeare and Company, Paris 26 Jan 2015

Shakespeare and Company is steeped in literary history and it had been an ambition and milestone in my literary career to have performed a 30 minute set there with such an enthusiastic response.

The poetry reading was held in the library upstairs, where William Burroughs researched and started writing Naked Lunch. I was reading with the wonderful poet Heather Hartley. Heather read first, and I really enjoyed listening to her work, it's lovely and lyrical. She was reading from her books Knock Knock and her latest volume Adult Swim. I then did my set, and recited poems from Rocking Underground, along with two new poems, Into The Garden, and Euphoric Kiss. Afterwards I signed copies of Rocking Underground which are now also available from Shakespeare and Company. It was an amazing night I really enjoyed and will carry it with me for a long time.

It was first opened by Sylvia Beach in 1919, where it attracted bohemians and writers such as Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, Ford Maddox Ford, and James Joyce. Sylvia Beach was responsible for getting Joyce's Ullysses published, considered obscene, it was continuously rejected, and Beach triumphed only when she found a French printer that didn't speak English.

After the war it was reopened by George Whitman opposite Norte Dame George allowed writers, poets and artists to live at the bookshop in return they would help maintain and work at the shop. Thus, it became a literary focal point attracting many of the Beat Generation poets such as Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and the likes of Henry Miller and Anais Nin.

Shakespeare and Company is now run by George's luminous daughter Sylvia (named after Sylvia Beach) and she continues the tradition of allowing writers known as "Tumbleweeds' to live and work at the store. As well as holding regular poetry readings and book signings, she holds a biennial literary festival, FestivalandCo.