Questions and Answers

Questions and Answers

Q. How do I find out what sort of poems The Rialto publishes? So I can select from my poems ones that they’ll like. A. The answer to that used to be simply buy the magazine and read it. However recent issues (96, 98, 100) have been guest edited (by Degna Stone, Edward...
Machine poems

Machine poems

‘…when I write about being a cyborg, I challenge reality’ —The Cyborg Jillian Weise, ‘How a Cyborg Challenges Reality’ (The New York Times) ‘Every sexuality has a knowledge and technology and every new way/to move beasts from one crate to another produces a metaphor’...
Crow drop

Crow drop

A radio show I sometimes tune into has a long-running feature where listeners write in about objects that have fallen on them from out of the sky – a slice of white bread, an unopened Mars Bar, jar lids and bottle caps, once (or did I imagine it?) a lady’s watch....
HOME (FOR A MONTH) IN GRASMERE

HOME (FOR A MONTH) IN GRASMERE

In March this year it was my great fortune to stay in Grasmere with the Wordsworth Trust as their poet in residence. The reach of the Trust is huge and I would urge anyone who doesn’t know about them to find out: https://wordsworth.org.uk/ The brief for the residency...
Magic in the reeds

Magic in the reeds

Magic in the reeds: A day at Wicken Fen with Professor Nick Davies by Alexandra Davis   “And I …will … Show thee a jay’s nest, and instruct thee how To snare the nimble marmoset. I’ll bring thee To clustering filberts, and sometimes I’ll get thee Young scamels...
On Let’s Dance

On Let’s Dance

I wanted to write about David Bowie’s Let’s Dance album for the Rialto Cold Fire pamphlet, primarily because it features the song ‘Modern Love’, one of my favourite songs to dance to. Never going to fall for (Modern Love) Walks beside me (Modern Love) Walks on by...
Diamond Dogs Rule OK

Diamond Dogs Rule OK

Writing The Hounds and their Half-Hound Master Bowie’s Diamond Dogs was originally meant to be a sprawling stage show – a glam rock dystopia on roller skates. Its heady post-apocalyptic imagery and dramatic shifts in mood and tone certainly give it the feel of...
On ‘Station to Station’

On ‘Station to Station’

On ‘Station to Station’ Station to Station is my favourite David Bowie album, and it seemed the natural starting point when I was asked to write a poem about the Dame. Its immediate successor, Low, is the better, more important record but Station to Station has this...
On ‘Lady Stardust’

On ‘Lady Stardust’

When commissioning pieces for the original Bowieoke event, I decided to give the other poets their pick of Bowie albums to write on, and to choose my own from among those left. It came as a welcome surprise that 1972’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the...