TO REMEMBER premiered at Unit 2 Gallery, St Leonards, for World AIDS Day on 1 December 2025. The quilt made by Erica Smith, features my poem to commemorate the known and unknown, the remembered and unremembered.
The quilt is made from donated clothing and textiles. It includes items related to those who died from HIV Aids. The last square is intentionally left open.
The poem reads:
To remember how he did not want a square on the quilt and hope that after all this time he forgives you for writing this in his memory.
“I never went to a football match with my dad, but after taking in these raw and inspiring pieces, he was suddenly stood beside me on the Oak Road End taking in the black and white Hatters for the first time.” John Hegley
To Wake Up In The Promised Land is a series of tablet poems sharing a personal story of Luton Town’s fairytale promotion to the Premier League in 2023, and of my Dad’s death from Lung Cancer.
The tablet poem format is inspired by Franck Andre Jamme’s poetry book New Exercises. Jamme writes:
‘ Tablets like these used to be found on small gold leaves in ancient roman graves. These leaves were typically folded inside the closed hands or mouths of the dead. They could be read as maxims, wishes, recommendations, or favourite sentences probable meant to seal the crossing over to the other side, that totally unknown country wise existence itself is uncertain – The country of ‘ the most numerous’ as the romans called it.’
The beginnings of my dad’s illness coincided with the start of the new season, and he died just as Luton’s push towards promotion was building towards a climax. Dad had followed Luton all his life and so everything became, for me, one.
These are my tablets that I place for you dad, gentle into your hand.
“A completely compelling cryptic puzzle of a collection. The elation of an unlikely promotion is skilfully, and profoundly, intertwined with the untimely death of the speaker’s father…. The pithiness of these words is a gut-punch, but through the heartbreak, ultimately, love and hope shine through.”
Ashley Hickson-Lovence
Truth Street
Simple, powerful, moving. I don’t think any writing could get closer to the heart of that tragedy
Brian Patten
On 15 April 1989, during the opening minutes of the FA Cup semi-final between Nottingham Forest and Liverpool, 97 men, women and children died in what remains the most serious tragedy in UK sporting history the Hillsborough Stadium disaster. Thousands more suffered physical injury and long-term psychological harm.
For almost thirty years the survivors and the families of the dead campaigned against the police, government and media who blamed the supporters for the tragedy. Eventually, in 2016 a second inquest ruled that the supporters were unlawfully killed due to failures of the police and ambulance services.
Published by SmokeStack Books to mark the 30th anniversary of the disaster, Truth Street combines the eye-witness testimonies of the survivors at the second inquest to create an epic-poem that is part oral history and part documentary theatre. Inspired by the work of Charles Reznikoff and Svetlana Alexietich, Truth Street was first performed live in 2016 at Utter Lutonia and to a full-house at the 2017 Brighton Festival. This show as longlisted for the Burntwood Prize for Playwriting 2018.
In 2019 Truth Street was shortlisted for the prestigious Forward Prize for Best First Collection. The book also featured in The Guardian. You can read the reviews for Truth Street here.
Truth Street 