Hold your nose and try it
 

I have learned more about myself by what I’ve posted here on the Sphere than I can recall having learned anywhere else, including decades of academic education but excluding marriage.

Which brings me to this thread: the twitter poetry of Brian Bilston. I have been following his poetry on twitter for the past few months – I know very little else about him – and think he is a true new genre poet. I would think John Whitworth will not be impressed (sorry John, but I just can’t imagine). But others... I am a dogged social media skeptic but I know what I like (poetry) and it keeps changing.

I'd like to know what poets here on the Sphere think of him. Try him. Go ahead. Hold your nose and try him. You might be pleasantly surprised.

https://twitter.com/brian_bilston

I gave it ten minutes and found him amusing and interesting. I mean, he's not a genius or anything, but I did "follow" him.

I can't see or hear him because there's a box asking me to sign in that obscures the onscreen text. I'll see if I can track him down elsewhere on t'interwebz. Perhaps, though, he is like unto the young man I introduced on the Flyting thread.

https://www.facebook.com/tomfoolery2...7980169950946/

I commented there on the new wave in performance poetry but can't copy it here because it rhymes.

He has a web page, which may be a more convenient way to read him than via Twitter: brianbilston.com

I didn't know about the Twittering, but Brian Bilston had a very entertaining piece, Book Group, in Lighten Up Online 29, March 2015.

Annie, it's only members' own poetry that can't be posted in a GT thread.

I'm looking forward to reading some of Brian Bilston's poems; thanks for the link to his website, Brian W.

Jayne

Roger, that's what I get from him. Cleverness and a nice way with words.

Ann, try the website Brian includes in his post. Hope this link below works for you...

Jerome, I will check that piece out. I much prefer his twitterish approach to poetry over the slams and rap poets I've heard/read. I think he has a bit of cummings in him. But I am guarding against what I suspect might be glibness and flippancy.

What got me interested in him was this piece:

https://brianbilston.files.wordpress...3/img_4817.jpg

It expresses the confluence of Trumpism and Russian hacking of our election process in the 2016 election in a form shape poem. I thought it was clever and still do.

Am I allowed not to do handsprings? He sounds like a really good, and very self-conscious, high school poet. (Added in) And I do like the Trump one you reference above. But too much of the rest is clever, but not all that good.

No handsprings required. Just snap your fingers : )

Not the high school poets I've encountered. They are mostly incomprehensible. Besides, even Shelley was a high school poet once...
But I get a similar feeling about his writing as you do. I wondered how others would react.
At least it's a welcome break from some of the other tweeters. At least it's poetry.

"I hope that our lips
get stucker and stucker"

elicited a genuine smile. I am afraid that is as far as I can go :o

Jennifer

Jim, Since you asked . . .

Don't you just love that studied pose with the pipe? :D

Doesn't he just look the poet/philosopher? ;)

Isn't that "ceci n'est pas un poème" personal statement simply TOO COOL? :rolleyes:

Well, at least he got something right! :p

Hey Jim,

I just spent 20 minutes on the Twitter thread you linked to. I think he's funny, charming, clever and with a heart clearly in the right place. It would be a churlish chap who thought he wasn't making the social media swamp a better place.

Thanks.

Yes, I feel as you do, Mark. The murk of social media does nothing to advance ideas, find solutions or forge new perspectives -- but poetry does. It is at the very least admirable that Bilston uses it to cut through the muck.

This was the first poem I read by him and, although I don't go in for clever "now read this backwards" poetry (Ha! I remember a poem you posted where someone pointed out that yours could be read from end to beginning - Ha!) But I found this one the exception:
Yes, I feel as you do, Mark. The murk of social media does nothing to advance ideas, find solutions or forge new perspectives -- but poetry does. It is at the very least admirable that Bilston uses it to attempt to cut through the muck.

This below was the first poem I read by him and, although I don't go in for clever "now read this backwards" poetry (Ha! I remember a poem you posted where someone pointed out that yours could be read from end to beginning - Ha!) But I found this one the exception:

REFUGEES
They have no need of our help
So do not tell me
These haggard faces could belong to you or me
Should life have dealt a different hand
We need to see them for who they really are
Chancers and scroungers
Layabouts and loungers
With bombs up their sleeves
Cut-throats and thieves
They are not
Welcome here
We should make them
Go back to where they came from
They cannot
Share our food
Share our homes
Share our countries
Instead let us
Build a wall to keep them out
It is not okay to say
These are people just like us
A place should only belong to those who are born there
Do not be so stupid to think that
The world can be looked at another way

(now read from bottom to top)

Catherine, Yes, I wonder if that's him or not - Avatars are all the rage these days, you know. I think it's all tongue-in-cheek. He's playing with the poet stereotype/persona.

OMG, I love him already. His work is brilliant!

And where, I ask you, Jim, was the public outcry against that one, as met that poor soul suffering at The Nation? :o