MAT LLOYD

I'm a great believer in writing every day.  Whether it be a couple of lines or a whole poem, its all part of exercising my poetic muscle.  Sometimes these exercises will appear on line as a tweet or an Instagram post.  Not always good, often mediocre, sometimes awful, but I'm still glad I made the effort.  Some days I find it easy to put pen to paper but on others I struggle for inspiration.  There are a few tricks I have learnt to use and I'd like to share one with you.

Yesterday I was struggling to write anything coherent (insert joke here), the TV was off, no music, no internet and I just couldn't get my brain to settle.  I nearly gave up, ok I did.  I began randomly surfing reviews for 'Only Lovers Left Alive', a movie I'd watched the previous night.  On the films Wikipedia page I game across a review by Jonathan Romney.  He rounds off the review with;

"classy piece of cinematic dandyism that makes the Twilight cycle redundant in one exquisitely languid stroke."

Something about the poetic feel of the line that got the creative fire started.  I made a note of the line and then began surfing for more of his reviews.  I found a review of 'In Pursuit of Silence' and made a note of the line; "sabotages its own logic by slapping on an undistinguished new age-y score"

I was deep into Mr. Romneys reviews now making notes of lines from an Anguish review "grungy ordinariness", I even found some inspiration in 'Jack Reacher';

"Possibly to minimise distraction, the supporting cast is on the bland side, but it’s nice to get a glimpse of Robert Knepper, the inimitably abject T-Bag in TV’s "Prison Break"

I surfed around the Guardians website (not my usual haunt), reading other reviews by Jonathan Romney making notes of phrases and lines that seemed to stoke the fire of creativity and then began to build a poem.  You don't have to use film reviews by Jonathan Romney, but it helps as his turn of phrase is so poetic.  You can just grab the nearest book or paper and make a list of a number of phrases, lets say a minimum of ten that catch you eye, and then use them to build/create a poem.

Below is what I created, whether good or not, it helped get the creative juices flowing!  Now I just need to work out whether I'm obliged to give Jonathan Romney a writing credit?

Fisticuffs

Dandyism
Sabotaged your suburbanite logic
With one exquisitely languid
Stroke.

Once
A story of empowerment
With a ring of Authenticity,
You Counterpointed the
Abrasive.

However
After less than strenuous exercise
Your theological subtext
Turned out to be nothing more
Than a grungy
Ordinariness.

-----

Just a quick note, I do not know and have never met Jonathon Romney.

Today is National Poetry Day here in the UK and usually due to work I miss out on getting involved, not this year!!!  The theme is 'Messages' and I wrote a poem called 'Yesterdays News', a little message for well, you read it and let me know who you'd be aiming this at?  Below you can see the finished piece and even listen to a recording.

Feedback is much appreciated and welcomed with open arms.  Drop me a mail via matlloyd@hotmail.co.uk or reach me via twitter or instagram on @MatLloydpoet thanks for reading/listening:

"Hearing faggot all the time, made me think at a young age, that it was really dangerous to talk about it." - Brian Anderson

Last week VICE Sports released a video titled; 'Brian Anderson on Being a Gay Professional Skateboarder', in the moments and days that followed my Instagram feed was awash of people posting screenshots and praising BA for coming out.  I'll be honest I had mixed feelings; not about Brian Anderson being gay, but more the reaction from the wider community of skateboarding.  

For a start, I thought we (skateboarding) already knew he was gay, if you watched Pretty Sweet from 2012; Mike Carroll's GAY! t-shirt in BA's section was at least a statement of sorts or at least a hint if you didn't already know.  Shit VICE originally wrote about it in 2009!  Whether people did or didn't know, my main issue was the fact that its 2016, is someone sexual preference really an issue?  It's 2016, do we really care?

When you look at statistics like the 5,597 hate crimes against gays and lesbians in 2014-15, a rise of 22 % on the previous year recorded by the police, even I can see my view is naive.  I choose to surround myself with like minded people who aren't prejudice, but cannot be blind to the fact that skateboarding has been full of homophobia:

"There's a lot of homophobia in skateboarding, there's a lot of homophobia in everything.  It's not just skateboarding, you know, it's the world." - Mike Carroll

I hope that Brian Anderson coming out, and the wider skate communities wholly positive reaction goes some way to help others feel confident to 'come out', and show others that the culture as a whole has moved on.  There isn't room for homophobia in skateboarding, as Jake Phelps says in the video it's about skateboarding, "who gives a fuck if you're gay!"

Set aside some time today and enjoy watching a show of unity and support from skateboarding, for the love of Brian Anderson, for change.






Check out more from https://sports.vice.com/

Photo of me looking gormless for the podcast

I was stoked to be interviewed for the latest episode of a great new podcast called, 'The Thinking, The Striving, The Breathing'. Hosted by my old friend Anthony Christofi or Toffy as I know him, it aims to showcase inspirational personalities (his words not mine) and ways that you can make improvements to your life.

We sat down for half an hour and discussed careers, poetry, skateboarding, smoking, inspiration and much more. Listen to me say the word 'like' way too much and Toffy slip in a mum joke! The podcast is positive and just long enough to listen to on your morning commute.

Listen via iTunes or soundclound, and don't forget to subscribe!

iTunes direct link:
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/thinking-striving-breathing/id1132990729

Soundcloud direct link:
https://soundcloud.com/achristofi/002-mat-lloyd

Ok, first things first.  I am writing this on my MacBook Pro, and I love my MacBook Pro!  I use my MacBook Pro to edit photos, videos, podcasts and sometimes a little music.  It's awesome and I genuinely believe if my house burnt down, I'd only be gutted about losing my skateboard (of course) and my laptop...everything else can burn.

The only problem I have with my laptop is that I just can't seem to write new poetry on it.  By that I mean, for some reason, typing ideas/lines for a new piece on my laptop, seems to sap the creativity out of me, and I find myself staring at a blank screen.  Seriously I can have a great idea (of course I'd say that) and by the time I've loaded up 'Word', it's just floated out of my head.  It's like staring at my laptop screen automatically gives me 'writers block', well 'poetry block' to be exact.
Like many writers I tend to opt for a pad & pen, I'm rarely without one close at hand, but I do see more and more poets writing into their phones.  I've done quite a few gigs recently where poets will stand up and read directly from their phones (it infuriates me when they pause to scroll down).  I use my phone as an absolute last resort when it comes to writing on the go as it seems to have the same effect as my laptop.

To make me sound even more kooky (read eccentric), and I'm not try to be 'that guy', about a year ago I bought a typewriter.  Yep an old skool Seiko Silver Reed SR180 Deluxe, it's older than me and I love it!  Maybe even more than my MacBook.  It doesn't seem to have the same effect that writing on my laptop has and whilst it can be frustrating to have to type something out repeatedly due to the lack of a delete button and my sausage fingers, this repetition is helping me learn the piece!  It also looks pretty great on my Instagram too!  Obviously it hasn't replaced the need for my note pad and certainly isn't as portable as my laptop but there is something pleasing about banging away on those keys.  And if like me, your handwriting fluctuates from readable to what the fuck is that mess - a typewriter makes a lot of sense.

Maybe I'm just a paper and ink type of writer?  What's your choice? Are you a pen and paper writer or are you all about the digital?

PS. a lot of people ask me about the note book in the picture, it's from Explorer Press.

Read the full interview here.

More from Kelli Watson http://thatkellikat.tumblr.com/
Photo Credit: Dave Boyle

Finally after a long wait 'The Cracks and Curbs EP' is a reality.  My second official collection since 'Demo Tape' in 2009.  This limited edition comes signed and bagged with a selection of stickers direct from my hands.  This is the only way to get this edition as once it hits independent book stores and AMAZON it'll just be the standard book.

Get it now for £4 by clicking the 'Buy Now' button below.