Tag Archives: performance

Straight – The 2025 Version

Hello, I’ve recently been going through the poems from my debut collection, Nice, which is now ten years old. How did that happen!

Some of them are a little outdated because of the cultural references at the time. I’ve started to update them, because, you know, poems are never definitive.

This week I performed the new version of Straight, a banger from the early 2010s which helped me win many slams back when I used to do slams. I’d not performed it in ages but this is a rewritten version which seemed to go down well!

I hope you like it.

Robert Garnham Live at the Wardrobe Theatre, Bristol, February 2022


Live at Milk, February 2022

It’s been a couple of years and it felt very weird, but I finally got the chance to do some shows before a live audience the last week or so. The first was in Penzance, then Wolverhampton, and then finally at Milk in Bristol.

I was incredibly nervous but hopefully it didn’t show. I ran through a mix of old and new poems, and had a lot of fun, too!

You can hear my entire set below. I hope you like it. There are one or two surprises. And wow, what a brilliant audience!

I had a wonderful time at Milk in Bristol. One of the best audiences I’ve ever had! You can listen to the entire set above.

Write out Loud, Woking, Robert Garnham Full Set

I had a wonderful time performing in Woking last night. As ever I recorded my set. I have so many of these recordings that I don’t know what to do with them. But here, at least, is last night’s.

The poems I did were:

Are you Cool?

Mariner Man (Edith Sitwell cover)

Seaside Soul

The Nature Reserve

Butter Cake

Smurftown

I Wish I Was a Panda Bear

Surfer Dude

Sofa Phobia

Shakka Lakka Boom

Ode to You Know Who

Oh my goodness you really are a repulsive little man.
If we should ever pass in the street I certainly
Wouldn’t doff my cap.
It makes my stomach churn even to think we are
The same species.
Your utterances are toxic and deliberately 
Pugnacious and delivered with all of the wit and grace
Of a turd.
I don’t like you very much.

Oh, you saggy-bottomed baggy-jowelled loud-mouthed
Orange-faced dolt
With an expression like a spinster aunt
Straining out a poo in a station toilet
Three minutes before her train is due.
You weak-willed flabby-cheeked oddly-coiffured 
Stumpy-legged dunderhead
With a mouth like a cat’s arse,
I bet you’ve got a really small knob.
You red-capped Diet Cola-quaffing potty-mouthed
Egotistical scare-mongering morally-bankrupt pile of
Upchuck.
I don’t like you very much.

You no longer need compassion to be President, apparently.
Nor any sort of wisdom nor decorum,
Just a feel for the simple prejudices that sound good
In their repeating
And an inherent inferiority complex which migh stem
From your minuscule Willy
And a hint of righteous indignation,
The last simpering gasp of mature debate
In which the ultimate insult is to accuse your enemies
Of kindness 
And list among their number
Those less fortunate, less privileged, less straight,
More trans and definitely less white than yourself,
What kind of thinking does this legitimise?
What message does this send out to women
Who have been the victims of sex predators,
Or men who think it’s fine to act on such urges,
What message does this send out to the casual racist
You cry baby
You big cry baby
You white supremacist cry baby.
I don’t like you very much.

You name is an old English word for fart, how apt,
For thou art
A rancid wind passed on to the pages of history,
A stench, a gaseous build up let rip
Leaving in its wake an odour of smug pomposity

Oh, you snivelling snot bag,
You drivel-emitting weasel-brained rapscallion,
You bulbous-cheeked odious
Clay-brained tit, you crusty scab
On the face of common decency,
You pungent base fascism-obsessed unnecessary
Foul-brained ass of a man.
How I long for you to be photographed
Making love to an life sized cardboard cut out version
Of yourself while
Elon Musk wanks in the corner 
How I long for that
How I long for that day.

You were on TV the other nigh
Speaking your usual complete and utter bollocks
And I had a sudden urge to lick
Oh please let me lick
Let me lick the side of your
Craggy orange face.


Flat. A Poem, Recorded Live in Exeter

Poem

My tyre is flat
My roof is flat
My cola is flat
I live in a flat.

My pancake is flat
My iron is flat
My enthusiasm is flat
My coffee is a flat
white.

My battery is flat
The joke I told fell flat
Norfolk is flat
I played a piano in B
flat.

My carpet is flat
On the floor of my flat
My cap is flat
It’s a flat
Cap.

I showed this poem
To a friend.
They thought it was too
one-dimensional.

Mariner Man – Dame Edith Sitwell, performed at Paignton’s beach by Robert Garnham

It was a beautiful day so I decided to go for a stroll on the beach and recite this poem by one of my poetry heroes, Dame Edith Sitwell. I hope you like it, and if you don’t, it’s not very long.

Gom – An Experimental Sound Poem

As someone at the cutting edge of poetic expression, I thought I’d share this sound poem which, I believe, will tear apart poetry and poetry performance in such a manner that life will never be the same again.

My poetry has often brought people to tears. It’s nice to know that it has such an emotional response.