Performance poet and Professor of Whimsy
You can now download a recording of my gig in Bristol last month. This was an amazing evening at the Wardrobe Theatre in front of a lovely audience.
I did a few old poems, a few new ones, a cover version and a really old poem from when I was about 4!
You can stream the album for free, or download it for a fiver. I hope you enjoy it!
https://robertgarnham.bandcamp.com/album/blimp-live-in-bristol-2022
Some golden rules to start enjoying life, for Pete’s sake.
By Robert Garnham
Being a cheerful, optimistic sort of person, but also a poet, people often ask me for advice to get through the day. So here are my top golden rules which, hopefully, will benefit many of you.
1. No one is ever worth writing a poem for, though every now and then you’ll meet someone who’s worth a limerick, particularly if they come from Chard.
2. It’s easy to get a personalised number plate, according to my friend PUV 621R.
3. A two-day old baguette will stop your car rolling down the street.
4. Hold on to your nostalgia, otherwise you’ll have nothing to be nostalgic about, except possibly for the time you used to be nostalgic about things, so maybe you can be nostalgic about that.
5. Every fear can be overcome. Do it with a smile! (Unless your fear is crushing loneliness).
6. It’s never too late to learn. It’s never too early to forget.
7. Only concentrate on that which requires no thought.
8. You might not mention the elephant in the room, but you can certainly wonder how it got up the stairs and through the door.
9. Look at the mirror every morning and say, ‘I am loved, I am loved’. At least this way you’re prepared for any other claptrap that comes along.
10. Everyone you see or meet or talk to has been born. Even Avril Lavigne. And if you think being born was difficult, try getting a dentist during the weekend.
11. Go on, help yourself to the last cake in life. Living is all about grabbing the last cake. Go on, have it. Enjoy it. The dog licked it.
12. Get up early one morning, when the dew is still on the grass, and go for a walk barefoot in the park. Let me know when you’re doing this so that I can come round and borrow your vacuum cleaner.
13.Do something that excites you every day. Subvert the rules. Turn things on their head. (Naturally it’s best not to attempt this if you’re an airline pilot.)
14. How do we know that opening an umbrella indoors is bad luck? Who was the first person to discover this? How many similar things do we do which are good or bad luck without us knowing? Brandishing a vase on a Thursday? Sitting on a pouffe just after lunch? The mind boggles, Mrs Trubshaw, the mind boggles.
15. Give as much joy to the small things in life as you do to the large. Which is why me and my ex split up.
16. If at first you don’t succeed, then maybe catching bullets between your teeth isn’t the job for you.
17. If you don’t think you can get it out, don’t stick it in there in the first place.
Today’s episode comes from the centre of London next to the Science Musuem. Robert reminisces about working in a social history museum and the philosophical questions he would ask about looking at old photos of Victorian rural workers, then performs a poem about someone called Justin Trubshaw.
Over the years I’ve had the pleasure of performing at many venues and entertaining audiences. I’ve been lucky enough to have some of these filmed, either as snippets, or the whole show. Collected here are some of those which I didn’t put on YouTube, fearing that to put my best work on social media would leave me with nothing to perform in public.
So here, for a limited time, are the recordings of some of my favourite poems. The audio from these and others appear on my CD, Juicy, which can be ordered here: https://robertgarnham.bigcartel.com/product/juicy
I’d like to thank those who have filmed me including Laura Jury and Danny Pandolfi
In today’s podcast, Robert catches a train to London and recites a poem about a macaque dressed as a postman.
Today’s podcast sees Robert standing in the rain in a park in Devon, performing a poem about a stroppy lock keeper
In this weeks mini podcast, Robert is waiting for a bus, and he performs a poem about a house having both an upstairs and a downstairs loo.
Here’s a track from my forthcoming live album Blimp. Recorded at the Wardrobe Theatre in Bristol earlier this month.
You can stream or download Shakka Lakka Boom!
https://robertgarnham.bandcamp.com/track/shakka-lakka-boom-2
In this week’s episode, Robert catches a bus in Paignton and performs a very . . . Slow . . .. poem.
Had an amazing time at Milk last night in Bristol at the Wardrobe Theatre and I managed to record my set. I was asked to choose a poem to ‘cover’, but instead chose Holding Out for a Hero, the Bonnie Tyler song.
Here it is in all its splendour!
Robert Garnham