We are delighted to welcome Brian Moses,
multi-talented prolific performance poet and percussionist, to the blog to
discuss his latest collection, On Poetry Street, a
treasure trove of 52 playful poems, one for each week of the year, with Tanja
Jennings, a former Carnegie Medals judge.
Brian has travelled widely with his
repertoire of over 3,000 poems and is a Reading Champion for the National
Literacy Trust and a National Poetry
Day Ambassador. His enthusiastic indoor,
outdoor and online school sessions combine rap, rhythm and rhyme.
On Poetry Street sparkles with alphabetic acrobatics, surreal
scenarios and virtuoso wordplay. Here Brian talks about the art and lyricism of
poetry, the pangs of first love and how a sudden idea can spark creativity.
Congratulations on your creative, inventive
and quirky collection Brian.
What does poetry mean to you?
It’s an addiction. Poetry touches every emotion. It can
make you smile, laugh, shiver, think, wonder. It can make you sad and it can
comfort you. It can say a lot in little, but what it does say can be so
powerful that it remains with you through your life.
What is the first poem you ever wrote?
When I was 16 and keen on Sally who lived up the street
from me, I wrote her a poem. In fact, the first poem I ever wrote was for her.
I spent hours and hours composing it until one day, when I knew I’d never do
any better, I decided to deliver it. I copied it out neatly, folded it and
stuck it in an envelope. When it got dark, I sneaked up the road and pushed it
through her letterbox. I waited one day, two days, a week.....but she couldn’t
have been impressed, and later I knew that she hadn’t when I saw her walking
out with someone else, someone I knew. He was two years older than me and had
his own motorbike. I knew no good would ever come of it. I worried for Sally,
that she’d made the wrong choice, went for ‘flash’ instead of ‘steady’. I soon
got over it, but for a week or so it did hurt, that first rejection.
Fortunately, it didn’t stop me writing more poems!
What is the secret of your sound?
I’ve always loved music and music is rhythmical and
poetry is rhythmical and so I can combine percussion with poetry and I like
that.
How important is rhyme in your poetry?
I think about 50% of my poems rhyme and 50% don’t. When
I do rhyme, the rhyming needs to be right. A weak rhyme can spoil a poem. A
rhyming dictionary is my best friend!
Why do you think alliteration in poetry is
important?
It sounds pleasing and it contributes to the flow of
the poem.
Why do you think repetition is important in
poetry?
It can build in a rhythm to a poem without using rhyme.
What is your favourite type of word play?
I’m not sure I have one. I just love playing around
with words.
Is your ‘Unlikely Alphabet of Animals’
inspired by Edward Lear?
Not really. It was a poem written a while ago but one
that I never found a home for. It seemed a perfect shoe in to ‘On Poetry
Street’.
Which poem did you have the most fun
creating?
Probably ‘Villages’ as I spent a long time
investigating villages with interesting names although many of the ones I
discovered were perhaps a little too rude to include in the book!
Which poem did you find the most difficult
to write?
I was not sure about the ending to ‘The Land of
Yesterday.’ It didn’t seem quite right. My brilliant editor Janice Thomson,
came up with one or two different ideas and we batted them back and forth till
I gave one of them a final twist & we were both happy.
‘A Mouthful of Words’ and ‘A Difficult Poem
to Read Unless You’ve Swallowed a Dictionary’ are entertaining. How did you
decide upon which words to include?
With the help of a rhyming dictionary and choosing
words I liked the sound of and which rolled off the tongue in interesting ways.
What is your favourite word and why?
Winnebago because it rhymes with multiple words.
What gave you the idea for your ‘if’
sequence of poems?
All writers ask ‘What if’. They are two very powerful
words and have the potential to lead you to some very strange places. ‘What if
T. Rexes were vegetarian? What if aliens stole underpants? What if there was a
5 star snake hotel?
How long does it take you to think of a
poem? Does it just flow?
Some poems arrive with a whoosh! they fall onto the
page and within fifteen or twenty minutes I’ve pinned them down. Others take
much longer and need to be returned to a number of times before I’m satisfied.
My best ideas come to me when I am out walking the dog.
What is the most exciting idea you have
ever had for a poem?
I think I’ve always been interested in things that
sound like they shouldn’t be true but actually are true - a man walking his
iguana along the beach, problems with taking a lobster through security, an
Egyptian mummified foot on display in a museum. Things that are strange, but
true, often start me writing.
Mark Elvins’ quirky illustrations capture
the comic nature of your poetry. Which is your favourite and why?
I like so many of Mark’s illustrations. They complement
the poems perfectly. You’re asking me to do what I tell children I can’t do
when they ask what’s my favourite poem. My answer is the same as the poet Brian
Patten who always replied that he couldn’t say because he was frightened that
if he did, the other poems would get jealous!
Which poets have influenced you the most?
I was drawn to poetry through my enjoyment of the
lyrics of rock music, particularly singer/songwriters like Bob Dylan, Joni
Mitchell and the Beatles. Bob Dylan was the first ‘poet’ I admired. I read his
lyrics on the backs of his vinyl album covers and his words fired my
imagination.
The poetry I was offered in school made little
impression on me at the time. It wasn’t
until I was 17 and picked up a book of poems entitled ‘Penguin Modern Poets:
The Mersey Sound’ that I realised that poetry could be fun, that it could
speak to me in a language that I understood and that it had relevance to my
life as a teenager. Roger McGough, Adrian Henri and Brian Patten inspired me. I
was hooked. The book changed my life.
Which poets would you recommend to readers
today?
These days I read a lot of poets, particularly those
who write for young people. Charles Causley is a favourite and often neglected
in schools. Other writers whose work I admire are Kit Wright, John Agard, Wes
Magee and Gareth Owen.
What advice would you give to a child
wanting to write poetry?
If you want to be a writer, write. Don’t just talk
about it, do it. And keep a writer’s
notebook filled with ideas, things people say, strange signs, observations etc
It quickly becomes a treasure chest of ideas that may one day become poems.
Do you have any plans for future projects?
I have a verse novel being published by Scallywag in
October 2025. I have a new collection of poetry that’s almost complete, plus
I’m working on a fiction title and a poetry book for the very young.
Many thanks to Brian for this insight into his work and
to Scallywag Press for the opportunity.
Discover more about Brian Moses’ by visiting his website at https://brianmoses.co.uk/ and You Tube
channel at https://www.youtube.com/@bmredsealearn.