Some Mice

At the start of April, I spent the weekend in Sheffield with over 40 writers from The Writing Squad*. It was an Open Weekend, so we were invited to do whatever we wanted, together or apart. Some of us wrote a renga chain, other people did Qi Gong, others worked with Polaroids, Squad mentor Malika Booker led a session of sharing our favourite poems with each other. It was inspiring and uplifting, all the things I wanted and needed.

Most excitingly for me, another Squad mentor, Stevie Ronnie, brought his bookmaking materials and a few of us made some little books. Including me - I took 8 poemy things that I'd already written (half of them are prose!), edited them a little, put them in an order, typeset them, gave it a title, printed, folded and stitched 10 copies together, with Stevie's help. It's called Some Mice, because of the final poem in the pamphlet being an anxiety dream (and a non-anxiety dream) about mice.

Of course, it's not actually about mice. For me, this pamphlet is about writing, which is the thing that's been occupying my mind lately. I've been working my way through a bit of an existential writing crisis over the last few years - I've even done The Artist's Way (sorry but not sorry to be a cliché). For me, these poems are about what it means to be a writer, the inherent narcissism and self-doubt involved in being an artist, the blocks but also the community and joy and hope around writing too.

I have to apologise here to Steve Dearden, who runs The Writing Squad, who has a rule against writing about writing. But he gave me the idea for one of the poems in the pamphlet, so I guess he should be apologising too.

I've been trying to write a debut poetry collection for the past few years, and with all the pressures around that debut (you only get one shot), I keep feeling that the poems I have aren't worth publishing as a book. But I found it very freeing to put together something so limited edition and spontaneous as this. Everything in Some Mice is new, unpublished and very fresh - I wrote the opening poem two days before stitching it together, after chatting with another Squaddie, Katie Byford about some of this stuff at the Southbank Centre. And there is a poem in here about The White Lotus before I knew how it ended(!) too.

I put all of this on Instagram (sigh, RIP Twitter, and RIP everything honestly), and a few people messaged me to ask if they could have a copy. So I'm going to do another print run, but it'll all be hand-made by me, and limited edition - I think I'll do 40 more, so that the total print run is 50, total, final answer. And then maybe someone might like to book me to run a book-making workshop too.

If you'd like a copy, message me and/or send me a little donation towards the costs of materials and postage (and include your address!). It might be a few weeks - I'm waiting for the paper to be delivered as we speak. Update: All the pamphlets (it's a limited edition of 50 copies) have been claimed now! I'm grateful for all your enthusiasm about this project. There's a copy of Some Mice in the National Poetry Library if you missed out.

*The Writing Squad is a development organisation for writers who join when they're aged 16-22 and living, working or studying in the North of England. The Writing Squad is one of the best things I've ever done, so if you know someone who's a writer of any genre in that age bracket, get them to apply when they re-open for applications in 2027.