07980589968
Craig Wilson
High Performance Poetry / Penfold the Poet plus Harry Pothead Publishing & Hatchet Harry!
Craig Wilson
Performance Poet, Writer, Publisher, Recording Artist & Executive Producer
Hi! Welcome to my performance poetry portfolio with material dating back to as early as 1994. Formerly of High Performance Poetry (2005 to 2020), a recording, events & publishing concern run initially with Princes Trust assistance (2005-2009) and then from my flat in North Bristol, UK.
The key concept behind my poetry / spoken word recordings is The Freedom of Speech whilst standing up to negative organisations & individuals that try to stop us from experiencing peace and creative liberation.
Other subject matters such as love, war, politics, religion, environmental & urban issues are covered in what is essentially dark poetry, performed live then recorded with music added later on via a producer & a free recording studio! I got lucky a few times...Special shout out here for Blind Truth Studios & frichi for making so much happen! I could not have created what we have done without each other and nothing stopped us!
Inspired by the likes of Jim Morrison (The Doors), & Zack de la Rocha (Rage Against the Machine). Bands such as Pink Floyd, Hawkwind, Nirvana, Velvet Underground & Joy Division were also big influences.
I also learned on the job from my fellow performance poets, mostly via Acoustic Night, a Monday evening open mic held from the mid 1990's until 2014 in Bristol, UK at various venues most notably The Croft & Halo.
With very useful links via The Hatchet Inn (2 poems on the wall plus The Hatchet Open Mic 2007 total 10 shows) & UWE Bristol, many an open mic has been performed at since my debut on stage in early 2002.
A BIG THANK YOU TO:
Bewdley High School - For teaching me the basics in writing poetry and the creative journey.
Acoustic Night - For providing me a platform to work from in terms of performing poetry live.
UWE Bristol - A base to work from. Cheers for the gig in 2011, unofficial degree in Geography & as an employee from 2019.
The Hatchet Inn - A base to eat & drink from. Poems on the wall and the Open Mic of 2007. Still a semi-regular :)
Blind Truth Entertainment - Globe Project & State of Mind instigator. Absolute legend!
frichi - A musician of great talent and versatility. Proud to have worked with him.
Isaac Akers & co. - Son of Blind Truth put awesome music to 3 tracks including Urban Tiger & Highest House.
Flashy - A very talented artist, front cover & logo. Involved with the Globe Project from the start.
Chas McNelly - Friend of Blind Truth who assisted with advertising banners, poetry collection artwork and graphics.
Passtime - A crucial vocal and written performance on Devil is at Command.
Myra - A very effective way of singing on JWAH. Recruited by Blind Truth via South Korea.
Ricardo Fernandez-Smith - A very lucky meeting with this very talented artist at Bristol City Council in 2016.
Michael Moustafi - Recording 2014 arranged via good friend Vicky Hueber.
David Bosankoe - Guilty of recording me live at Acoustic Night between 2009 and 2014.
Tom Bullivant - Photographs, housing and essential support during Open Mic and DAZED 2007/8.
Annie Armstrong - Great photographs & T-Shirts :)
Fayza - Top man with top Drum n Bass tunes!
Adam Norbury - Assisted during a housing situation in 2003/4 plus fellow motor racing & music fan.
Chris Durrant - Photographs & general poetic support over the years since we met in late 2009.
Andy Mattis - Poetic support since we met in 2010. Rock on the Little Stoke Massive!
Leake Brothers - Mark & Simon. For initiating & maintaining the Hatchet Open Mic of 2007. Great fun and a great idea.
St. Petrocks - Support after getting kicked out of a hostel due to lack of funds, late 2004 in Exeter.
MOP/NMD - Recording Studio for the Globe Project in 2005 accessed for free, in Exeter.
Princes Trust - Grants and essential support in publishing, events & recording activities 2005 to 2009.
Labour Ready - Gave I a job...Exeter & Bristol.
Family - Mom assisted with housing in Spain 2008. Dad got £ to me to start HPP in 2005. Sister bailed me out many times.
Minuteman Press - Printed many a poetry book since 2012. Great quality with great prices.
Isaac Roman Espinaco - UWE Sound Engineer for the Bristol Sessions 2022 / 2023.
Little Stoke Massive - The Road to Seshlehem...Grant...
& other crew members - You know who you are! Hannah, Danny, Sonny, Alex, Jimmy, Luke, Karl etc etc etc...
2025: Events / Open Mics. & Future Projects.
With 2025 upon us I have looked back on 2024 as a holding year. Gigs were done at The Old England plus Star & Dove in Bristol being the highlights on what was a very quiet year for me in poetry terms. With a severe case of writers block plus focusing on my paid work @ UWE Bristol as a Finance Assistant, there is not that much to report!
However I am available for any Events / Open Mics that could do with a very experienced performance poet / spoken word artist plying his trade in the Bristol area. To arrange a gig call: 07980 589 968 or e-mail: craigwilson27@hotmail.com
All good fun with a bit of a serious twist! Remember, this is dark poetry after all...
In terms of future poetry based projects, I am now writing towards a new poetry collection. Working title, 'Reality Bites!'
In the middle part of 2025 I have managed to do a couple of gigs at both The Shakespeare in Totterdown & @ Grounded in Bedminster, Bristol. Videos do exist...
What the future holds I don't know but I am back writing again. This is a good thing but I am still required to focus on my paid work as that what pays the bills. Lets see what happens and watch this space!
The Bristol Sessions, recorded in N Block @ UWE, Frenchay Campus, Bristol in 2022 and 2023. All written material from 2006 to 2023 but remains a fairly random choice & mix of differing subject matters. The emphasis was on the spoken word element rather than out and out performance but still retains its solid poetic statements!
This is in short a studio vocal only recording of my poetry engineered by Isaac for free as I also work @ UWE Bristol as a Finance Assistant! Some of the best poems I have written in the last few years are involved, including 'No Prisoners Taken' & 'Empty Buses'.
The experience of being back on stage @ The Old England helped in producing a recording that adds to an already interesting poetic portfolio...
Highlights also include The Hatchet poems & the 'Glastafari Suite'. Enjoy!
Test of Time
The latest addition to my poetry portfolio, Test of Time is a 32 page poetry collection written in 2023 and published with the assistance of Minuteman Press, Bedminster, Bristol in the December.
Includes Memories as recorded on the Bristol Sessions plus Crazy Connection & The Future Forwards.
To order your £10 copy please e-mail: craigwilson27@hotmail.com
To order from my back catalogue (limited stock) please e-mail me for prices. Back catalogue information can be found in the blog.
Books and CD's do remain available on general sale.
P&P is extra.
International customers most welcome :)
Globe Project
The Globe Project, a poetic, musical exploration experiment conducted by Craig Wilson & Blind Truth Studios, with frichi too, was finally completed in mid 2008. The vocal was cut in Exeter in early 2005. The idea was roughly based upon 'An American Prayer' by Jim Morrison & The Doors.
Once St. Petrocks (a homeless charity) made the referral to the Meaningful Occupational Project (MOP) who had a recording studio there. New Music Developments, who supplied the engineers, went into recording the vocal, often done in 1 take with a little reverb to add a little depth to the sound. Blind Truth Studios (USA/South Korea) via MySpace got in touch in 2007 and went on to creating/producing/mixing the entire album! Frichi (Italy) also made his stunning contribution with his epic 'All Our Possible Futures' on which the album concludes.
The written material was culled from eleven years worth of poetry, with all the best ones recorded onto the album. The experience of performing live @ Acoustic Night (an open mic night in Bristol) proved crucial in developing a piece of work by adding music such as hip-hop, rock, reggea, electronic/house & jazz to that vocal and creating something unique out of it.
Now considered a seminal work for all involved, The Globe Project will be best remembered for its radio airplay on BBC Radio Bristol Introducing show playing the track 'Ego Death' in February 2008 as well as its impact upon MySpace & later on other platforms such as SoundCloud & N1M.
It is a serious album that was the best that could be done with the very limited finance that was available. The Globe Project remains un-mastered but produced to the best standard possible by Blind Truth Studio (aka Harry Akers) at that point in time. It is a little rough around the edges but that only adds to what we had come up with. We didn't mess about. We got the job done!
Artwork originated from South Korea via 'Flashy' as did the HPP logo in early 2008.
Respect also to 'Passtime' (USA) who wrote and performed the vocal for his part on the 'Devil is at Command' track. Myra (South Korea) sang the words like only she could on 'JWAH'. The Globe Project ended up becoming just that, Global!
The Photograph
Bombardment,
Cascading towards the empty apocalypse
That now engulfs all beings of norm
To a new sub-culture so diverse,
It now destroys itself.
Driven forwards by beats,
Explosive mindscapes of yesterday
Now adorn the front pages
Of torn newspapers and chasing paparazzi,
Stealing one last picture of the dying princess.
Collapsed in the back seat
Tunnels in Paris
A vampire motor-cyclist roars off
The lost birth of a child
To end all wars and a new mindscape to explore
Nothing lasts forever:
A generation moves on so the new can begin.
Yet more stories but thankfully no pictures of ill explained falls,
Out of the window or pushed in a Liverpool panic,
Student daze of the past arrive to haunt from the dead,
To haunt the soul again…
NO MORE!
Jesus is for hippies,
The punk poet lives on!
Then the control of immoral acts by the state
Confines all sexual acts to the bed,
Monitored and probed to feed off underground slurs,
A vampire with a gun plans total annihilation
Of what is right and wrong in the city tonight,
Green grass grows over there by the light.
Where the muse of thought brings more from the past,
Old tunes of hidden treasure continue to spin,
At an unbelievable pace in circles
Like all good explanations should be,
Mischief maker and meddler is the thought see.
Hair flows against a bright light,
The path below is dark, the road in shadows,
Housing is scattered before it reaches a room,
Where a detective with a camera,
Is taking nude photographs of his mistress to be.
Drilling and pounding in exchange for the midnight stares,
That so often engulfs the drunken table and slaughtered laughter,
Driving all wild with new false explanations,
To make one look big, no more going in circles,
Telling tall tales found out to be SHOT see.
Create a cruel city of chance continuing currently,
Now so apologetic of criminal deeds,
The vampire has been caught by the detective see,
Crimes have been committed and bring to justice,
Now shot to pieces on the floor,
Where the blood of a Judge now lies.
‘Bloody idiot’ the detective explains,
A smile follows as he thinks of his mistress of sin,
The vampire was caught killing the Judge by a cameraman,
Awaiting the life inside a prison or go for the smack,
Get it while you can vampire man…
Up the arm when smuggled into a Police cell,
By the mistress of sin,
All the pain now goes away.
Circles no more,
A line of liars is the place to be,
Circles no more see,
Fly away in a scream, fly away into space
With a smack heads brain,
The detective looks for an explanation,
An explanation is not forthcoming see.
The muse of mischievous misdeeds strikes again,
Ridiculing all who try to read her,
A page of a face where the act of telling tall tales,
Is to make an honest person
Of the muse of mischievous misdeeds.
To dance in circles
Straight down the line it cannot always be so,
A line of sniggers begin to swagger,
The draught of a well pulled bitter
Around a drunken table
Is all who starred
In this little play of ours
That lies in the circles of the head around.
(c) 2008 First published in the 'Gangsters of Matrix City' poetry collection. Written in Glastonbury Town in 2007 & Performed live at Acoustic Night 2011.
State of Mind EP
The State of Mind EP began life as an idea to record a new vocal of spoken word/performance poetry after The Globe Project had exceeded its initial expectations!
The vocal was cut in Yate with Michael Moustafi at the engineering helm in February 2014. Using material such as Urban Tiger, Highest House & Brutal Mindz, Isaac Akers (linked to Blind Truth Studios USA) and co. went onto recording original music to these three tracks between 2014 and 2016.
Also included in the EP is a live spoken word version of the poem 'Shattered' performed at the last Acoustic Night in Bristol, September 2014.
Frichi then did a radio mix of the 3 other tracks I had left in 2020 including the unique electronic 'Revolutions End'. The others, 'State of the Mind Today' & 'Into the Shadows' are jazz tunes with my poetry layered over the top...all highly experimental and done in super quick time!
Fayza also did Brutal Mindz as a Drum 'N' Bass demo bonus track that came to light in 2019. Works really well and a good way to finish off the EP.
The bespoke artwork for the EP was initially created by Venezuelan artist Ricardo Fernandez-Smith (whome I met whilst working at Bristol City Council) with his wife adding the graphics in May 2016.
'Rare EP'
The EP 'Rare' that was initially compiled in 2016, is primarily a selection of demos from Blind Truth Studios when working on the Globe Project album. Included are 2 instrumnetal tracks The Herb & Optical Evolution.
The real surprises on this EP are frichi's efforts on 'No Complaints' as well as the live spoken word performance of 'They Say & The Monk' recorded @ Acoustic Night February 2012.
Acoustic Night
I attended Acoustic Night, an open mic event held on Mondays as a performance poet on an irregular, ad-hoc basis from 2002 until its final show in 2014.
Held at venues such as The Croft, King Charles and from 2006 @ Halo on Gloucester Road, Bristol, Acoustic Night ran for 20 or so years & was known for its performance poetry.
From 2009 until its last show, Acoustic Night did live recordings of which the most interesting I have to offer are available here.
Highlights include the improvised 'I Hate Cocaine', recorded in January 2009 and the debut of Urban Tiger in 2011.
Misled Masses is also a fine example of what I could do live when I put my mind to it!
The recording of Sphere & The Photograph, 2 poems written in 2007 but later performed live in 2011 is also a personal favorite. Enjoy!
Authors Note
I began to write poetry out of the blue, aged 15 once I had watched The Doors film in early 1994 about the life and times of Jim Morrison, an American poet who shot to fame in the late sixties with hits such as Light my Fire & later with Riders on the Storm. Inspired I definitely was and I started to look at Shakespeare and sixties beat poetry in a different light.
At the same time, I got into music in a big way. Not just The Doors, but Cream, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Hawkwind, Rage Against the Machine, Joy Division, Pantera, Nirvana, The Beatles, Black Sabbath, Lou Reed, Bob Dylan and on the list goes! I was also doing much reading with novels read by Ben Elton, Irvine Welsh, Aldous Huxley, James Joyce, George Orwell, Charles Dickens & William Burroughs. This heady mix inspired those early works of mine. This was the time when ‘First’ poetry collection was written.
The poetry in the first 8 years was hidden away. Not entirely sure what I was to do with it, it wasn’t until working at AOL (I worked mainly in call centres from 1999 until 2003) in late 2001 when a musician I worked with, told me about Acoustic Night, then held at The Croft pub in Bristol. I had by then left Worcestershire and Liverpool well behind and with good reason…
Acoustic Night was an open mic event held on a Monday and welcomed in poets as well as musicians, singers & magicians. Rule was: It had to be acoustic! In early 2002 I paid them a visit and went on to doing 6 gigs with them in quick succession. I was very nervous about reading my poetry in front of a live audience, but I was happy to give it a go. I remember doing poems such as September 11 and Jesus was a Hippy! Those early gigs in the back room of The Croft pub still holds fond and fun memories.
By early 2003 I was back performing again at Acoustic Night whilst at UWE Bristol reading Geography. This state of affairs didn’t last too long and before I knew it, I was broke and essentially homeless. With only my poetry to guide me (and the recently finished Penfold Collection) I hit the poetry open mic scene in Bristol hard with exciting new material which really started to push the boundaries of the ‘Freedom of Speech!’ I remember writing poems such as Misled Masses, Big Brother & Se7eN during this highly creative period.
A fateful move to Exeter in July 2004 (after just doing my biggest ever single gig @ Ashton Court Festival) whilst looking for work, as I was struggling in Bristol once I had left a friends’ flat I was temporarily staying at over the previous winter. I worked on and off for an employment agency called Labour Ready from July 2004 until November 2006, both in Exeter & Bristol. The tough nature of work but paid daily kept me going during some very dark times after a major bust up with the Police over a young woman I had unfortunately met at a hostel I stayed at in Exeter in late 2004. Fortunately, via St Petrocks, a homeless charity based in central Exeter, had referred me to the Meaningful Occupation Project (MOP) who just happened to have a recording studio there…
Well, the rest as they say is history. By June 2005, The Globe Project performance poetry / spoken word album was in CD form and released by my new concern High Performance Poetry, fronted at the time by The Princes Trust after a DWP referral…
Once returning to Bristol in late 2005, a return to the Bristol poetry open mic scene was successfully established with my new album in tow…I remember in 2006 writing the ‘27’ poetry collection whilst working as a security guard in Hartcliffe! Another job that went AWOL whilst working for Labour Ready again…Happily, many gigs were done at this time at venues such as Halo (Acoustic Night), Folk House, OppO}, The Hatchet & The Old Duke, plus some slams, one off events etc. This was a very busy time for High Performance Poetry!
2007 was mental! I sort of lived in Glastonbury Town (I won’t mention the fire of November that year - Have a listen to the 'Glastafari Suite' from the 'Bristol Sessions') whilst keeping my strong links to Acoustic Night and The Hatchet Inn, the venue for an open mic I ran for 10 shows with the help of the Leake brothers, Bath Spa poets & The Hatchet management. During this time, music was being added to the Globe Project poetry vocal I recorded in Exeter in 2005 by frichi & Blind Truth Studios via MySpace. I moved to Spain in early 2008 to work on the Globe Project album and again look for work, work was terrible but yeah, proud of The Globe Project. Best thing I have ever done!
By 2009, I was back in Bristol working but the hostel I was staying at was proving expensive and work wasn’t great, so I moved fatefully, to London. Now that did get mental! To cut a long story short, I published the MELTDOWN and OppO} poetry collections and gigged once: @ The Roebuck pub in SE1 in June 2009 reciting my anti Gordon Brown poem 'War Budgets'. I then ended up back in the Southwest and was housed by the NHS / Police on mental health grounds in late 2009 in North Bristol. In short, I was banned from hitting the street like that again…
I continued to gig for UWE Bristol, Brizzlemania & Acoustic Night until early 2012 when I had to stop for security, creative & legal reasons. So much for the ‘Freedom of Speech’ but a decision was made to focus on the written work that conveniently led to the ‘State of Mind’ EP that was vocally recorded in Feb. 2014. Already on Facebook, SoundCloud and Twitter by this time, a good run of poetry collections was written such as ‘Into the Shadows’ & ‘Criminal Damage’ & later on 'Social Justice' & 'Silent No More'. Gigs were done briefly in 2014, 2016 and 2020 @ Acoustic Night. The Cat & Wheel and Grounded in Fishponds. Work has got better and I started @ UWE Bristol as a Finance Assistant in June 2019 after stints at Bristol City Council mostly during 2015/2016.
Once finishing the MC poetry collection & the ‘State of Mind’ EP in 2020, I concluded High Performance Poetry but continued to write under my own name. The Gemini Files and No Prisoners Taken poetry collections were written / published and a return to the recording studio via UWE Bristol was completed in August 2022/June 2023, known as the 'Bristol Sessions'. A more serious return to open mics has been underway since January 2023 at venues such as The Old England, Grain Barge & The Eldon House.
In December 2023, I published my new poetry collection 'Test of Time', a conceptual 32 page book that should serve me well into the future. In terms of open mics, gigs have been completed @ The Star & Dove in late 2024. I am also thinking about a new poetry collection but its very slow going! During the middle part of 2025, gigs have been completed @ The Shakespeare, Totterdown & Grounded in Bedminster. Future events / gigs / open mics will probably be in the Bristol area.
Write on!
