Top 10 of 2025

This was a year with potentially my performing high (getting to support Harry Baker!), and also a year I got more poems accepted and published than I have before :)

I also started making decorated versions of a lot more of my poems, something I'm going to try to continue going forward as I explore different ways I can tell stories (maybe once a month?). 

Despite that, it feels like I took a step back this year. A combination of work, Ultimate, and injuring my ankle meant I didn't perform anywhere near as regularly as in 2024. Sometimes you just need to keep yourself going, ready to peak if the opportunity arises. That might be where I have to hold myself, for now. I think I'm in for a bus 2026 too.

I did write some cool poems though! Just writing weekly means you tend to write something your proud of, even if it's accidentally. Here's some of my favourites.

Favourite Poem

Time isn't money - This poem starts with a simple premise: what are all the ways that time *isn't* the same as money (counter to the popular phrase). It led to a good amount of deep thinking, as well as leading to some very fun flowing lines and rhythms.  

Poems about my life

As I've started reflecting on my old poems more, I've really started appreciating poems directly inspired by moments in my life - poems that no one else could have written!

Rosie in Lidl - I started the year in Cheltenham with my brother and his family, including my young niece Rosie. This poem is basically a little photograph of a real moment - shopping in Lidl with my brother and alternating between finding the food and distracting the children. This is very different to my natural hip-hop style, but I think it's a lot stronger because of its simplicity.   

Home, but new - Moving to Bristol was definitely a bit of a stress. There's always so much to manage when moving, and for the first time in a long time I also had to sort out everything, from bills to building a new bed. Realising that your time and energy is limited (and also you should respect your neighbours by not hammering a desk in the early hours), you realise what you need to prioritise. I also didn't have a car, so I couldn't get everything in a single shop! I'm quite happy I now have a poem to capture these days.

For Will and Laura - A wedding poem, and one I was particularly proud of. There's always a sense of "is this going to be too generic" when I'm writing these. I've written a few now, but given it's the couple's special day I'll only write one if I actually think there's a unique angle I can take. With this one, I leant into the fact Will and I both love Hadestown by borrowing the theme of "melody", and the fact we were childhood friends by imagining being his friend as akin to witnessing a melody which has turned into a harmony. It's also my first poem (to my knowledge) for which I have a full translation into another language!

Poems about Christianity

I manged to find myself at two different churches this year - Holy Apostles in Cheltenham, and Redland in Bristol. As a result of being exposed to a lot of different Christians and different ways of thinking, I ended up writing and thinking a lot about Christianity this year.

Christian Hate - My most thoroughly peer-reviewed poem this year. I'm always nervous writing about theology, because unlike with regular poetry it is very much possible to get things wrong. I started with the question "When, if ever, is it right for a Christian to hate?" and went from there. It's one of those really interesting poems where I ended up discovering my own philosophy while I'm writing and reflecting.

Imagining Heaven - There will always be a part of my brain that thinks about death, and what might come under. It is the great question I will never answer. As such, it was tough to think of what angle to approach this from. I was somewhat inspired by a conversation in church where an older friend told me they attend more funerals than weddings these days. It very much sent me down a route of thinking, and I'm glad I had poetry as an outlet for those thoughts.



Poems of self-reflection

In some ways, all poems I write will always be reflections of myself. Some are a little bit deeper though, really delving into the way I'm feeling and how I'm thinking. I try not to write too many of these, but I do think the ones I do write end up being my most powerful.

Dear Harry - It's not the first poem I've written directly to myself, and it wont be the last. A long term goal of mine has been to allow myself to be more vulnerable. It's often a balance between making sure I'm allowing myself to be open and making sure I'm also not leaning too much into the poetry to make things seem worse than they are (especially as I know some people very close to me read this blog, and I don't want them worrying unnecessarily!). 

DOOMed philosophy - When I was back in York, I managed to pop along to my old poetry night. Someone there said he recognised me from many months ago - and that he remembered my old poem inspired by MF DOOM. It inspired me to write another - as these types of poems are very dense and I worry no one will understand them. So finding someone who loves this style of flow as much as I do was very heartening. I also really enjoy the poem I ended up writing - about acknowledging the hypocrisy we all carry.

Poems about a fragile Earth

The world is changing - quite quickly in some ways. It's interesting then, to have some poems in this transition period. Poems which might later prove to be foolish or prescient.

Art Instantly - It's interesting being someone creative who also works with AI - but keeping those two aspects of myself completely separate. I feel very rich for learning how to create in the way I have, but I've spent a fair bit of time trying to figure out the best way that society should interact with AI. It's a very powerful tool, but it has its limitations - certainly in its current state. 

The arts exist until they don't - Whenever I end up regularly attending an open mic night, I always become very attached to it. I've seen many nights start and stop. I've seen behind the curtain. There's no guarantee of a world in which artists can make a living and ply their trade. In Cheltenham, there was no regular night, and I couldn't find a poetry community. As such, this poem is both a direct tribute to Mike's Open Mic nights, and a reflection on the value of arts within a community.

From the brink of extinction - Sometimes, I write poems along with other people. We both get a theme, and then try to create something on that theme. A good friend of mine - Polly - did a lot of drawings of near-extinct animals. So I gave her a twist on her usual style: "back from extinction". It led to two very interesting creations that came from very different directions.

Honourable Mentions:

Words Wax - I love the wordplay here, but this is a poem that's only a week old at time of writing and it needs to be performed a couple of times before I can know if it's actually any good...

Because the world is not static - A poem accepted for forge press on the theme of migration - I do like this one, but it's also very recent and so I need a little longer for it to sit with me.
good things in bad days - A poem about how even a bad day can contain nice things. 
In place of listening - I really like the structure of this poem about listening, it might be one I need to do a full graphic of to let it fully breath.
Scientific Poetry - The idea of mathematics and science being a separate language which cannot be fully translated is one I've been dwelling on. I actually think it's been really useful for communication - acknowledging there are elements lost in translation is better than pretending nothing is.