A lot has happened over the last six months, and I’ve been a bit remiss in documenting it. In August 2023 I had the opportunity to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe as part of the Cabaret of Dangerous Ideas, and I bloody loved it!

The show was called Evil Google Sells your Words / You Can’t Search Google for Poetry, and featured an auction of artifacts which represent words monetised by Google’s search and advertising platforms. I’ll hopefully be reviving the show at the 2024 Fringe and maybe other venues. It really was the most enjoyable method I’ve had for dissemination of research.

Anyway, on the back of the CoDI shows, I was approached by a producer from BBC Radio 4’s Word of Mouth program, and in December travelled down to London to speak to the legend that is Michael Rosen about my research and more.

Words for Sale!, my Word of Mouth episode is to be broadcast at 4pm on Tuesday 23rd January 2024, and will be available on BBC Sounds afterwards.

I was so happy to be able to return to some work I did with Jessica Foley and her Engineering Fictions group back in 2017, where we did a workshop and made up cheap and expensive love poems using {poem}.py – my ever-evolving intervention into the cultural and political effects of the commodification of language in a digital age.

Michael Rosen was captivated by the idea and is apparently keen to start a Monetised School of Poetry… watch this space!

There were three of the Engineering Fictions poems featured on the Word of Mouth program, and although I sought and was granted permission from all involved to use the poems, I want to acknowledge them here in name:

VALENTINE– Jonathan van de Belt, Jernej Hribar & Francis Halsall

ODE-LOVE – Marguerite Barry & Fiona Hallinan

BONDAGE – Fiona McDermott & Tom O’Dea