I’ve been called ‘The Punk Pam Ayers’ and ‘The Cockney Cooper Clarke’, very honourable comparisons that make me feel valued and respected as a poet.
From a young age I’ve always written out my feelings, scraps of paper filled cupboards and drawers, because I felt that I couldn’t express how I felt. Poetry has given me a creative outlet of expression that spans my whole life, my personal and professional.
I first began performing in the mid 1990’s as a relay double poet act, it was terrifying, but exciting. But I felt that it was rather disjointed so I went solo.
Here are some links to those very early gigs.
As a solo performer in the 1990s, I performed at a lot of comedy clubs, because it felt difficult to fit in and at least a lot of my stuff was meant to be funny. I had some great experiences, supported some amazing artists and travelled the country gigging.
But then I had a really bad gig and a few other personal problems and I gave up.
The wilderness years lasted almost 18 years and ended when prompted by a change in my life I was encouraged and motivated to return to performing.
So in 2017 I began performing and re-emerged with a new name, cherry b and a wealth of new poems.
Also that year I formed Cherry & Peesh an acoustic musical collaboration with Peesh LoGOz. From the off we were offered and performed at some amazing gigs and festivals. The first song we created was ‘Punk Mum’.
Today, I’m looking forward to live gigs again, both solo and with Cherry & Peesh after the darkness of lockdown. But that space also generated creativity, I wrote a book, wrote new songs with Peesh, performed within many Facebook live streams, created videos, began designing and working on art projects, even managed a few socially distanced gigs. Cherry & Peesh also have our own radio show on Louder Than War on the first Tuesday of the Month called Poetry is the New Rock n Roll, where it focuses on lyrics and spoken word in music. All shows are available to listen to on the website or on Mixcloud.
