This post, entitled An Intense Young Man At An Open Mic Night, could just as easily be called The One Where My Husband Writes A Book. Or the more passive aggressive One Where My Husband Has A Book Out Before I Do And Is Now Dead To Me. Or maybe The One Where My Husband Has A Book Out Next Week But It’s Only Poetry So Pfft.

I jest, of course. I am very proud of him, and strongly advise you to pre-order the book from House of Three RIGHT NOW. I’ve read it and it’s great – funny, and clever, and moving in places. This last one a bit of a departure for him in poetry terms, and all the more effective for it. If you don’t believe me, I refer you to the first line of the press release, which reads:

“After figuratively bursting onto the scene with some thinly veiled stand-up about the actor Robert Pattinson, Blair is now an established figure in Scottish spoken word.”

That’s not even a lie. He’s had work about the actor Robert Pattinson (aka Edward Cullen out of Twilight, aka Cedric Diggory from Harry Potter) published in respected literary journal Gutter, featured at respected cabaret night Rally and Broad, and made the entire theme of a 90 minute performance at respected arts festival Hidden Door.

hidden door

Andrew is known in Scottish spoken word circles for writing funny stuff, and for writing weird stuff – but that’s not all he does. He’s one of the driving forces behind Saboteur Award shortlisted podcast platform Poetry as F*ck, giving spoken word artists the chance to experiment (with Lies, Dreaming), talk about their influences (Eight Poems That, If You Had To Be Trapped In Some Way For a Prolonged Period Of Time With Little Hope of Rescue, You’d Quite Like to Bring Along For Coping Purposes – which is poetry Desert Island Discs), and ruin one another’s work (Poets Against Humanity).

He’s done three Fringe shows with Poetry asF*ck collaborator Ross McCleary, been published in over twenty lit mags and collections including Gutter, Umbrellas of Edinburgh and Valve, and had a Found poem based on the football commentary of Clive Tyldesley published in the Irish Times.

He’s prolific, sometimes very niche, and always a lot more disciplined in his creative practice than I am.

An Intense Young Man At An Open Mic Night has something in it for anyone who likes words – from a treatise on the numerous reasons why you cannae shove your granny aff a bus to a harrowing portrait of Eeyore’s Descent into Nihilism, to a melancholy tale of teen love at the fish counter.

I can’t really read the title piece, An Intense Young Man At An Open Mic Night, without hearing him bellowing it at Blind Poetics and bringing the house down.  I assume he will do this at the book launch at Blackwell’s, July 26 at 6.30pm.

You should come and find out.

P.S. Buy this book. It won’t make anyone rich – it’s a poetry collection with a limited print run. But it’s good and new and it will probably make you laugh. In these apocalyptic times, surely that’s recommendation enough?