Brian Bilston

brian bilston

The Poet Laureate of Twitter

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“He is to poetry what Banksy is to art. He is a riddle, wrapped up in a mystery, inside an enigma, inserted into a conundrum, buried underneath a puzzle.”

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His first poem on Twitter

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about His first poem on Twitter

"It started with a tweet. I never thought it would come to this. I'm not even sure it was a poem. More of a play on words, each one carefully selected to fit into the 140-character constraint of a tweet."

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After his first tweet, he had turned off his phone so it wasn't until a few hours later, when he'd returned home and turned it back on again, that he saw his Twitter notifications had gone crazy - his tweet had been shared several hundred times, he had 200 new followers. He said, "It was the kind of reaction I was utterly unaccustomed to getting."

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A few weeks later,he tried again with a poem entitled Frisbee

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Again, it was well-received. More retweets. More new followers. And so his career as social media poet began. "I had never intended to be a poet. A poet to my mind was someone of intensity, a serious type, the kind of person you wouldn't want to get trapped in a kitchen with at a party."

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"I began to experiment with the visual aspects of poetry, when I wrote a poem in the shape of a Christmas tree. The poem itself was about how I had neglected to water my words, and I illustrated this by having words spread out around the base of the poem, like pine needles scattered over a carpet."

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"I tend to write in a straightforward, uncomplicated way. It’s not the kind of poetry which needs several readings before you discover the meaning held within; I’m not that clever. Most poems are meant to amuse in some way – whether they do, I don’t know. And I’m always interested in playing with form; that could be the shape of the words on paper or presenting poems in places you wouldn’t expect to find them, such as an Excel spreadsheet or a Venn diagram."

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Then other forms and shapes followed.

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"We live in an age of infographics, data, flowcharts. On Twitter, I noticed how everyone, it would seem, enjoys a good Venn diagram. So I wrote a poem using two different personal narratives separated into two halves of a Venn diagram, with words which overlapped in their stories appearing in the intersection to form a third, unifying perspective to the poem."

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Brian Bilston is a poet clouded in the pipe smoke of mystery. Very little is known about him other than the fragments of information revealed on social media

'Bilston is a magician with words'(The Guardian)

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In 2014 he became the first person to retain the title of Pipe Smoker of the Year [Poetry section] and, over the years, he has won numerous awards for cycling proficiency, first aid, and general tidiness. He won the 2015 Great British Write Off poetry prize for a poem disguised in a Venn diagram.

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His first book

(Published in 2017)

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It's about a fictional Brian Bilston...

His first novel

(Published in 2020)

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It’s January 1st and Brian Bilston’s life needs to change. His ex-wife has taken up with a new man, a motivational speaker and marketing guru to boot; he seems to constantly disappoint his long-suffering son; and at work he is drowning in a sea of spreadsheets and management jargon. Brian's resolution is to write a poem every day; poetry will be his salvation. But there is an obstacle to his happiness in the form of Toby Salt, his arch nemesis in the Poetry Group and rival suitor to Liz, Brian’s new poetic inspiration. When Toby goes missing, Brian is the number one suspect.

The plot

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Part tender love story, part murder mystery, part coruscating description of a wasted life, and interspersed with some of the funniest poems about the mundane and the profound, Diary of a Somebody is a unique, original and hilarious novel.

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Alexa, what is there to know about love? is a wonderful collection of poems about love in all its forms, covering everything from romantic love to familial love, to long-distance love, and even love on the internet. The collection also features poems about the true passions for many booklovers, reading and literature, and the odd one about the subject causing many of us heartbreak: politics. With titles like ‘Hold My Hand While We Jump Off This Cliff’ and ‘Remembrance of Things Pasta’, there’s something for even the most jaded romantic within these pages. The perfect, witty gift for Valentine’s and beyond.

(Published in January 2021)

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50 Ways to Score a Goal and Other Football Poems shows Brian Bilston's genuine love for the beautiful game, whether it is a kick about in the back garden, a Sunday match in the park or watching your team winning the cup. There are poems about everything from training to match day, after match analysis, honest football chants, etc. Includes chants, ballads, puns, acrostics and shape poems. This is a must for football fans of all ages. (Published in 2021)

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Brian Bilston & Twitter

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"I didn’t join Twitter to use it as a platform to share poems. But I joined up using a pseudonym because it gave me a freedom to tweet about whatever I might like without consequence."

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Refugees is a very clever poem which packs an enormous punch. It’s great for stimulating debate about young minds.

On a first read-through, the poem appears to be a criticism of refugees but the poem can be read in reverse order. It's in fact a upside down poem or a palindrome poem. The poet says he got the idea for the two-way structure from a poem called The Lost Generation by Jonathan Reed.

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Reverse poetry is a poem that can be read forwards (top to bottom) and have one meaning, but can also be read backwards (bottom to top) and have a different or opposite meaning. The structure of reverse poems is usually the same. There are negative and positive statements mixed in with general statements such as, "I believe that" or "It is not true that". The topic of a reverse poem is usually something that has two opposite viewpoints or sides to it.

What is REVERSE POETRY?

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About Brian Bilston

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Answer this question... What about the line at the end “A place should only belong to those who are born there”.

And now, here is a challenge 4 U!

Write a four or five-line poem which can be read both ways, i.g. about injustice...

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