The website of writer and poet Daniel Bennett
My review of Sun Afshan's debut pamphlet, Belladonna, is now live on Wild Court. 'A single poem in four parts, ‘Belladonna’ deals with the intensity of a female relationship on the cusp of adulthood, where innocence is quickly frayed and the (blood) rites of passage beckon towards experience. ‘Remember Belladonna’s saunter? Her sway/ Warped our … Continue reading Reviews: Belladonna by Suna Afshan
'One can roam about at ease there (among tall trunks that look something between bronze and rubber). They are well-stripped. Of all low branches. There's no anarchy, no tangle of vines, no encumbrance. One can sit right down there, stretch out at ease. A carpet prevails over it all. A few stray rocks supply furnishings, … Continue reading The Pleasure of Pine Woods
I have three poems in the latest issue of The High Window. Here's an excerpt from one of those poems, 'The Tenants', about rootlessness and our attempts to make a life for ourselves. The Tenants They offered us vine leaves and red wineand we approved of their gestureinside the English gardenthey would never share. We … Continue reading The High Window (Autumn)
If you've never bought a copy of Structo before, I'd really recommend you give it a try. I have a poem in the forthcoming issue, and it has a special place in my heart, as it's the first magazine that published me after I returned to writing poetry again. Beautifully produced, with an imaginative range … Continue reading Structo (Issue 20)
My poem, 'The Panda', has been published in London Grip's Autumn issue. The sounds of the house begin above him,a family waking. He thinks of Stalin preferring a sofa to a presidential bed, of the ace of pentacles gleaming from the apocrypha of a bookshelf of the bottle of Cahors he drank last night,a black wine, dark as a … Continue reading London Grip Autumn 2020
Very pleased to have a new story 'Captured Dreams of the Dead Machine' in the September issue of Interzone. The story follows a dealer in bootleg information and his encounters in the badlands outside his home city. 'Traffic around the freeport snarled up his journey, but Ash cut down by the skud site near the … Continue reading Interzone 288
Billy watched Manny hurry across the road with a jerking, awkward movement of his cane, finally slowing down and stalking his way back to the barber shop on Coldharbour Lane. Manny turned and he waved again, a strong, sprawling gesture of benevolence and warmth. Billy huddled in his coat as he walked back to Stockwell … Continue reading Who Wants Sweetness?
'Most backroad towns looked like this, these days. At best a fast-food place, a feed store, maybe a run-down-looking grocery or a health clinic, and not much else. There'd be a Superwally somewhere between towns, as Silva had said, luring everyone even farther from centre or anything resembling community. Town after town, we saw the … Continue reading Backroad Towns
The artwork for my story in the forthcoming Interzone 288.
'He passed a few yards to one side of them, and stumbled over a heap of something which he did not observe, as it was black like the level ground. It emitted a metallic sound, and looking he saw that he had kicked his foot against a great heap of money. The coins were black … Continue reading Utterly Extinct
