Poetry

Collections

West South North North South East. The High Window, 2019.

My first collection, mixing themes of place and memory, family and loss.

‘In West South North, North South East, Daniel Bennett envisages landscapes of decay; urban Britain as a ruined, post-apocalyptic wasteland, haunted by its past, at odds with its present, fearful of its future; countryside and coast bound loosely together by mud and mildew. A hauntingly compelling collection from a distinctive new voice.’ Ben Banyard

‘Simultaneously delighting in and defying the hold place has on us, Daniel Bennett is a poet-topographer of back streets and back waters, letting ambiguity and dream stray into his minute notations, charting how ‘imagination occupies these places.”’ Kate Miller

‘Among many fine poems in Daniel Bennett’s debut collection, ‘Still Life’ remarks on the featured delicious apples whose green/will always remind you of pond scum/circulating in islands. There is a dissonance in the image that takes you out of the frame and into a wider reality of change and mortality… Many of the poems are about places, but, as the quote from Julien Grace at the front of the books says: ‘ a vague feeling that location was irrelevant’. Like the title of the volume itself, the poems create a sense of both movement and stasis, of going somewhere and nowhere at the same time.’ Peter Stewart, The Frogmore Papers.

‘This is a strong collection of work and one that is worth reading and re-reading. Bennett is a poet whose work is worth seeking out.’ Andrew Taylor, The Journal.

‘It is the elusive “route” that Bennett seems to seek that will lead him out of the maze of city, memory, life; it is a hope for clear direction, which unfortunately life is reluctant to give, no matter how much you try to map it out. In ‘Ambition’ Bennett reveals his two childhood dreams: to be a palaeontologist (“retrieve the bones of monsters long dead”) and a film director (“to record images of colour and scale”). Taking the label of “monsters” very lightly, I would say he’s achieved these dreams with great skill.’ Charles Lauder Jr, Under The Radar.

‘The tone in these tender and highly absorbing poems is of seeing with a profound toughness and gentleness. Seeing just about everything, the past overlaid in the present. Leicester Square, Camden, Bermondsey, Spitalfields are namechecked and we walk through him, but every place achieves its texture and suchness… All the filthy magic of the capital.’ Nichola Deane

‘The title of this collection suggests a journey that isn’t linear and doesn’t follow a logical course round a compass, but one that is a series of steps forward and then steps retraced before it moves on to a new destination. There are a number of difficult journeys made throughout the pages of West South North North South East including the one made in the opening poem, ‘Lorca in South London’…. Despite or because of all of these leaps, juxtapositions, back-tracks and unreliable narrators that appear throughout West South North North South East it takes a while to give a sense of who the person or people at the heart of these poems are or where they came from. They are not straightforward; their lives are never simple. And this is collection is a highly successful and enjoyable raking through those bones. The last lines of the final poem, “Boxes” in this collection are ‘and I should have been sad, but really / I felt proud of what I left behind.’ It’s fair to say that Bennett should be far from sad at his achievements in this collection and very much proud.’ Mat Riches, London Grip

Pamphlets

Arboreal Days. Red Ceilings Press, 2018.

‘In many ways, Arboreal Days reminds me of all the poetic landscapes I have loved and inhabited as a reader: Skirrid Hill by Owen Sheers, Sheffield Almanac by Pete Green and Seven Hills by Ben Dorey, to name just a few – but Bennett also does something completely new, eschewing any attempt to make that landscape feel homely or familiar in favour of its strangeness and unknowable nature. Overall, ambitious and wickedly good poetry, well worth a read.’ Amy Kinsman, Riggwelter Press

Arboreal Days featured as Publication of the Month on Atrium, Sept 2018.

Buy Arboreal Days from Red Ceilings Press

The Roadkill Cookbook, 2017.

A pamphlet of twenty poems, published in a small print run in 2017. The poems in this short collection navigate cities and landscapes of Europe and America, while returning to the small towns and landscapes of my childhood.

Now available on issuu.

Poems Online 

Chris’s Room, The Epicureans, G in London | Wild Court, October 2022
Out of Town B&Q | Black Nore Review, September 2022
Clickbait | The National Poetry Competition 2020
Two Days In The Valley; Figures In A Landscape; Moscato | Wild Court, November 2020
The Panda | London Grip, Autumn 2020
After The Beach | Tentacular
Alekhine’s Defence; Boots; Lisbon | The High Window
Cartagena Sketches and Limon | Porridge
The Monks | Allegro Poetry, December 2019
Field Party | The Poetry Village, December 2019
Conversation; One Morning, The Perfect City; Swimming In The Indian Ocean; Penny Falls | Blue Nib Issue 39 | October 2019
Cinema | Atrium | September 2019
Vapour | Ink, Sweat and Tears| September 2019
Brooklyn, Pollen | The Kindling, Issue 7, August 2019
At The Palazzo | Train
Kiss, Kiss; Sunday Evening; and The Archive | Blackbox Manifold 22, July 2019
Three Scent Bottles, Midnight Movies, In Country, Early Indicators Of The End | The High Window, June 2019
Days Without News | Lotus Eater 9, April 2019
Back With The Boys and Rewilding | Riggwelter Press, March 2019
Callings and Brutalism | morphrog, January 2019
Friday. | Caught By The River, October 2018.
Lowly. | Caught By The River, September 2018.
Dry Dock. | Caught By The River, August 2018.
Bathing in Ella, Feathers, Ornithology, Plantation House, Traffic. | Bombay Literary Magazine, July 2018.
Note, A Decade, and The Library | Nutshells and Nuggets, May 2018
Bones, Chinese Lanterns, Fennel Tea, My Father Dreams of the Sea, Plant Life, Schlock. | Eunoia Review, May 2018.
Education. | Ink, Sweat and Tears, May 2018
You Know Me and Rubbernecking. | Prelude, April 2018
R’s Story and Booksellers. | London Grip, April 2018
Fist.| Unbroken, January 2018
Trees, Late Storm West Street, Spring, On Leaving, Bermondsey Spaces, Sappho On The Hill. | Underfoot, Nov 2017
Compost. | Riggwelter Press
Motes. | The Poetry Shed, Oct 2017.
Olive and Lovely Devices. | The High Window, 2017
Olfactory. | Southword, Sept 2017.
Oh and Distant Badge. | Clear Poetry 2017
Prayer For Italian Restaurants, and Meltdown Man. | Atrium 2017
Our Ghost Film. | The Open Mouse, May 2017
A Quiet Place in the Country. | Caught By The River, May 2017.
Poetics, Taxi Drivers. | Southword, 2017
Ah Odysseus, Llanwnog, Stickleback. | The Gull, January 2017.
Ride the Amazing Cobra. | Ink, Sweat and Tears, January 2017.
Definite, Spring Break, The White House. | Clear Poetry, Autumn 2016.
Formaldehyde. | Unbroken, Autumn 2016.
Blackstock Morning, Waterloo. | The High Window, Autumn 2016.
Buenos Aires, Mendoza Journey, Montevideo, Gauchos. | The Literateur, Summer 2016.
Changes. | Antiphon, Summer 2016.
Ouija Board. | Yellow Chair Review 7, 2016. |
Monkey Business, Chai. | Manchester Review 15, 2015.

Poems in Print

The Weather In Priory Park | The Cry of the Poor, 2021
The Limit | Eyeflash 6 Winter 2020
Field Party | Green Fields anthology, Maytree Press
Creek Diary, Blood Orange, Argument of the Snow | Poetry Birmingham March 2020
The Idea of Texas | Structo [forthcoming]
Berlin. | The Frogmore Papers, Issue 95
Where It Takes You and At The Frontier. | Poetry Birmingham, Dec 2019
The Donald Redford and Croesus In Soho. | The Journal
Clone Towns. | The Well Review
Carcassonne and The Unsaid. | Poetry Salzburg, September 2019
Compost. | Under The Radar, December 2018
Mondays Are Difficult For Us All. | Brittle Star, November 2018
Driving In Snowdonia. | Eyeflash Poetry, October 2018.
The Sage. | The Journal, March, 2018.
The Neighbours. | Prole, December 2017.
Painting. | Brittle Star, November 2017.
Summer of the Realists. | Strix, November 2017.
Rothko Room. | Chroma, November 2017.
The Cormorant. | Eyeflash Poetry, October 2017.
Bindweed. | Brittle Star, September, 2017.
Ambition, and Chinook. | Under the Radar, Nine Arches Press, September 2017.
Monsoon Landscape. | The Best New British and Irish Poets 2017, Eyewear Books, 2017.
Kindnesses. | Structo 17, 2017.
Harry’s Bar, La Bodega Negra. | South Bank, 2017.
Leisure Centre. | The Journal, Summer 2016.
Summer in Austerity, Chacras De Coria. | Structo 15, 2016.
Number One Haircut in Town. | The Stinging Fly, Autumn 2015.
Nomads. | Structo 13, 2015.