Three poems inspired by David Bowie

Abstract

Three poems inspired by David Bowie S ometime around the summer of 2013, Alex Bell and John Canfield were in a pub in Lambeth with their poetry workshop group, listening to someone’s jukebox picks, and talking about David Bowie. Bowie was already in the news that year: the V&A Museum’s David Bowie is exhibition presented an opportunity to look back at the mad spectrum of his career up to that point. And for many people he had always been a figure of significance. He was admired as someone who was able to play with and subvert genre, language and gender, and as someone who had creatively reinvented himself so many times, in so many ways. Someone who challenged the mainstream, became the mainstream, then challenged it again, flirting always with different styles and techniques. John and Alex decided it would be great fun to hold a poetry and karaoke night in honour of David Bowie, with commissioned poems on Bowie albums, followed by intoxicated singing. Costume was encouraged.