Kevin Cadwallender

Kevin Cadwallender Poems

Kevin Cadwallender Biography

Kevin Cadwallender was born in Hartlepool and lived until he was 12 in the mining Village of Blackhall Rocks in East Durham, moving to Peterlee where he lived until moving to Sunderland and then to Edinburgh where he now lives. He studied a degree in English at the University of Sunderland and also a Masters in Radio Production and Management. He works as Commissioning Editor for Red Squirrel Press (ScotlandHe was runner up in the BBC Slam at the Edinburgh Fringe and was Scottish National Slam Champion in2012 was nominated for a Raymond Williams Community Publishing Award for his book ‘Voyages’ and shortlisted for a Sony Radio Award for the radio version of this broadcast on BBC Radio 4. He is the former editor of Hybrid, Sand and Drey magazines which also published dozens of poets in pamphlet form. His Residencies have included the Great North Forest, James Cook University Hospital, Durham County Council Museums and Libraries, The Cumbrian Co-op Imagine Dunfermline and for New Writing North. He has appeared at StAnza Festival, Durham Literature Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Free Fringe Festival, The Wicker Man Festival, Hastings Festival, Croydon Festival, Bradford Festival, King Creosote’s Haar Fest, Jockstock, The Scottish Open Golf Tournament, Knockhill Racing Circuit, Newcastle Fringe Festival, The Poetry Café, London, Newcastle’s Glow Ball, The Nyurican (New York) The Morden Tower in Newcastle, The Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea, The Lyrik Kabinet in Munich and in Universities in Oldenburg, Nottingham, London, Sunderland, Durham and Manchester. He has edited several books including’ The Big Red Yonkly’ (Rookbook) , ‘Smelter’ (with Cynthia Fuller) Mudfog Press, ‘By Grand Central Station We Sat Down and Wept’ (Red Squirrel Press) , Views of Views (Great North Forest) .)

The Best Poem Of Kevin Cadwallender

Verdantic

Not to be verdantic
Although that isn’t a real word,
I will lead you into
The garden of lies
And offer you less
Than an apple.
I will offer you
An ancient latin pun.

Or maybe it was
Wine, harvested
From the vine to
Slip down the throat
To catch in the throat.
Or Michelangelo’s fig?
Or the mind altering mushroom?
Or the betrayal of pomegranates?
Some say that flesh is the fruit.

Or meant metaphorically
Which at least sense inclines towards.
Sin and knowledge go together;
Like Adam and Eve,
Like Lilith and Samael,
Like lies and truth.

How this all applies to us
In our current predicament
Leaves me clutching at ribs,
Drinking the cider made
From one hundred percent
Forbidden, and drunk
Without cigarettes
Between
the Garden of Eden, Belfast
and the love lost in Gethsemane.
It matters little how I fell.


I am unsophisticated in my sophistry.

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