Vince Laws Blog

Vince Laws is a poet, artist, performer, campaigner. He writes poetry, performs poetry and makes visual poetry, paintings, collage, posters, film, installations and recordings: “As an artist, I define what art is. As a poet, I define what a poem is. If my art can be anything from a painting to a concept, so can my poetry. I am a poem.”

digitised purple image with a set of pants on a washing line
20 August 2010

Vince Laws wants your pants to welcome the Pope

I’m not very keen on the current Pope. I’ve been thinking how I could protest his visit to the UK (September 16-19) and satisfy my poetic and artistic needs, and here’s the...

Comments: 4

photo of artist in front of visual poem on a wall
9 August 2010

Vince Laws takes up the OUT140 challenge to tell a coming-out story in 140 characters

I told my parents I was bisexual when I was 16. They said "go to your room." I’m involved in a project on Twitter called OUT140, which has collected coming-out stories from the LGBT community,...

Comments: 0

photo of a reflection in a shop window showing Vince Laws I am a Poem sculpture
14 July 2010

Vince Laws considers 'audacity' and makes another version of 'i am a poem'

...and one day in the future at a university lecture a lass will lift a languid limb and ask, almost seductively if you the poet, writing this now really had the audacity all those years ago to write...

Comments: 1

photo of a series of painted and carved books in amongst some grass
10 July 2010

Vince Laws is a burning poem

I’m right in the middle of getting a window installation together and I thought I’d share part of it with you. I’m treating the whole gallery window as my canvas. On the windowsill...

Comments: 0

photo of artist next to a circular piece of artwork
25 June 2010

Vince Laws shares a piece of visual artwork about what 'they' did to his head

Last year I got called in to the Job Centre during a long period of illness. “I see you are a magazine editor,” the person behind the counter said. “I was,” I explained,...

Comments: 5

photo of dog with poet Vince Laws
21 June 2010

Vince Laws recalls one fine Father's Day

I was living in Brighton, when Father’s Day came around, and in my house I’m the Daddy! Neither my boyfriend nor my dog sent me a card or said a word all day, so I went for a walk in a...

Comments: 4

Crippen cartoon of a wheelchair-user under a desk
19 June 2010

Vince Laws joins the Human Library

I’d never heard of the Human Library until I was asked to be a ‘book’ in February as part of LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans) History Month. As it happens, that event was...

Comments: 5

17 June 2010

Vince Laws redefines poetry with a performance of his Silent Poem

The silver lining to a prolonged period of depression and inactivity last year was the time to think. I came out from under the duvet of darkness determined to pursue a career as a poet and...

Comments: 10

Disability Pride logo
14 June 2010

Vince Laws on the importance of Disability Pride

I was telling a disabled woman I know, let’s call her Tina, that I was about to perform at Disability Pride. “I don’t get it,” she said, with a frown. “What have we got...

Comments: 4

image of a union jack with a slogan painted on it
14 June 2010

Vince Laws goes in search of his missing Poster Poem

I got tired of hearing that to suggest the troops come home is unpatriotic. The logical conclusion of that argument must be: Support the Troops – Start Another War. I first hung this poster...

Comments: 6

13 June 2010

Vince Laws gets out of a spot of bother with the BBC

No Complaints So Far… I do like firsts, don’t you? Last week was Refugee Week and the giant Fusion screen at The Forum in Norwich screened a whole series of short films made by the...

Comments: 5

a mirror image of blood red writing on white paper
7 June 2010

Vince Laws talks about the commission of his radio play Small Frayed Knot

Late last year, Future Radio, Norwich, commissioned a 15-minute radio play from me. Soon after that, I spent a week in Yorkshire on an Arvon residential poetry course in Ted Hughes’s old house,...

Comments: 3

series of medication bottles and boxes with the word 'human' painted on them in red
4 June 2010

DAO is pleased to welcome a new blog from visual poet Vince Laws

Disability Pride Tonight, June 4, I’m performing at the Norwich Arts Centre, at a Disability Pride benefit gig. Tomorrow, June 5, I’m showing visual poetry in the Disability Pride art...

Comments: 4