He stopped writing for ten years, then his therapist told him to start again.

Half Beard Half Poet launches My Therapist Made Me Do It.

In 2014 I stopped writing. I didn't pick a pen up again for ten years, and when I finally did, it was because a therapist suggested it. So the title isn't a joke. My Therapist Made Me Do It is my debut solo collection, published by Flapjack Press, and I'm launching it at The Salty Dog in Northwich on Tuesday 17th November.

It's a book from either side of that silence — poems I wrote in my twenties in Salford that I never expected to see in print, and poems written since I came back. There are demons, a pub landlord, a punk festival, the end of the Norse gods, and a bloke who walked into the wrong café in 2009 and ended up doing this for a living.

On the night

I'll be reading from the collection, including a few pieces I've not performed before.

DJ Kim from Radio Northwich will be interviewing me, and throwing it open to the room for questions. Ask me anything — about the book, the ten years off, or why it opens with the first poem I ever wrote and closes with one built out of its wreckage.

Then it's over to you. There's a limited open mic with sign-up on the door, so if you write, bring something. Four minutes, any subject, first come first served. If you've never read anything out loud before, then i'd love to hear you.

The details

The Salty Dog, Northwich

Tuesday 17th November

Doors 7pm, starts 7.30pm

Free entry

Books on sale at £10, and I'll sign anything that isn't nailed down

About Half Beard Half Poet

I'm a poet raised in Walkden, Salford, and living in Northwich. I started out on the Manchester and Salford open mic circuit in 2009, published my first book with the Working Verse Collective in 2012, co-hosted Bang Said the Gun: Manchester, and had two poetry plays on at The Lowry — then walked away from all of it in 2014.

Since coming back I've played Manchester Punk Festival and Morecambe Poetry Festival, founded The Bowling Green Writing Group and the poetry night Wichcraft & Wordery here in Northwich, and opened the Legendary Piña Colada Festival with a poem Rupert Holmes called "pure gold".

My Therapist Made Me Do It is published by Flapjack Press on 5th November 2026. Cover art and illustrations by Stephen Bundy.

halfbeardhalfpoet.co.uk

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