Play

“I like my poetry to play”

play /pleɪ/

noun, verb, occasionally a very good idea.

The serious business of following curiosity.

Poetry does not have to behave itself on the page.

It can take a seat at a literary salon, interrupt an educational panel, walk onto a tech conference stage, slip aboard a train, become part of an exhibition, or spend a season in residence somewhere beautiful.

Sometimes it gathers twelve people around a table.
Sometimes twelve hundred around an idea.

The room changes. The poetry knows what to do.

Aida Takyrbasheva reading Everything Is Fleeting at an intimate poetry gathering.
Welcome to Le Salon. A poetry reading from Everything Is Fleeting by Aida Takyrbasheva.

How I Play

I.

The Salon

Pull up a chair.

Literary salons, poetry readings, intimate conversations, dinners, private gatherings and cultural conversations — the rooms where poetry stops being read and starts being talked about.

This is where poetry becomes conversation. A few lines read aloud, a question left on the table, and suddenly strangers are telling each other the truth.

The salon also continues between gatherings, in Le Salon — letters, poems and reflections for anyone who would like to keep the conversation going.

Enter Le Salon →

II.

The Stage

Give me a microphone.

Keynotes, panels, educational conversations, cultural programmes, tech conferences and corporate events.

The subjects travel well: human intelligence, intuition, creativity, entrepreneurship, artificial intelligence and Possibility Intelligence. Poetry tends to walk in with them, often into rooms that weren't expecting it.

Yes, even the boardroom.

III.

The Story

Make luxury feel something.

Poetic storytelling beyond the literary room — for hotels, trains, heritage houses, luxury brands, travel and hospitality, and cultural collaborations of every shape.

Some places already hold memory and only need language for it: a grand hotel, a coastline, a house that has watched a century go by. That is poetry of place.

Some stories live in motion — departures, arrivals, thresholds, and the strange emotional weather between destinations. That is poetry in transit.

And some live in everything we carry: memory, inheritance, objects, and the invisible things we travel with without ever unpacking them.

It might become bespoke writing, a filmed poem, or a narrative shaped around one particular place.

IV.

The Residency

Let the poet move in.

An invitation for hotels, cultural institutions, universities, festivals and hospitality environments interested in something longer than an evening.

A residency might lead to readings, new writing, conversations, original work, or experiences shaped specifically around the place — poetry given time to notice what everyone else walks past.

V.

The Exhibition

Hang the words somewhere unexpected.

Poetry in conversation with visual and cultural spaces: exhibitions, galleries, installations and multidisciplinary projects.

Language written into a wall, a window, a room; collaborations where words, art and place begin to finish each other's sentences. An open invitation to curators and makers who suspect a poem belongs in their space.

Curious where I've been playing?

Talks, conversations, published work and appearances live over at Press.

See Press →

Possibility Intelligence

The possibility of possibility.

Possibility Intelligence, or PQ, is the human capacity to recognize possibility before proof, discern which possibilities are worth pursuing, and move toward them with enough self-trust to give the unseen a chance to become real.

Play is one expression of it in motion: intuition noticing a door, imagination wondering what lies behind it, discernment deciding whether it matters, and self-trust turning the handle.

Explore Possibility Intelligence →

Signed editions of Everything Is Fleeting arranged with fresh peonies

A book can also be a gesture.

Signed editions of Everything Is Fleeting for private gifting — for companies, celebrations, considered occasions and curated groups. A small object that keeps speaking long after the evening ends.

Private gifting begins at 50 copies.

Shall we?

Bring a stage, a salon, a boardroom, a gallery, a grand hotel, a dining table — or an idea that doesn't quite have a name yet.

We'll find a way to put poetry in it.

Come play ↓

Receive my love letters.

Poems, reflections, and gentle invitations into presence.