Twitter’s ‘Banksy of poetry’ Brian Bilston is ready to go public-Ashley Davies-Entertainment – Metro

Brian, with his late cat Buttons, keeps his identity under wraps (Picture: Supplied)

Pretty much all good Twitter users know and love the witty, clever and touching poems of Brian Bilston, who’s known to many as the social media platform’s unofficial Poet Laureate.

Due to his anonymity, he’s also been described as the ‘Banksy of poetry’ but, if you’re lucky, you could actually be in the same room this autumn, as he shares some of his newest work.

He’ll be appearing at this year’s Push The Boat Out poetry festival in Edinburgh (as well as a few other dates around the country, check his website for details) in support of his new book, Days Like These.

But more of that later.

First, we should let him explain why he doesn’t go by his real name or share photos of his face.

‘It wasn’t a deliberate choice,’ recalls the Birmingham-born ‘Brian’, who lives in Oxford and used to work in academic publishing. ‘I first joined Twitter under a pseudonym, mainly because I was working in an office and I didn’t want the people around me to know I was spending so much time on social media. I’m quite introverted and writing almost as another persona is quite helpful. I can express myself maybe more than I would normally.’

He gives his age as ‘between 20 and 70’ but, with a poem about Paul Young in his canon, it might be fair to narrow that down to between 35 and 55.

It’s natural to wonder how he handles public engagements such as book festivals and signings. Are we going to have a Blind Date-style wall separating him from the audience? Will they have to be blindfolded?

‘I don’t hide behind a screen or wear a papier mâché Frank Sidebottom-style head, as much as I’d like to,’ he laughs. ‘The people who come along are quite good at not sharing photos. For a while, I resisted doing events, partly because I’m not naturally confident about putting myself out there like that. But, also, I didn’t really want to lose that anonymity.’

Due to his reticence, we’re unlikely to see a more up-to-date publicity shot than the one showing Brian with his beloved old cat, who died late last year at the age of about 16. He has new cats, but they’re neither as compliant nor photogenic like Buttons, he says.

He admits to nerves before going on stage, but once he’s up there he loves it. ‘I have the confidence now that I can do it,’ he says. ‘If I lose where I am I can pick it up. I don’t have to worry about going off-script.’

It helps that most audiences will already be well-disposed towards him, but you can still make Brian’s life easier by laughing after the first poem.

‘Some kind of noise would be nice,’ says the modest best-selling poet. ‘It’s always a bit weird when you’re reading poems, and it’s a bit weird for audiences, too.

‘There can be a bit of awkwardness about knowing what to do. Do you clap at the end of every poem, or the end of the show? What’s the etiquette?’

Don’t hold back, and clap after each one, we reckon.

About three-quarters of the poems he reads will be from Days Like These, which contains 366 poems: one for each day of the year (leap years are catered for). Each one is linked with something significant to have happened on that date, such as an event or discovery, a birth or death, or it could be more charmingly banal.

He’ll also read some others from past collections, such as You Took The Last Bus Home and Alexa, What Is There To Know About Love?

‘Generally, how it goes is that I read a poem, tell a bad joke or two and then read another poem,’ he says. ‘I’m going for a laugh – or at least to stop someone looking so angry.’

It’ll all be very different from his first public event. At the Chipping Norton Literary Festival in 2017 he pretended to be a snobby academic called Dr Dylan Miller, snootily critiquing the work of Brian Bilston.

So, come along, laugh when it’s funny and, please, don’t share photos.

Brian is on tour and will appear at Push The Boat Out Festival, Edinburgh, Nov 5 and 6, brianbilston.com

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