top of page

Alastair Hesp is a poet born in 1988, who hails from the recesses of the Yorkshire Dales, England. His poem The chaos of recording depression won the 'Best imagined Sound' category in the Sound of the Year Awards 2021.

 

In 2022, he completed his MA in Poetry at  The Manchester Writing School.

During these years Alastair refined his style, voice and sardonic wit thanks to the devoted editing of the writers he met there. As a bipolar poet, his work was transfixed by confessionalism, the experimental, hyper-fluctuations and the chronic, destructive nature this carries. The Last Thing I Ever Wrote (published in The Cannon’s Mouth) and Just an acquaintance (published in Eighty-Four: Poems on Male Suicide, Vulnerability, Grief and Hope, Verve Poetry Press) highlight both the horrors of suicidal ideation and the loneliness of the solipsistic voice. It also exaggerates the absurd position of a lyric I and a broader relationship to how the voices of mental health diagnoses are rarely centred in art. This is his attempt to use poetry to go beyond the language of condition.

            

However, his work has always drawn inspiration from the art world. Living in Berlin for eight years brought Alastair in contact with other experimental artists and ignited a feeling for electronic soundscapes, glitch and atonal music which play a central role in his creative project. This can be seen in his recorded work with percussionist Tatu Rönkkö in the Lausitzer Sessions, his poem The Art of Noise and its Ascension (published in Berlin Journal, FU Review) depicting the birth of the Noise genre and He Said Polynomial - C (Published by Broken Sleep Books as part of an anthology) celebrating pioneering, idiosyncratic electronic musician Aphex Twin, AFX. 

 

Amongst formal publications, Alastair continues to explore interdisciplinary projects with an eclectic mix of other artists. Transference, a poetry based multi-media art installation was exhibited in Copenhagen and Aorta, a Choreographic sound-poetic performance piece is soon to be premiered, both in collaboration with performance group Kant Fabrik (Copenhagen).

Alastair won the The Rosamund Prize 2022 in Manchester, in collaboration with composer and musician, Alice Brookes

England 1 023.JPG
bottom of page