James McKay started writing and performing poetry in his late 20s, but traces back his ‘classical beatnik’ aesthetic back to student days, studying Horace and Virgil by day and sitting up to read Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti by night. In 2000, James gently exploded into the grassroots of Newcastle culture as compere and principal poet of ‘Home Cooking’. This shambolic but exciting open-mic cabaret night was to run until 2007, and was responsible for an awful lot… James is now based in the post-industrial wasteland of outer east London. He performs regularly, often as part of Richard Tyrone Jones’ Utter! series, both as poet and compere. James also performs as part of the New Popular Reciter project, giving epic readings (up to 2 hours long) of major poetic texts – the book of Job, Walt Whitman’s ‘Song of Myself’, Byron’s ‘Don Juan’. Popular with arts festivals and literary groups, also at warehouse and dinner parties. The album Follow On by The Morris Quinlan Experience is a selection of James’ poems with a lush, cinematic prog-rock soundtrack, and has received worldwide airplay (including BBC Radio 2). James’ first collection, Quiet Circus, was published by Vintage Poison in November 2010. Taken from https://www.writeoutloud.net/profiles/jamesmckay
