Sue Johns originates from Cornwall where she started performing as a punk poet, in the 1980’s.

 

 She has published 3 pamphlets and 2 full collections, the most recent Hush (Morgan’s Eye Press

2011), Rented, Poems on Prostitution and Dependency (Palewell Press, 2018) and  Track Record  (Dempsey & Windle, 2021)

 

Her work has appeared in a wide range of anthologies such as can You Hear the People Sing

(Palewell Press, 2020), Alter Egos (Bad Betty, 2019) Welling Up (Palewell Press, 2019) and Time for Song, Contemporary Cornish Poetry ( Morgan’s Eye Press, 2009) and magazines including Poetry News, The Morning Star, Southbank Poetry, Dreich, The Atlanta Review, Prole, Brittle Star, The Big Issue and London Grip.

 

Sue has also written and performed theatrical monologues and worked on numerous art/poetry collaborations including Spectre of Abandonment with visual artist Lorraine Clarke, 2014.

She is a veteran of the Performance Poetry circuit and has performed at readings and festivals around the country including The Edinburgh Festival and St Ives literary festival.

 

She has an MA in Writing Poetry. from Newcastle University/The Poetry School..

 

Reviews of Sue’s work:

 

The poems in ‘Track Record’ are all inspired by trains. Reviewers’ comments include:

 

‘Sue Johns’ poems travel beyond their termini in their imaginings of other lives … often with great humour and bravado      Tamar Yoseloff

 

Daring, pin-sharp and technically assured, these poems are full of wit, story, atmosphere and invention      Amy Acre

 

Track Record steams across countries and continents … it is an evocative and often skewer- sharp study of the railway and how it has shaped human life.    Adam Horovitz

 

For  Hush;

‘Sue Johns is one of contemporary poetry’s finest voices.’      Steve Tasane, (Poet and Performer)

 

‘As we journey through a series of provocative subjects, both sensual and political, we can admire Johns’s perfectly judged pitch.’      Niall O’Sullivan, (Poet, Writer, Performer).

 

For Rented:

Sue Johns…uses her pages bullet-ridden’     Katy Evans-Bush.

 

Sue Johns pulls no punches. Like Peter Reading she picks at life’s scabs, casting her eye on the dark corners that others ignore.     Tristram Fane-Saunders.

 

The poems are never gratitious nor do they flinch from their subject. Sue Johns approach is lyrical, varied, sometimes humorous, occasionally shocking to devastating effect.      Pauline Sewards.