David Johnson is a witty and quirky performance poet, who mixes his stand-up humour with his own verse. His inspiration comes from the bizarre world that we live in combined with a wry commentary on change and progress.
David has been a featured artist at poetry and literary festivals in Bristol, Cheltenham, Bath, Kingston, Swindon, Oxford, Hay, Houston and Austin( Texas). He has also appeared at: Nuyorican Poetry Café, New York; Sweet Lorraine’s, New Orleans. In April 2005, he completed a three week tour of the USA. He was a featured poet at the 2009 and 2018 Austin International Poetry Festivals (Texas).
David is co-founder of Paralalia, a poetry partnership dedicated to promoting and encouraging live poetry performance and to bringing poetry to the public ear and eye in new an unusual ways. He is a multi-slam winner -Swindon Literary Festival Slam Champion 2003, Oxford All Star Slam Champion 2004, Lydney Arts Festival 2005 Slam Champion, Thornbury Arts Festival Slam Champion 2006. Runner-up in Bridport Live Festival Slam 2008. He was Poet in Residence for the Bristol Cycle Festival 2010. He has collaborated with Bristol film maker Diana Taylor to produce several poetry films( see Diana Taylor You tube site). These films have been shown at Film festivals in many countries.
David is one of the "IsamBards", a group of four Bristol poets, who write and perform site specific poetry in the Bristol area. Their most recent project was a number of poetry walks at the University of Bristol's Botanic Garde in summer 2019. For their next project , see upcoming performances on this web-site
In 2017 and 2018 David devised a show with the late great Mike Scott called " Still doing it". This combined David's poetry and Mike's wonderful songs. This show was performed in Bristol, Bath and Cornwall, before Mike's untimely death in 2019.
His collections of poems include - It’s funny how one thing leads to another April 2005 (ISBN 0-9548117-1-2 Paralalia), Bombazine (ISBN 978-0-9548117-5-4 Paralalia). Holding on and looking out (Paralalia ISBN 978-0-9548117-6-1) April 2010 (It is also available, as a CD of readings of many of the poems in the volume.) Fallen Apples April 2012( Paralalia ISBN 978-0-9548117-7-8) Earwig in the radio May 2015 ( Paralalia ISBN 978-0-9548117-85)
He co-edited, designed and contributed to City Bristol Today in Poems and Pictures an anthology of new original verse linked to full colour illustrations of Bristol (ISBN 0954811704).
