Like most of the things I do – from providing commentary on radio, to my own Vinyl Countdown posts here, indeed to any of my blogging, it happened by accident. It started randomly and has continued in much the same fashion.  But I now have a YouTube channel where I share my poems.

Someone sent me some footage of when I did an ad-hoc reading in Hawke’s Bay recently. And I’d always had a YouTube channel set up with nothing on it – as part of my Premium account. With the book launched a few requests were coming in to do video recordings of poems for various sites and pages (starting with a 30-minute reading for Poetry Live!)

From there I’ve carried on. Starting off by sharing videos of poems that feature in my book.

And then moving from there to include a few newer things…

Oscar’s pretty pleased with me. He says, “Dad, you’re a YouTuber now!” And I think he’s the only person that checks in every day to see if I’ve uploaded a new clip. I have a small handful of subscribers, and some of my videos have a small handful of views. I’d obviously like more or I wouldn’t be talking about it here – now. But at the same time I’m just happy for this to be a diary space for me; a photo-album.

Previous to this my appearances or mentions on YouTube haven’t been positive. Haven’t been with my say. Haven’t been things that I’ve been much in control of…I guess this is me taking back some control. Owning it. For my sins. With my rhymes. And with no delusions of grandeur. Just another business card. Or waste of time. Or both.

Anyway, if you want to ‘like’ and ‘subscribe’ as the YouTubers beg, you probably already have. Or you can still. Or you don’t need to. This choice is yours.

I’m going to share a few of the clips here. For myself as much as for you.

To check out the channel click here
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