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Julian Bishop
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the poet
A former environment journalist turned poet, Julian Bishop lives in Barnet with his family and dog, and runs a small media company. He’s worked for many years as both a reporter and a producer with the BBC, and also on ITV’s News At Ten. Julian's first collection of eco-poems, We Saw It All Happen, appeared in 2023, and his poetry has been published widely. He was a runner-up in the International Ginkgo Prize for Eco Poetry, and is currently writing a series of poems about masculinity, as seen through the life and times of Italian painter Caravaggio.
the poems
Lobster
Pepsi – it was the brand he grew up
with – the sweet memory of it, the
familiar tang of aluminium. Each night
cradled in a cot of cans, suckled on
bottles, sleeping on a seabed littered
with plastic toys, tops spinning on the
floor. Every one of them Pepsi. He
dressed up in armour – it became a
habit (with a Pepsi logo) – hung out
with a pile of drifters, washed-up types
who didn’t even look fine on the
surface. They all drank Pepsi. He got a
tattoo – festooned in red and blue, he
soon became a brand ambassador,
the extravagant fandangle spangled on
a hand. But he threw it all away. Bottled
it. Abandoned, he washed up on a
beach – that’s where I found him.
Junked, with only a Pepsi filigree.
Even his mother had sent him packing.
Sitting for
Caravaggio
Ground floor of the Palazzo Madama –
I walk into the blasphemous dark,
black as a Vatican bible. The air hangs
heavy with myrrh, hint of dead flesh.
He wants an assistente – a boy to prime
canvas, grind his earths and ochres.
The pay – two soldi less than my age,
dieci per una seduta. Then the Master
appears, brighter than The Crucifixion,
blinding rays of mezzogiorno sunlight
stabbing a straw-covered floor. He thrusts
towards me a set of predator’s feathers,
angels’ wings cadged off Gentileschi.
My heart flutters; just like the others
his eyes strip me before I can undress.
Shucked and pinioned, I edge onto a set
cluttered with props: crumpled bed-sheets,
bawdy musical scores, violin, plated armour,
a dead flower. I don’t feel sweet like Cupid.
Legs wide, an angel’s wing brushes my thigh –
I’m his Love Conquers All, unadorned.
My right arm aches from clutching arrows
without a quiver. I grin. The Master spits
grape pips as he paints. Although we never
touch, I feel his fingers flicker over me.
He spits another pip, his temper sweeter
than the flesh of a maturated fig; Bellissimo
Cecco, next time I make you a saint.
Pangolin
‘ ... a splendor
which man in all his vileness cannot
set aside ... ’
Marianne Moore, fromThe Pangolin (1936)
Part botanical, part mechanical dragon –
Marianne considered you more
Artichoke than mammal, more plant
than ant-eater, your pine-cone whorls
Nestled snug among the jungle under-scrub.
Ardently pursued for your aluminium
Glossiness – armoured dinosaur, your snakeskin
plates were scraped quite clean by
Opportunistic traffickers; exotic crocs served up
as mysterious elixirs to quicken
Lactation or help drain pus. Alas, uncanny pangolin,
maybe your foil-covered flesh
Incubated more than a quick fix, your silver plates
Stripped by unscrupulous poachers,
Name made notorious by those who sickled open
the last cans of your slatted metal backs.
Publishing credits
Lobster: Ginkgo Prize Ecopoetry Anthology 2018 (Ginkgo Prize)
Sitting for Caravaggio: winner of the 2021 Poets and Players
Poetry Competition
Pangolin: runner-up in the 2020 Ver Poets Open Poetry
Competition