Some Facts:
Rich Goodson grew up in Nottingham, UK, and now lives in Belper, Derbyshire, with his husband and a dog. He read English at St.Edmund Hall, Oxford.
Rich spent 27 years teaching teenage and adult refugees in an inner-city FE college.
He now works in private practice as a counsellor (www.richgoodsontherapy.com).
He's a dharma-teacher-in-training with the Kwan Um School of Zen.
His poems and lyrical essays often explore masculinity, 'foreignness' and identity and can be placed in a tradition which asks: "What does it mean to be embodied - sexually, psychologically and spiritually - in resistance to society - and how do we survive?" His work's influenced by Queer Theory, Buddhism, fairy tales and mythologies, shamanism, New Narrative and the news.
He's involved in an ongoing translation project / collaboration with the Chinese poet-sculptor Xiguan Lei.
For all his adult life he's taught Creative Writing workshops in schools, colleges, universities, community groups and prisons.
Publications :
2 poems in the anthology 'The Penguin Poetry of Sex', ed. Sophie Hannah (2016).
Début pamphlet, 'Mr Universe', published by Eyewear Books (2017): awarded 'Autumn 2017 Pamphlet Choice' by The Poetry Book Society.
2 poems in the Emma Press anthology 'In Transit: Poems of Travel', ed. Sarah Jackson and Tim Youngs (2018).
1 poem in 'The Best New British And Irish Poets 2019-2021', ed. Nick Makoha (Eyewear Publishing, 2021)
Competitions:
Winner of Freedom From Torture's poetry competition (2022) with his poem 'Kora'.
A poem longlisted in the UK's National Poetry Competition (2024)
Other Things You Might Want To Know:
In 1998 he completed a Masters in Writing (Lifewriting and Fiction) at Nottingham Trent University.
In 2008 he started Nottingham Stanza, now the longest-running contemporary poetry reading group in the U.K.
In 2012 he completed a Doctorate in Writing (Poetry) at Nottingham Trent University.
In 2013 he founded Word Jam (now 'World Jam'), a collective of poets and musicians whose first language isn't English.
In 2017 he worked with an African women's group and wrote a toolkit for writers & teachers who want to work with refugees. This was sent to all the UNESCO Cities of Literature in the world & can be downloaded HERE.
His poems can also be found on a live album called 'Out On A Limb' with the improv / experimental jazz duo Tunc (Wayne Rex and Dave Jackson) on www.muteantsoundsnetlabel.bandcamp.com
He's danced on a podium in the Hacienda nightclub in Manchester.
Oh, and he once went to Switzerland...
by mistake.
He's on Instagram on three different profiles: rich.goodson, richgoodsontherapy and zen_in_belper
