Charles Darwin (his contributions to our way of seeing the natural world rather than his dodgy victorian political views), Charles Bukowski, August Kleinzahler, John Coltrane, Richard Dawkins, Li Po, Dogen, Basho, Dostoyevsky, Gogol, the malevolent forces of nature, ellen gaffney (mum), patrick o'sullivan, glennfidich, guinness, leffe, the full english breakfast ( well, minus the eggs ), the many billion years before the first prophet hallucinated in some desert, miles, bird, mingus, rollins, coffee, homo erectus, homo neanderthalis, australopithecus, john fante, nina simone, mick foley, the view from my window, william blake, pornography, tom waits, john lee hooker, mark rothko, hokusai, van gogh, seamus heaney, palaeontology
Niall O'Sullivan is a scrawler, promoter and spitter of poetry. Born of Irish parents in England, he grew up in Slough, studied Art in Bath and has been living in London since the turn of the millennium. He has performed poetry since 1997, playing venues all over the country. He has performed alongside the like of Hugo Williams, John Hegley, Roddy Lumsden, John Stammers, Zena Edwards, Phill Jupitus and Pete Doherty and has been featured at the Cheltenham, Bristol, Bath, Folkestone and Penzance literature festivals. In June 2005 he performed a few gigs in Denmark including an appearance at the world famous Roskilde festival. In the autumn of 2005 Niall performed poetry around the country from Cumbria to Cornwall as part of the Apples and Snakes Temptation Tour, and was also part of the Waterways Publishing Reaching 4 tour. In 2006, Niall visited Germany as an ambassador for the UK poetry scene performing in Berlin as well as being the special guest at the first poetry slam in the eastern region.
His first collection, you're not singing anymore
, was published by Waterways in December 2004. It became a 20th Century Poetry Bestseller on Amazon.co.uk and was also a recommended title on Amazon.de. His work can also be found on major poetry websites wolfmagazine.co.uk and thepoem.co.uk.
Niall has hosted and promoted many events including the Aromapoetry open mike with Nii Parkes as well as founding and co-hosting New Blood for three years at the Poetry Café with James Byrne. He has also ran a monthly event, The Cellar, at the Poetry Café since April 2005. Niall also hosts London’s biggest weekly open mike event, Poetry Unplugged. Outside of poetry, Niall has also hosted the 2004 Big Issue Film Festival at the Prince Charles Cinema.
For almost a decade, Niall worked as a gardener to keep the wolf from the door and the weeds from the geraniums. His experiences of working the housing estates of Acton, as well as his Catholic upbringing, have become a feature of his gritty but humorous poems.
His second collection, Ventriloquism for Monkeys, was released in the autumn of 2007.
"...humour is a defining factor in the spoken word. O'Sullivan's own works, compiled in his new collection, 'You're Not Singing Anymore', are cases in point - containing funny and compassionate observations about disparate lives glimpsed on London street corners."-Time Out
Hello Niall. Cheers for the freinds acceptance. As usual, I like listening to your stuff. The one about the greasey spon touched me! P.S At the Camberwell green end of cold harbour lane, there's a quality cafe near the Kings hospital, though I forget the name! Something "Rock"
Big up to you for the Ventriloquy - enjoyed the collection very much. Are you aware of the famous John Wilmot portait with the monkey - see http://www.npg.org.uk/live/eddisguise04.asp ??
hello. I saw you at latitude +I bought your book. I really like your poems! hopefully you will be there next year! (you might remember me-I had a hat with badges all over it!)
Please do come along on Monday next July 2nd it's my book launch, it's going to be chocka and it's free. Its Hoxton St, 70. The Macbeth Pub. 7 till late. See you there. I may by you a beverage but the chances are it will be right busy with performances and like you will have a wicked evening, yours truly RW.
hot, sizzly, full english breakfast of a performance at my gig in brighton a couple of saturdays ago. thank you so much for coming down. dan belton threw in the towel with poetry a long long time ago as he tends to have a severely cynical view of performance poets. however, i did manage to coax him out of retirement that day to belt out a few lines once more, and he was very glad to have seen you perform. he was spouting superlatives about you after you checked out of the joint. you can check out his take on the proceedings on my blog spot and you will also be able to admire a couple of beautific photos of your good self in action!
Good to see you last night. A good job that Mr Parkes knows his anthologies from his collections. But the Portuguese poet I couldn't remember the name of, Fernando Pessoa, wrote using heteronyms, so could possibly have had either of the above?
