Ash Dickinson has been full-time as a poet since 2008. He is a multiple slam champion, including Edinburgh, Cheltenham, the Museum of Scotland and BBC Radio. He has performed in Australia, Canada, USA, Spain, Jordan, the Czech Republic and Germany, and headlined shows and festivals throughout the UK. Ash is in great demand to run writing workshops in schools, galleries, museums, prisons and with writing groups. His debut collection, Slinky Espadrilles, was the very first title published by Burning Eye Books. His second major collection, Strange Keys, came out in 2016 and a collection for younger years, Show Cats In Transit, followed in 2019. His newest collection, Instructions For Outlaws, was published in May 2022. 

PUBLICATIONS 

  • ‘Slinky Espadrilles’ (2012)  

  • ‘Strange Keys’ (2016) 

  • ‘Show Cats In Transit’ (2019) 

  • ‘Instructions For Outlaws’ (2022)

PERFORMANCE 

  • Ash is a multiple slam champion including BBC Radio, Cheltenham, Edinburgh and the Museum of Scotland.  

  • He has headlined many shows and festivals throughout the UK and abroad to include Australia, Canada, the United States, New Zealand and Germany. 

  • His performances include several appearances at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the Winnipeg Fringe Festival, the Bristol Poetry Festival, the Stratford Poetry Festival, the Glasgow Comedy Festival, StAnza, The Larmer Tree, The Wickerman, The Freedom Festival and The Camden Crawl. Ash has performed at venues such as Ronnie Scott’s (London), The Colston Hall (Bristol), Oran Mor (Glasgow), Jupiter Artland (West Lothian), The Engine Shed (Lincoln) and The Jazz Cafe (London). 

 

EDUCATION 

  • Ash runs poetry and writing workshops in a variety of educational and cultural settings to include: 

    • Schools and colleges (nursery, primary, junior, middle, secondary, special) 

    • Museums and Galleries, through art education 

    • Adult education, to include prisons, writing groups, libraries. 

  • His poetry workshops were a case study in the Bloomsbury-published classroom aid, ‘Making Poetry Happen’ (2015).  

  • Ash has been invited to showcase his workshops to Heads of English conferences for several local authorities to include Hertfordshire, Devon, Cheshire, Hull, as well as the Rugby Group.  

  • Requested by international schools, Ash has been flown abroad to deliver work in Germany, Jordan, Spain and the Czech Republic. During lockdown Ash ran virtual sessions in schools in Spain, the Czech Republic and Denmark via Zoom. 

  • Since 2006, Ash has visited schools/educational establishments in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and to every county of England, including Hertfordshire (33 different schools, 60 visits in total) and Lincolnshire (38 different schools, 76 visits in total), frequently returning to schools year after year e.g. Sheffield High School for Girls in South Yorkshire (16 visits), developing relationships with staff, students and the school communities. In 2018 he worked with 88 schools across the calendar year.   

  • Ash was poet-in-residence between 2019 and 2021 at Coatbridge High School. He ran 17 sessions with a group of S3 students in-person then through Teams as lockdown took effect, adapting to the quickly changing learning climate, adopting new practices and sustaining and maintaining relationships with students, pre-selected to improve their wellbeing and confidence, at a time of demanding mental health, stress and uncertainty for teen students.  

  • For eleven years running, Ash has featured at the Swindon Youth Festival of Literature performing and encouraging groups of up to 250 Year 7s- over 2,500 in total over the week- to write and express themselves.  

  • Ash runs workshops relating to performance poetry, more traditional forms and general creative writing. He runs slams, judges competitions, gives addresses and emcees showcase events for parents. Ash looks at lyric writing and rap, works cross-curricular, and runs poetry analysis sessions relating to the curriculum for A-Level and GCSE (AQA, Edexcel, WJEC, unseen poetry etc) and Scottish Highers. 

WELLBEING, MENTAL HEALTH AND AWARENESS 

  • Ash ran poetry workshops in 2018 and 2019 in West Sussex as part of a ‘Wellbeing Day’, alongside other practitioners running tai-chi, meditation, art and yoga.  

  • In 2019 and 2020 Ash was employed by Lapworth Museum of Geology in Birmingham to run ‘Museums And Wellbeing’ sessions with various local schools, improving confidence, assertiveness, self-esteem, communication and social skills through discovery and writing.  

  • Ash was the guest performer and event opener at an ‘Aye Write’ event on the theme of ‘Happiness and Laughter’ at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall in 2019. 

  • Ash has repeatedly worked in Ingfield Manor, a specialist school in East Sussex, engaging with students aged between 8-19 with neurological impairments such as cerebral palsy. Almost all of these young people are non-verbal. Elsewhere, he has worked widely with groups of students with a variety of complex needs including dyslexia, dyspraxia and ADHD.  

  • He has (to date) run twenty-five sessions with Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire, working with local schools and RAF bases and historical sites to raise awareness of conflict and its impact on people’s lives.  

  • Ash works with Glasgow Library Services, for whom he has (to date) run twelve sessions since 2018, several of these in connection with Amnesty International, educating and highlighting inequality and injustice and working to themes of freedom, power, change and respect.  

  • Ash works with offenders in prison and with drink and drug rehabilitation groups and has working experience with the recovery community. Further evidence of his ability to work in challenging environments comes from a twenty-plus year performance career that has included stand-up comedy audiences and venues.

A selection of reviews about Ash…


“Impressive wordplay” – The Times


“Clever and funny” – The Scotsman


“Brilliantly surreal invention…fabulous poems” – Edinburgh Evening News


“A very cool combination of rap, rhyme, repetition and wry wit…Dickinson proves not only to be an incredibly gifted poet, but also a great comedian with a sharp eye for social commentary” – Winnipeg Free Press


“Ash Dickinson is a performance poet for the Lost Generation. If you haven’t seen him, you haven’t seen performance poetry” – Federation of Writers (Scotland)


“Could do for poetry what Bill Hicks did for comedy” – The Skinny


“Surreal, hilarious social commentary and wicked wordplay…a master of stand-up poetry” – Apples and Snakes


“Accessible and engaging, frequently self-effacing…a personable and easy-going performer…a skilled writer, he tackles the big subjects like love, identity and nature, and handles it all with skill and finesse” – CBC Radio, Canada


“One of the outstanding poets of his generation” – Burning Eye Books


“Wields words like wicked weapons, his vivid surrealism now overlaid with darker matter…and still those remarkable rhyme forms to astound your senses” – Wordfringe


“Delicious comedy, theatre and rap mash-up”
– Venue


“Weird and wonderful, refreshingly unpretentious with an obtuse humour and seemingly effortless zeal…off-kilter, imaginative, yet lucid, profound and surprisingly poignant”
– Three Weeks


“Dickinson’s poetry is sheer magic. He’s an inspiring artist with a massive imagination that swings from one unpredictable world to another” – Petersfield Herald


“Unusual and refreshing” – Flambard Press


“Lord, how I hate performance poetry but Ash Dickinson’s skill with the medium had me turned round…for non-fans of performance poetry, prepare to have your minds changed…go see this show!” – The Jenny Revue