Chaucer Cameron

In an Ideal World I’d Not be Murdered is part memoir/part fiction and is Chaucer’s debut pamphlet. The poems explore the impact of prostitution.  

“These poems ring out like gunshots in the night; they will wake you from your sleep. Yet despite its distilled directness, this book is lifted by both mystery and surprise. Listen for the songs emerging from the dark centre of this transformative work of experience and survival.’  Jacqueline Saphra.  

Chaucer Cameron is a poet and poetry filmmaker. Her poems have been published in various journals, magazines & online, including Under the Radar, Poetry Salzburg, The North, Blue Nib, The Interpreter’s House, Poetry Shed, Ink Sweat & Tears. Chaucer’s poetry-films have been screen-published in some of the growing number of journals and sites that are now accepting mixed media, such as Atticus Review.  

She has performed at Ledbury Poetry Festival as part of a live performance combining British Sign Language poetry and video poetry (2017), Bath Fringe Festival Still Points Moving World performance writing exhibition (2014), and her poetry and monologues have been performed at the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham. 

She has co-edited three poetry anthologies: Salt on the Wind – poetry in response to Ruth Stone (Elephant’s Footprint, 2015) The Museum of Light (Yew Tree Press, 2014), Nothing in the Garden, (Elephant’s Footprint, 2014). 

Poetry-Films 

Chaucer is creator of Wild Whispers (2018) an international poetry-film project, and regularly curates and presents poetry-film at events and festivals. She also collaborates with Helen Dewbery to produce half hour ‘poetry-film collections’ and other works, which have been screened at film festivals in the UK and abroad, including: Reel Poetry Film Festival in Houston, Texas, Versopolis /Review, The Festival of Hope, Zebra Poetry Film Festival in Berlin, Athens Poetry Festival, Garsdale Retreat, MIX Conference at Bath Spa University, Sheaf Poetry Festival, and her poetry-films feature in Moving Poems. 

Chaucer is also a poetry-film workshop facilitator with Poetry Swindon, and runs poetry-film collective workshops and courses online. 

During 2020 she was invited to become part of an exciting prostitution charity-based pilot initiative.      

She is founder member of the critical poetry collectives, Poetry Factory and Strange Cargo. 

Chaucer holds a master’s degree in Creative and Critical Writing from, The University of Gloucestershire. 

128 Farleigh Road
I find him at the bottom of the stairs, the strange thing is
his eyes are blue with flecks of grey. I could have sworn
they were brown, a dull sort of brown, but then again
the mask, which often hid his eyes and always hid his face.
Apart from one-time years ago when I caught him naked
and alone. Now in death that face looks so serene,
clean almost. I’d often worried that the rubber marks
on his jawline, forehead and just beneath his eyes,
would pit his skin so deep he’d be scarred for life.
But here we are, just he and I gazing at each other
the way dead people do when caught together intimately.
One thing troubles me. I say this in a whisper so not to disturb
the dust that’s gathered. How did this come to be?
This flat, these walls, they’re crawling with dead girls.

I know the rules: no names, no dates, just numbers.

Hooked

I remember standing on a street corner,
eating BLT on rye,
thinking about my fluid intake.

But despite my thirst, despite Taboo,
I aimed for the Three Crowns,
ordered fruit juice (nearly).

It was an ordinary evening, drear, overcast.
Outside, the traffic was building;
diesel fumes circled the inside of my nostrils.

Air, I needed it.
Exited (or tried to).

It was raining, so I called a cab,
considered my options,
bent at the edges.

The traffic was static – the traffic eased –
the traffic was at a standstill –
the traffic flowed nicely.

The taxi turned right – past
Clissold Park, to …

It had been a long time since I’d
been in that part of the city.
I remember how quickly evenings turned dark,

how my cigarettes slid between seats,
how my fingers, not as slim,
not as deft as they once were,

reached deep into the crease
deep down.