Writing in different modes and forms is a significant part of my practice. This extends through the making of texts intended for or arising as part of a performance, writing intended as a visual or physical publication, writing for radio, writing responding to the work of other artists, or as part of a publication relating to their work. My writing includes reviews and catalogue essays, essays on poetry, on performance, and on the relations between poetry and visual art.
selected poetry and performance texts
cream of the crop (2024) – performance text for improvised live event at Soak Live Art
capes, folds, drapes (2023) – performance text for collaboration with artist William Luz
‘toward an emblem’ (2022) – online slidefilm with live reading
At Sounds Like: 3 Projects (2021) – book with three project texts and notes, published by ifpthenq books
9×9: a set of poems under constraint (2020) – digital vis-po sequence for online publication
Threaded Inserts, Drill Bushings and Locking Studs (2020) – poem sequence publshed as an artist book
She Mick on JB’s Island (2019) – prose poem published by Robert Hampson in Purge 6
Subject to Gesture (2017) – performance text for collaboration with musician Benjamin D. Duvall
in the key of (2015) – a set of 8 A5 cards combining text and image based on styled as primary school teaching materials
his many voice(s) (2015) – set of 4 A6 hand-stitched booklets with performance scores
voiceover gestures (2015) – texts recorded as the audio element for a 3-screen video installation
Hello! This is a test. (2014 – 2015) – performance text generated using repetition and constraints
lengths and ends: six poems for Penzance (2012) – an artist book produced in response to a short residency in Penzance
selected critical and art writing
An action movie (for NW) (2015) – published as an afterword to Nathan Walker’s Action Score Generator, published by ifpthenq books
a curiosity of nothings (2014) – text to accompany Andrew Kearney’s installation ‘The Meaning of Nothing’, LCGA, Limerick
anamorphic trace: sensing doubleness in image and event (2014) – essay in What Remains And Is To Come: A Document, publication to accompany performance work by Katrina Brown and Rosanna Irvine
Excerpt from Pursuing Pursuit (I am bound to follow) with Jack, John, Rock and Hard ([1987], 2012) (2012) – an imaginary film script developed as a response to the project The ties that bind … by Steven Paige for Exeter Phoenix
Aftermath (a ballad) (2011) – a pastiche ballad written as a response to ‘Brokenland’, a project by Deirdre Power
“Where stone is dark under froth”: Screening the datastream (2009) – catalogue text for Katy Connor’s installation Pure Flow, at Phoenix Arts Centre, Exeter
(E)vac(u)ated Spaces, a digression on some terms (2009) – text to accompany the exhibition, Teresa Grimaldi: The Vacated Works, Quay Arts, Isle of Wight
a(n) (always provisional partial) glossary of/for dissemination (2008) – text for a performance lecture at L’Animal a l’Esquena, near Girona, later published in POST Journal, No. 3, pp 98-99, University College Falmouth
Ground (2007) – entry under ‘G’ in Performance Research 11.3 ‘Lexicon’
Private Public Reading: Readers in Digital Literature Installation (2007) – chapter in Companion to Digital Literary Studies
what is it here now I can persuade you of? scraps towards a rhetoric of poetry performance (2006) – published in Frackija: Performing Arts Magazine no. 37/38 ‘Rhetoric’
Tina Darragh: Performing the Familiar Sentence (2004) – essay published in How2, Vol. 2 No. 2
‘do it, and again do it.’: repetition, rereading, recognition in the poetry of Bruce Andrews (2000) – published in The Mechanics of the Mirage: Postwar American Poetry, edited by Michel Delville and Christine Pagnoulle
work for radio
Constrained Radio Show — I made a series of hour-long radio shows for Soundart Radio through 2020, that feature poetry, text, voice, sound, music, and audio work in a variety of styles and genres loosely gathered under formal or thematic headings. The shows are archived at Soundart Radio or you can find all the shows archived with tracklists at Mixcloud. More details and track listings here: Radio Shows and Track Listings
Hello! This is a test. — In 2021, I made a radio work, Hello! This is a test. which was broadcast as Soundart Radio’s contribution to the radia.fm project that spring. The core material for this began with a selection from the Harvard Sentences, and materials from the Modified Rhyme Test, and panphones were added. The show is archived on the radia.fm site here: http://radia.fm/2021/03/show-834-hello-this-is-a-test-by-mark-leahy-for-soundart-radio/
What shall we call it? — In February 2025, Shelley Hodgson and I presented ‘What shall we call it?’ for Soundart Radio. This live one-and-a-quarter-hour radio programme composed of song excerpts, prerecorded audio, conversation and performance, was the second iteration of an ongoing collaborative project. It developed some of the content, the actions, and themes of our theatre performance ‘twiceness’. Edited excerpt from the broadcast: https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/3704189/3882214#tool-4251797
Wax Paper Hour — I was invited to join Marcy Saude as a guest presenter on her series Wax Paper Hour for Soundart Radio in November 2019. Our selection of material used the notion of ‘gesture’ or ‘a grand gesture’ as a starting point. The show is archived here: https://www.mixcloud.com/marcy-saude/late-november-2019-gesture-with-mark-leahy/
book reviews
My reviews of a range of publications in poetry, arts research, and wider creative fields have been published in print journals and online. Links to these can be found in my full list of publications.