Dommy B - Writing
Dommy B
AIM High Writing
Summary
Age range All Ages
Books Yes
DBS Checked Yes
Booking
Contact
+44 (0)1535 656015
aimhigh@caboodlebooks.co.uk
Dommy B has worked as a performance poet for over a decade, and now specializes in writing and performing for adults and for young people.
About Dommy
Dommy B is an award-winning poet. He was 2017 Glastonbury Festival Poet in Residence, winner of the UK's 2020 and 2017 Saboteur ‘Best Spoken Word Artist’, and has toured his verse across USA, Canada, India, New Zealand, Australia, South America and Europe.
His other awards include winning New York’s Nuyorican Poetry Cafe Slam, UK Superheroes of Slam and, as of 2022, ten Arts Council England Grants for the Arts awards.
Dommy has performed his poetry on BBC2 showcasing the best of 2017 Glastonbury Festival, BBC’s Greg and Celia’s Festivals Highlights (highlights of 2014’s Edinburgh Fringe). In his children’s poet ‘Dommy B’ persona, he introduced his pet ‘Dave the Dragon’ on CBeebies Rhyme Rocket.
For family audiences, Dommy has nationally toured his self penned solo shows Aaaaaaaaaaaaagh! Dinosaurs! (voted by Fest as one of the Top 7 shows for families at Edinburgh Fringe), The Dragon Who Hates Poetry (funded by Big Imaginations and Grants for the Arts) Spark, The Goblin Wizard (originally 2014 through live-streaming, 2020 and 2021, funded by Hamilton Project) and When Trolls Try To Eat Your Goldfish (funded by Action Transport Theatre, Big Imaginations and GftA).
Full of energy, jokes and action, these performances have enjoyed full capacity crowds from London to Glasgow, and have resulted in Manchester’s Flapjack Press publishing the tie-in book to accompany each story.
Dommy B’s AIM High Writing Days
Dommy B uses a variable approach to running AIM High sessions by assessing the direction to take with each unique group during the first meeting. Every young person is different! An ‘improv’ master, as well as a knowledgeable practitioner with a wealth of over 10 years workshop experience, Dominic can, and does, think on his feet! The aim is always to build confidence, and to give young people a fun experience of words.
One approach Dommy often takes in schools is to begin with a performance of poetry. Dommy B is used to performing lively, engaging, fun and educational work for both small groups and halls of over 200 children!
Dommy is great at leading individual writing exercises or creating group poems, depending on what is best suited to the age, interests and needs of the greater depth writers and their teachers.
The latter option involves Dommy B demonstrating the process of
– drafting skilfully imaginative or factually interesting ideas.
– exploring rhythms and rhymes.
– choosing a topic and staying on topic / avoiding forced rhymes and cliches.
– syllable count and making rhyming couplets work within a chosen rhythm.
– metaphors and similes for experts or beginners!
Dommy can craft, with the class, poetry on any subject that they are currently working on, for example the solar system, Greek myths, Aztecs, local history – anything!
The day often concludes with tips on delivery and children performing their work with strong diction, volume, body language and confidence!
A Selection of Dommy B’s Books
'Aaaaaaaaaaaaagh! Dinosaurs! A young troll must defend the town from a gang of destructive, deadly dinosaurs!
Recruiting allies - a goblin wizard and a snotty, sneezing dragon - does this troll have what it takes to save the day and calm these dangerous dinos' raging reign?
When Trolls Try to Eat Your Goldfish.
In the middle of the night there is a noise - a snuffling and a shuffling and a splintering of wood. A line of Troll-prints lead out the door, across the lawn and into the deep, dark forest... Nikki's goldfish, Great Bumbleduke the Third, needs rescuing!
The Dragon Who Hates Poetry.
There is no dragon scarier in any earthly place. His face looks like his bottom and his bottom like his face! Rick loves poetry. He thinks it's exciting, funny and imaginative. But all across the land poets are being silenced - by a dragon! How can Rick avoid being eaten and help save the village from this fiery fiend? He can't even save his own pants!
Bookings
To book Dommy B please contact
aimhigh@caboodlebooks.co.uk
Dommy B also offers visits to schools and other settings, click here for more information.