I love comedy. I love the idea of testing out bits and gauging the audience’s reaction. But I’m not a comedian; I’m a writer who works alone, who bins about 90% of everything they write and rarely shares their process. In the Wip lab (perhaps it should be called the ‘whip’ lab) I share some writing experiments, particularly around choice. A recent poem of mine ‘Night Shift in Paris’ came after seeing the poet, Terrance Hayes, read at the Sorbonne in May. He said ‘if you want to write a bunch of poems about roses, just write them’. I always thought Paris was a slightly clichéd subject for artistic expression but I set myself the challenge to write a Paris night poem as often as I can. Not daily, as Hayes did with his ‘Sonnet for my past and future assassin’ but often. At the moment, I’m not using any punctuation in my poems because I love the absolute chaotic play that comes with this. I stole this from W. S. Merwin and also Terrance’s poem ‘George Floyd’. My poem also includes a long fascination with how ‘lighter’ is called ‘fire’ in many European languages.