Editing Billy Childish (section)

==Poetry==
{{Moresources | section|date=June 2024}}
[[File:MedwayPoets.jpg|thumb|[[Sexton Ming]], [[Tracey Emin]], [[Charles Thomson (artist)|Charles Thomson]], Billy Childish and musician Russell Wilkins at the Rochester Adult Education Centre 11 December 1987 to record [[The Medway Poets]] LP]]
Childish is a confessional poet and has published over 40 collections of his work. In 1979, Childish was a founder member of [[The Medway Poets]], a poetry performance group, who read at the Kent Literature Festival and the 1981 international [[Cambridge Poetry Festival]]. There were, however, personality clashes in the group, particularly between Childish and [[Charles Thomson (artist)|Charles Thomson]], who said: "There was friction between us, especially when he started heckling my poetry reading and I threatened to ban him from a forthcoming TV documentary."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.3ammagazine.com/artarchives/2002_dec/interview_charles_thomson.html|title=3am Interview: CAPTAIN STUCKIST – CHARLES THOMSON INTERVIEWED BY MAX PODSTOLSKI|website=3ammagazine.com|access-date=9 June 2021|archive-date=6 July 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180706214410/http://www.3ammagazine.com/artarchives/2002_dec/interview_charles_thomson.html|url-status=live}}</ref> 

However, a [[Television South]] documentary on the group in 1982 brought them to a wider regional audience, though Childish's poetry was "deemed unbroadcastable".
According to Childish: "Me & Charles [sic] were at war from 1979 until 1999. He even threatened having bouncers on the doors of Medway Poets' readings to keep me out". Childish has twice won commendations in the National Poetry Prize.{{cn|date=June 2024}}