Peter Wyton | awritersfountain

Last week I took part in two regular Spoken Word events I attend as often as I can, Mouth & Music and Worcester’s SpeakEasy.

Tuesday 9th saw Ben Norris headlined Mouth & Music also headlining this month were Heather Wastie and Sarah Tamar.

It was funny seeing Ben again – last Thursday I saw him perform at Cherry Reds as part of the Naked Lungs event, then again on Saturday in his one man show The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Family at the MAC and then just a few days after at the BHG. This happens often with artists who will be booked for events within the same month, however, Ben Norris may have had other reasons for this last blow out in and around Birmingham… he has since moved to Cardiff (tissues passed around the Midlands), he is gained by Wales. Off on his next exciting adventure.

I finally managed to buy Ben’s pamphlet book, I hope he gets more published in the future, it is a great little press which publishes 6 poems and has several BIG name performance poets on there list, such as: Elvis McGonagall (who I see next Wednesday at The Hive, organised by Worcester Lit Fest) and Martin Newall, who I performed with in Essex about 15 years ago!

I usually write to theme, this month has been busy & I didn’t have time. Instead I found suitable age poems to perform. It was a great night with fantastic and touching performances some poetry about war, others about Dementia. Heather Wastie also bravely attempted group poems, three of them! They can be seen on the Mouth & Music Blog here.

It was a great night. We also had 2 poet laureates, Tom Wyre – Staffordshire’s Poet Laureate and Fergus McGonigal Worcester’s Poet Laureate. They both performed War Poetry.

Photographs © Peter Williams 2014

Chrissy Velveteen

Nina Lewis

Hinge & Bracket

On Thursday 11th I went to SpeakEasy in Worcester. Headlined this month by Peter Wyton.

Peter Wyton is a ‘poet of page and performance’ who has published a number of books and who has appeared on BBC Radio. He is a widely published and prize-winning poet who has appeared at venues as diverse as Cheltenham Literature Festival, Glastonbury Festival and Ledbury Poetry Festival.

It was a good night and I was delighted to be performing just before the headline act.

Brenda Read-Brown also treated us to a set, she won the WLF (Worcester LitFest) POETRY SLAM and collected her poetry trophy.

Performers included Kevin Brooke, who’s new book is being launched on the 26th September at The Hive, Charley Hammond, Maggie Doyle, John Lawrence and Mike Alma as well as open mic spots.

I always enjoy a night at SpeakEasy and this week was no exception – and next month they are celebrating the first year of the event, what a success it has been, delightful to have started when the re-launch of Worcester Lit Festival spoken word event, I even remember voting on what it should be called on the website.

Another wonderful evening of spoken word and music. The theme this week was ‘adjectives’, I wrote my poems late on Monday night, using lists of adjectives for the initial stimuli.

They went down well, one serious one about mental health and a humorous one about form filling.

I had seen Peter Wyton at Confab Cabaret earlier this year, a funny Gloucester poet, he has published a number of books and is a prize-winning poet who has appeared at Cheltenham Literature Festival, Glastonbury and Ledbury. He also reached the final of Radio 4’s first Poetry Slam.

Bethany Weimers was great, she is doing a tour of the area at the moment, Merlin her partner is a painter and Tim Scarborough and Suz Winspear are now the proud owners of personalised artwork, them performing. Sadly I was on before he picked up his paintbrush! I would have loved to buy one, that would have made my night.

This month we even had a write up on the Mouth and Music page, traditionally it has just been the headliners who feature in the review. Chuffed with this mention, so am pasting the review here;

Every M&M has its own character because each one is a unique combination of people. Last night had a really special quality to it. At least half of the 14 open mic-ers performed something brand new and there was some cracking humorous stuff from Nina Lewis, Mike Alma and Fergus McGonigal in particular. Billy Spakemon drew us into his dark Black Country tale and Tim Scarborough brought his own recorded backing for a very moving, personal piece. Thanks to all open mic performer…s for adding to the mix and apologies to Suz who hadn’t been warned about the Cinderella chimes ….

Featured poet Peter Wyton gave us a splendid set which was hilarious throughout. He had us hanging on every word. Bethany Weimers drew us into her delicate guitar playing and expressive singing. Her songs are intensely powerful and intimate. Both she and Peter stood near the audience, foregoing stage and mic and this enhanced a feeling of ‘sharing’ rather than ‘performing’.

Bethany’s partner Merlin was busy secretly sketching throughout the evening. Suz and Tim are now proud owners of brilliantly evocative drawings of themselves in action on stage. Merlin also gave us the drawing below. Thanks Merlin! (Merlin Porter Arts)

As an experiment, we put Bethany on midway through the second half. It seemed to work. This meant that Peter Williams’ beautiful song somehow echoed the mood created by Bethany. Peter will be our featured musician in October. Sarah finished with a poem heralding next month’s theme – Summer! Thanks to everyone who was there last night. See you in July!