Review of September

September was a truly magical month for me in my writing skin. I marked the one year point of becoming a poet (again) and also started to get lots of opportunities and offers that reflect (to me) the next level of my adventure.

So here is my review of September – chest infection aside, it has been the greatest month!

Blogs & Projects

I continue with 52, I wish I had more time to read the wonderful poetry that has grown from Jo Bell’s project and would like to be able to post some of my older poems for feedback, may have to take them to Stanza instead, with my poetry and work life keeping me busy I manage to get ahead and then find myself 2 or 3 prompts behind the rest.

Naked Lungs – My 1st commission – 3 other poets and myself are due to perform at Birmingham Lit Fest next month in a piece about Urban Nature which we are all writing for at this current moment in time. Very exciting and I can’t wait!

One Year a Poet – OYAP, some party I have been organising since August to bring together writing friends to perform and celebrate a year back on the circuit.

INKSPILL – I have had so much on this month that the writing retreat hit the back burner for a bit – it is worked on in my head and will come together for the final weekend in OCTOBER.

Submission

I worked on very few submissions this month and at least I know the outcome of recent submissions.

I sent poetry to Barefiction & Poetry on Loan competition, I missed 3 other submissions due to a busy performance schedule and too little editing time.

Barefiction and Scottish Mental Health both sent rejections of encouragement and Sarah James won the Poetry on Loan competition.

There is a glint of light, which I hope to share with you all soon.

 

Performing Poetry

Events I performed at include;

The Poetry Lounge in the Sitting Room – Ludlow, hosted by Jean Atkin and headlined by Angela France.

Staffordshire Arts Festival – Reams of Dreams at St. Chad’s, hosted by the then Poet Laureate, Tom Wyre and former Poet Laureate, Mal Dewwhirst. The Young Poet Laureate was announced and I took an incredibly emotional journey back to somewhere that was home 10 years ago.

Mouth & Music, Kidderminster, hosted by Heather Wastie & Sarah Tamar, headlined by Ben Norris

SpeakEasy, Worcester Hosted by Fergus McGonigal – Worcester Poet Laureate, headlined by Peter Wyton and also appearing Brenda Read-Brown, who won the Worcester LitFest Slam and was awarded her trophy.

One Year a Poet – OYAP – A party of spoken word to celebrate one whole year back on the scene. A whole load of poetry and writer friends enjoyed free cake and words of each other and the amazing saxophone of Dutch Lewis, hosted by myself.

Poetry For Lunch, The Library of Birmingham, hosted by Jan Watts, this month inside, in the mezzanine overlooking the foyer.

Spoken Word at The Ort, Birmingham, hosted by Debbie Aldous.

Poetry Bites, Birmingham, hosted by Jacqui Rowe, headlined by Charlie Jordan & Jan Smith.

Naked Lungs at Cherry Reds, Birmingham, hosted by Joe Whitehouse & Chris Baker, booked for a set. Very exciting evening. My fourth official booking to perform.

Word Up, Birmingham, hosted by Ddotti Bluebell – a night of amazing poetry. Headlined by former Birmingham Laureate Stephen Morrison-Burke.

100,000 Poets for Change International Event: Carnival Records, Malvern, hosted by Clive Dee, an exciting afternoon of music and poetry in the perfect vinyl loving setting! A one off spectacular that I most pleased to have been invited to perform at.

Sunday Xpress, Birmingham, hosted by Brendon, headlined by Ash Dickinson.

 

Performances and Events

Ben Norris at The MAC, Birmingham, in his one man show – Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Family.

Wolverley Village Tea Shop – Pop Up Poetry Event organised by Sue Wood and featuring Worcester Lit Fest poets and others. This was an open mic style event and I was invited to perform, I wish I had, especially when most people there asked me why I hadn’t read and said it was a shame, I was having a dippy day and was more than happy to sit in the sunshine and listen to poetry, whilst drinking real coffee.

Elvis McGonagall at The Hive, Worcester, an event organised by the Worcester Lit Fest, also featuring; Fergus McGonigal – Worcester’s Poet Laureate, Maggie Doyle – Worcester Poet Laureate Emeritus and Claire Walker, who came 2nd in this year’s Poet Laureate Competition.

Meetings and Projects

I  met with Joe and Chris a.k.a Naked Lungs and the other 3 poets they have chosen to work on the commissioned project of Urban Nature which is to be performed on Oct 11th at the Library of Birmingham at the Birmingham Literature Festival. We met in a coffee shop and then explored some hidden nature in a community garden in Digbeth.

I also managed to get to Stanza this month again, hosted by Ian Glass, a very packed group this month.

Spoken Word Events

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.

 

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Family – Ben Norris, MAC 6th Sept.

Saturday 6th September was a busy day – I missed the Festival of Colour in Digbeth, as I was performing at Reams of Dreams in Stafford. I have seen some great photos and heard it was a great day. After Stafford Arts Festival, I got home in time to get across to the MAC for Ben’s show, a one off Preview Performance.

 Oscar French © 2014

‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Family’ 

It was absolutely ruddy amazing and I wish I had written about it once I got home – with all the energy and eagerness I felt when I got in. Ben Norris is a UK SLAM Champion and a great Performance Poet, I have had the pleasure of watching him perform a few times this year. He has also been working on this one man show.

I don’t want to give too much away as I know he plans to take it to Edinburgh next year, so look out for it and GO AND SEE IT!

In the meantime I am sure Ben won’t mind me sharing the teasers he posted on You Tube or blogging my reaction to this great show.

 

Oscar French and Ben Norris spent 6 days on the road this summer re-tracing his father’s steps backwards from their home in Nottingham to London, where his dad came from. They visit relatives and friends, rely on the kindness of strangers and hope that people still hitch hike.

They created a blog to track the time on the road http://thehitchhikersguidetothefamily.wordpress.com and once home Ben working really hard for probably less than 3 weeks to get the show together.

Post Show Discussion

There was a post show discussion with Polly Tisdall, Oscar French and Ben Norris, which proved what some people love, others don’t and helped the team realise which areas of the production were confusing or worked well. I filled out my feedback form fully (whole sheet of A4) as well as getting some points across in the post discussion show. It was exciting listening to other people’s opinions.

Here is what people had to say about this one man show.

Reviews

 Ben Norris‘s One man show The Hitchhikers Guide to The Family was truly a stunning piece of spoken word theatre,  from the eyewatering hysterical laughing & the emotional nostalgia I felt so happy & completely mesmerised at his storytelling ability & Omg to top all that brilliance off he gets his kit off I loved it. – Ddotti Bluebell

Had an awesome evening watching the incredibly talented Ben Norris debuting his one man show The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Family at MAC, Birmingham. Compelling, achingly hilarious and heartbreakingly poignant in equal measure, if you missed it you really missed a treat, but it will hit the road (pardon the pun) again next year so keep an eye out for it and go see it if you get chance. You won’t regret it. – Deborah McEwan

And my own words;

 This was an awesome show – a very polished project in process… so you too could have a chance of seeing it in the future! DO! Well done Ben Norris a superb one man show with the perfect balance of comic storytelling and insightful family tale… a great piece of theatre… the team should be very proud!

Oscar French © 2014

The Production Team

Ben Norris    Writer & Performer

Actor, writer, spoken-word artist, and the reigning UK all-stars poetry slam champion. He is a regular on the spoken-word and festival circuit, with recent performances at the Roundhouse, Royal Festival Hall, Latitude, Ronnie Scott’s, Tongue Fu, Bang Said The Gun, and many more. His first book of poetry was published earlier this year by Nasty Little Press.

Polly Tisdall    Director

Storyteller, Birmingham REP Foundry director, and founder of Rambling Heart Theatre Company. She was also 2011 UK Young Storyteller of the Year.

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Oscar French    Producer

Emerging producer and freelance script reader, whose experience to date includes producing and stage management roles for independent short films and student theatre. He has also worked with the Romany Theatre Company and BBC Radio Cambridgeshire.

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Paul McHale    Filmmaker

Freelance camera operator and editor, filming and producing animations, promotional films, narrative and art exhibition projects.

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Inua Ellams    Artistic Mentor

Internationally recognised poet, playwright and performance artist. He has published two poetry pamphlets: Candy Coated Unicorns and Converse All Stars and Thirteen Fairy Negro Tales. His first play, The 14th Tale, was awarded a Fringe First, and his third, Black T-Shirt Collection ran at the National Theatre. He is currently working on a new play called Barber Shop Chronicles, a poetry pamphlet called #Afterhours and his first full collection, Of All The Boys of Plateau Private School.

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Louisa Davies    Executive Producer

Performing Arts Producer at mac birmingham, she has worked with artists including Polarbear, Nick Makoha, A Little Commitment and Sid Peacock on solo shows.

 

With this post I have just learnt how to change text and that the toolbar extends…. hmmmmm how long have I been using WordPress!

Performances and Events in the Final Week of August: 42 & Naked Lungs

Last week I had the pleasure of performing at Drummonds 42, after taking a 4 day break after the book launch. This may not sound like much, I had 48 hours of that completely OFFLINE – it was wonderful, life used to be so simple… Sometimes nerves get the better of me when I have had a performance break, fortunately that didn’t happen this time.

It was good to see writers/poets I had not seen/heard for a while and we were even treated to a bit of Musical Theatre. Catherine Crosswell is currently rehearsing Sweeny Todd for a production in Ledbury and she performed one of the songs – with props and Andrew Owen (the host) as well as treating us to her poetry. It was fantastic.

Usually these nights are themed, but once a year they do an open theme, like on the 27th. I performed a poem called ‘Missing’ which I had only performed once before in Birmingham, back in the late Spring. I performed a couple of other poems too.

There was a good variety of story and poetry and some new performers, it good to see new people come back and others take to the stage for the first time. I cannot make 42 this month as I have tickets to go and see A Night With Elvis McGonagall perform his poetry at The Hive on the same night. Elvis McGonagall

On this same evening there were events which I would have also loved to have been able to make (still hate the clashes), notably ‘Spire & Dust’ – which is usually Fire and Dust (have been meaning to go all year), they re-named it as it was taking place in the Inspire Café where Antony Owens had his book launch.

 

Knowing that I had performances over the weekend, I wanted to take it a bit easy leading up to Worcester Music Festival. However, Joe and Chris delightfully booked me last month to perform this month. I wanted to go and see what the night was like, so went to watch performers at Naked Lungs (the people who run this are organising the artistic/performance collaboration for Birmingham Literature Festival in October).

Naked Lungs happens at Cherry Reds, a lovely, small, funky venue in a pedestrianized part of the city. Unfortunately my SatNav is currently on the blink and it is so I had my route scribbled on A4 paper. Birmingham is a nightmare to drive around at the best of times, they are working on the tunnels at the moment and a lot of central traffic is either diverted or at standstill. I think it took me longer to navigate the island (roundabout) that it did travelling into the city itself. I parked up and made the stupid mistake of asking a local – who helpfully google mapped on his phone and it looked like I was miles away. Keeping the route in my head I over shot a turning and basically by the time I got off the RING ROAD – I was on the other side of the city – fortunately an area I know well as it is where Writing West Midlands are based. A 30-40 minute journey turned into a frantic hour! BUT… I got there.

The lovely Andrea Smith (a.k.a Performance poet Swingerella) was there and we got to have a half decent natter in the numerous intervals. The crowd is fairly young – so that helps me decide on material for the set. Of course there were some people my age and possibly a bit older too. I was excited to find that both Ben Norris AND Ian Bowkett were performing sets.

The whole night was fantastic with great performances from; Ian Bowkett, Ben Norris, David Timothy, Heidi Murphy  – during the evening a box was passed around for us to write ideas of topics of conversation for Benjamin Jones the resident philosopher who then pontificated on a range of subjects, a funny, quirky and cool addition to the evening and a master of improv!

A new experience was FATLiP, (Toby De Angeli, Dana Segal and Jak Stephens) although we only had 2 of them, they were mesmerising a spoken word (with heart, narrative, mixed styles and pace) prose poetry, along with music and a loud speaker. I truly could have listened to them all night. They are playing Bestival this September!

FATLiP will be performing their combination of spoken words, sounds and performance to tell unheard stories from unsuspecting places.

Sometimes it is just nice to watch and not have to sit with butterflies, nervously waiting for your turn! Although it is such a relaxing, enjoyable atmosphere I doubt I will be too worried. Mainly it was FUN, laid back, well organised and FUN!

I managed to learn another new poem for Worcester Music Festival (only wrote it last week) so I am planning on being able to connect properly with the audience on at least some of the poems. It is much easier to work on the performance if you are not trying to balance a book…. another reason why my next poetry collection will be in an A5 notebook! I am looking forward to getting my set ready and returning to Cherry Reds on the 25th September

 

Full Diary – Be Careful what you Wish For!

I am joking – I love wishes coming true…. but it does make for a busy life!

I cannot believe the summer break is over and I am back to work next week – as well as watching a show on Monday, performing a set in Ludlow on Tuesday (which will possibly be after a day at work), resting Wednesday and Thursday and then heading on a road trip – back to where I used to live to stay with poetry friends I met at the 52 picnic this summer and then performing at a festival in Stafford on Saturday then heading back to Birmingham to watch Ben Norris in his one man show at the MAC! Followed by 2 day rest and then Mouth & Music, a Dance Workshop, SpeakEasy, Stanza, Writing West Midlands Writer jobs and finally my One Year A Poet Party*.

The end of August brings a very busy weekend. I am performing at the Worcester Music Festival later and tomorrow having an evening event Words and Sounds – which happens every 12 – 18 months – I wasnt on the circuit last time.

This week I performed at 42 on Wednesday night and Thursday night I went along to Naked Lungs – who have booked me to perform next month – both were great nights.

As far as reviewing my events I plan to wrap these 4 events up in one post (early Sept) and probably will have to post my review of August then too… as I havent been keeping an up to date draft this month.

This afternoon – before going off to the festival I am DESPERATELY trying to write poetry for submission – all deadlined for tomorrow – tomorrow morning Mr G and I have to sort out the allotment (we have had it for 5 years but it is time to let it go) we are homegrowing in the garden at home and even then we sometimes dont pick the stuff fast enough! Then there is a joint family meal – my younger brother is getting married (excited) and it is the Groom/Bride Sunday Lunch as his fiancee’s family live in a different County and she thought it would be good to meet everyone before the wedding.

Then I have a small window to send submissions I need to write today before performing and somewhere in between I need to practise my sets!

An enjoyable but hectic time ….

* One Year A Poet – In addition I am organising (and have been since end of July) a poetry night to celebrate one year back in my poetry skin. So far it is very much concept and I have just a fortnight to make it a reality – more on that soon.

So for now go and enjoy some archive posts!

Happy writing x

 

4th Event of the Month – SpeakEasy

I had a great night on Thursday –

we just about managed the venue – the city is under floodwater at the moment and the venue is opposite the river, if the water had been just a little higher we would have been evacuated.

My set went well and I am finally getting to know my poetry off by heart, the headliner – Ben Norris was amazing *Cheltenham’s UK All Stars Slam Champion.

And at the end of the night I received the best compliment so far in my writing life… more to be revealed later.