Poetry Wrap 3

A week of poetry; getting it published, reading it, writing to form and performing as a Headline act.

A busy and rewarding week with some full (much needed) writing days.

The first weekend I was without my car and missed The Ort with Debbie Aldous in Birmingham, the end of Cheltenham Festival, Caldmore Writing workshop with David Calcutt and Confab Cabaret in Malvern with Matt Windle ‘Poet with Punch’ and Kurly, who I recently saw perform at SpeakEasy in Worcester, which is where I will have to catch him again when he Headlines.

 

Studying Poetry and Writing West Midlands

I spent time catching up with my MOOC course, writing poetry, reading poetry and preparing this weekend’s writing session for WWM, as Ian is away and I get to be Lead Writer again.

 

Submissions, Publications, Poetry Festivals & Blogs

I submitted to the Seamus Heaney anthology and had a poem accepted, to be published in print form later this year. I booked tickets for the 52 event as part of Stratford Poetry Festival and emailed a couple of poets about Guest Blog posts.

 

Performing Poetry/ Headlining

Performance wise I had just the one gig, it had been a week since I performed and I also (made what I have since learnt is a mistake) took a set with 80% new material to Headline at Permission to Speak, the Scary Canary – a wonderful new spoken word night created and hosted by Rob Francis.

 I was headlining alongside the ever talented Ian Passey, a.k.a Humdrum Express.

http://heyevent.com/event/2141316629340676/permission-to-speak-4-poetry-spoken-word-feature-poet-nina-lewis

I complete my week working with the Senior writing group at The Hive.

Next Week at a glance:

• Mouth & Music Love in the Revolution
• HOWL
• SpeakEasy
• & it is Mental Health Awareness Week

Mouth & Music – 3rd Birthday ‘SPARK OFF’ Special!

 Last year Heather Wastie asked me to be a team captain for the New Year/3rd Birthday/ Anniversary Mouth & Music in January. Mike Alma was the other team captain, but unfortunately he couldn’t make it.

<Mike, sorry you couldn’t make it, if we had been head to head I think the room would have been full of SPARKS! Bright ones!>

Pete Williams kindly stepped up – although Pete and I discovered we are the least competitive people and far too ‘nice’ to Spark Off. However, that said Pete <I may not be competitive, I am certainly a sore loser though!> There were many reasons that our team was pipped to the post* in a very close and entertaining evening…

 Mary Davis

Pete Williams -Team Leader

* promising the MC Ian Passey/Humdrum Express a pint, not wearing Humdrum t-shirts or promotional goods, not having John Langford or Pete Williams playing guitar, perhaps playing a joker without it being clear that it was and the odd occasion where a promised theme turned out to be something else! I had been pictured in the paper and they hadn’t – something Heather has balanced on Social Media.

 PhotoGiraffe

It was all for fun, no actual winning trophy has been lost or anything and I wouldn’t have missed it or turned down my part in proceedings for anything – including a shiny trophy!

Heather Wastie worked hard organising us team leaders and we scouted the land for talented poets and regulars at M&M who would have poems suitable to fit the themes. The themes were 11 M&M themes from 2014. From these teams of 6 we were then allocated Open Mic-ers as they arrived. I had no idea how it would pan out and the first emails of rules I was sent caused mild panic, until Heather reminded me rules are there to be broken – and I think our team had more than a hint of anarchy about us! I thought Heather and Sarah Tamar were extremely brave to hand the whole evening over to us three, it was smashing!

By Tuesday evening I had worked 2 full days, survived on 4 hours sleep and curled up to watch teatime TV, unable to set an alarm as my phone stopped working. I woke up at 6:40ish with barely enough time to arrive! I managed with minutes to spare and gathered the team to figure out who had poems to fit what (leading) – Pete took the mickey that I had a list and had organised a set list order. Maybe we should have faked surprise, as he may have got extra excitement points for swinging by the edge…

Mary Davis

Ian Passey

Ian Passey did an amazing MC role – having seen him in action at Worcester Music Festival – I knew he would make the night memorable – not helped by Tim Scarborough and I hitting the stage first for ‘Dualogue’ theme and then needing to set up – I offered to pad, tell the crowd it had been over 6 months since Tim and I had performed together etc. I think we were worth the wait – it was great to perform together again. My team certainly provided the MUSIC element in the first half, although Pete wowed us with childhood TV themes on his harmonica in the 2nd half (maybe that is what swung it)!

In addition to two incredibly entertaining teams of performers we had sweets, chocolate cake (with sparklers on it), balloons and the RAFFLE. It was a great 3rd Birthday!

I would like to say a HUGE thank you to all performers on my team, you’re all winners in my eyes! 

Heather Wastie

Fergus McGonigal

 Caution Poet

Paul Francis

 Tim Scarborough

Nina Lewis

& Open Mic-ers Roy Sadler  and Martin Jones

^ What a team!

 

Pete’s team: Jan Ashton, Maggie Doyle, Rob Francis, Andrew Owens, Io Osborn, Sarah Tamar, John Langford, Ian Ward & Pete Williams (yes, they had an extra members)!

 Mary Davis

Thanks to Mary Davis for shooting the event in glorious colour (the venue is a difficult one due to lighting) & Heather & Sarah for arranging such a great night!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY M & M

Link to Heather’s blog where you will find a less biased post about SPARK OFF.

https://mouthandmusic.wordpress.com/2015/01/14/sparks-flew/

 

 

November – Performances, Submissions & Mentoring

This week has been busy week, one which finally had a writing day in it. I took on a lot of work this week and even took a last minute booking on the 1st writing day I had planned.

I am currently busy working on several things including my Hanbury Hall poems and writing material for an event at the end of the month as well as general submissions, I made 2 on my writing day (Fri) this included 4 new poems and 2 fairly new ones that I have been working on for a few weeks with the intention to submit.

I performed a set for Mouth & Music on Tuesday night, the theme was ‘Remember’, I could have just read my recently published Paragram Poem ‘Picasso of Dance’, I intended to spend Tuesday writing to the theme – but I got called into work.

Instead I took both my poetry books to the venue and organised my set ad hoc. Amongst my set I performed an edited version of ‘Return to Stone’ previously performed at Roy McFarlane’s ‘Soulful Voices’. Roy had been booked to headline, unfortunately his mum passed away very recently. My thoughts go out to him and the family.

We were treated to Fergus McGonigal and Humdrum Express (Ian Passey) as headline guests and the whole night was great fun, alive with atmosphere – which after the beginning of my working week I felt I very much needed and benefitted from.

   Photography: Peter Williams © 2014

On Friday I had a writing day which was long overdue, I spent 4 hours working on poetry for submissions and caught up on admin for another hour, before taking a well earned and much needed rest. Fortunately I did wake up in time to get ready for Stanza!

 It was Children In Need on Friday and I had the opportunity to perform in Wolverhampton, but had already committed to Stanza and the meeting was a lot closer to home.

Stanza was a great night with lots of people, helpful editing advice and lovely nibbles. I love Stanza, it is such a friendly and helpful group. I am glad we have less than a month to wait before the next meeting – booked early because of Christmas!

On Saturday I worked as an Assistant Writer for our group at The Hive. I was performing in the Birmingham Literature Festival, I missed October’s group – it felt like I had been away for months.

I also had the 1st of 3 Mentoring sessions, I was asked back in the Summer if I would consider being a Writing Mentor, of course I said YES! It was a great first session and I look forward to continuing this work in December & January.

Since then I have spent some time catching up with family, sleeping and avoiding buying bags!

Next week looks good, I didn’t have a particularly blank diary, but I realise I need to re-energise, I have officially only committed myself to a set in Cheltenham on Friday and apart from this think I may have a week off. I am working in the day job and need some energy to finish writing projects, plus it IS cold and rainy – staying in is always more appealing in this season of dark afternoons and pre-Christmas busy-ness!

Worcester Music Festival – Performing Poetry

This weekend saw the annual Music Festival in Worcester, it runs for this 3 days/ nights with artists and musicians performing free events for the public. This year I was lucky enough to take part on Saturday and Sunday evening.

SATURDAY

Ian Passey (a.k.a Humdrum Express) a multi-talented musician and poet was organised the event on Saturday evening, at The Swan and Two Nicks. He had booked bands and musicians and thought it might be good to support the sets with poetry. He invited 8 of us to perform over the night.

A fabulous evening of music and wordiness compered by The Humdrum Express 
Featuring:

PTR Williams

Get Bag. Pack Bag. Go

Nip & Tuck (From Bo Pilar and the Mountain Valley Boys

Disco Tramps

Marina del Ray 

Featuring performances from very special guest poets:

Heather Wastie, Mike Alma, William Shatspeare, Mogs, Michelle Crosbie, Andrew Owens, Suz Winspear and Nina Lewis.

Worcester Music Festival is supporting YSS Worcestershire Young Carers and Young Adult Carers 

 

 

 I supported Get Bag.Pack Bag. Go. who were a great duo. I was really pleased that the crowd listened – when you play music venues, although (as a former musician and daughter of one) it warms my heart to hear good vibes and be inspired by the energy and showmanship of the acts, it usually gets quite noisy and often the crowd will be a force for the voice to reckon with.

I wrote a special set of ‘music related’ poetry, one In Memory of Radio and 3 more on Sound City – the famous recording studio in LA having watched an amazing documentary about it a few months ago. I finished my set with a request for Cake Man. The audience response to that made me wish I had created a set from original material, but I am also quite fond and proud of some of my new music poems.

Originally I think I was going to be last on the set of poet’s to support the final band of the night, as I thought I would miss the beginning of this gig,  but I swapped into an earlier slot instead, glad because I was able to enjoy the rest of the superb evening as you may see from these photos.

© 2014 Peter Williams & Ian Passey

 

 

THE WEEKEND

There were musical events all over town all weekend. It is always a great festival.

SUNDAY

WORD & SOUND

And as if all this excitement wasn’t enough – I was back in the city performing at Word & Sound on the Sunday night. Amanda Bonnick and Jenny Hope organised a grand event – hosted superbly by Amanda. The best thing was although a core of us perform at the same places often there were some new names and faces and some of them blew my socks off (5 Star performances)! It was an absorbing evening and I thoroughly enjoyed my set.

They host these events throughout the year usually, so I am looking forward to more.

Performers included (in no particular order); Mike Alma, Sarah James, Polly Robinson, Myfanwy Fox, Suz Winspear, Kathy Gee-Wordstring, Andrew Green, Neil Laurenson, Math Jones, Susan Davidson and others.

A great night, a great weekend!