Poetry Swindon Day 2

Photography Credits: Mark Farley (Official Festival photographer), Gram Joel Davies, Jennifer Berry and Richard Jefferies Museum © 2017 Copyright remains with them.

So the hardest thing about being on the team helping at Poetry Swindon? The mornings! It was lovely to have the comfort of a bed and I really enjoyed sharing a room with Sarah L. Dixon. Seeing the three resident poets in our hotel was a joy bigger than the happiness my soon to be off the scale Hash Brown addiction brought me… but I am a night owl*, not a morning person, definitely in need of a vat of coffee by Day 2 and panic stricken with the realisation that I may not be able to make this marathon.

*This came in handy for late-night bar duties though.

After a lovely cooked breakfast (and no washing up) – believe me, for the volunteer team, this is a big thing… although after all the washing up over at Artsite, there wasn’t so much at the Museum, thanks to the ECO-plates and spoons (biodegradable) and no cooking thanks to the Vegan catering and not much breakfast washing up thanks to the generosity of rooms.

The best thing about volunteering (not obviously the best thing), is knowing what to wear in the morning! At the RJ Museum we had morning briefings and time to get the place ready for the programme to begin. I think Hilda and many others in the team had already been preparing and cleaning for about 3 hours before we arrived just after 9 AM.

Day 2 Friday 6th October

Friday morning started with a workshop, one in which volunteers could participate fully, with the exception of making sure everyone was alright and carrying over a few resources only one member of the team had official responsibility – so the hat could be taken off (often a literal measure at Poetry Swindon) for a bit.

The festival programme always offers workshops with the resident poets.

10:00 to 12:00 WORKSHOP: Liberation Through Constraint Sun Inn
With Tania Hershman
Sometimes, imposing constraints can actually set your writing free. We will experiment with various ways to restrict yourself, playing with form, content and length – and seeing what results!

 

10:00 to 12:00 WORKSHOP: The Dynamic Poem Holiday Inn  With Daljit Nagra
Poems can sometimes seem flat and lack vigour, they can drift along in a dreamy mood without any conviction. Daljit will explore with examples from contemporary poetry how to put the fizz back into a poem. Participants should expect to have attempted at least one new lively poem!

I had chosen to take part in Daljit’s workshop, last year I went to his Masterclass at Poetry Swindon and I couldn’t wait to be led by him again.

There was an exciting buzz over at The Holiday Inn, not just for the participants. Daljit discovered the wonderful 007 Bond style briefcase in the corner. I have since attempted to order something like this, but you have to hire people to laser cut the foam and it is ridiculously expensive.

You all want one too now don’t you?

It was a fabulous workshop which resulted in a good few skeletal poems in my notebook.

After which Lunch was served and like Cinderella the team were all reunited from Poetry Ballrooms back into stewarding roles. To serve drinks and lunch, sell books, keep everything clean and tidy and make sure everyone was having the best festival experience.

The afternoon saw two events starting with an open mic. This event was ticketed and people were able to pre-book open mic spots. Another element I love about Poetry Swindon is all Festival Pass ticket holders can perform at the festival as part of the open mic event in a guest spot. This is a real bonus of buying a festival pass and something it would be great to be offered by other festivals. Although, this is another treasure that makes Poetry Swindon stand out, gleaming and shining as it does.

13:00 to 14:00 OPEN MIC – Strange Days RJ Museum Tent-Palace
‘There is no exquisite beauty… without some strangeness in the proportion.’ Edgar Allan Poe
Read us poems that don’t see straight. Poems that bounce, poems that are unflat, poems that pretend to be other things…or just bring us your anything strange! With special guest readings from Rachael Clyne & Jinny Fisher.
Spaces limited.

Jinny Fisher

Bethan Rees

John Mills

Vik Shirley

Robert Stredder

Jonathan Robert Muirhead

Iris Anne Lewis

Shaun Butler

Sarah L. Dixon

Miranda L. Barnes

Rachael Clyne

Photography Credit Gram Joel Davies ©2017

I sadly missed the next event. I was not quite ready when it started and after wandering around to try to find the bunch of poets in hats, I gave up. Most regrettable, it looks like it was a wondrous experience. Hats were compulsory!

14:30 – 16:30 Coate Water Poetry Ramble

Starting by the Mulberry Tree take a voyage of discovery to Coate Water with Poet Sarah L. Dixon, expect to be surprised, exercised and poetised.

 

Photo Credits to Jennifer Berry © 2017

 

 

Stirchley Speaks and my Kindle

February Edition – 2/2/16

It was (as ever) a great night in Birmingham at the P Café. Jess Davies hosts a brilliant night ‘Stirchley Speaks’ – an open mic spoken word event hosting 3 feature acts. I was delighted to be asked to be one of the headliners this month, alongside Alisha Kadir who I’ve known on the circuit since 2014 and Mark Kilburn who I met through Stirchley Speaks a few months ago. His poetry is filled with wisdom, life, passion, pain, sometimes humour  and it was a joy to hear a full set of it. If you get a chance or see his name on the bill, GO!

Alisha Kadir

Alisha Kadir; guitarist, poet, activist, artivist… generally all round creative individual who is an active member of the Midlands arts scene. She’s performed at the NEC, TEDxBrum, Opus Club, in pubs, coffee shops and people’s kitchens. We look forward to sharing with you a combinat…ion of her music and poetry.

Mark Kilburn

Mark was born in Birmingham and lived in Denmark for a number of years before returning to the West Midlands in 2004. Between 1996-8 he was writer in residence at the City Open Theatre, Arhus, and in 2002 was a recipient of the Canongate prize for new fiction. Between 2004-5 Mark was on attachment at the Birmingham Rep and in 2012 his poem about the London riots, Milton Friedman Talks Disaster Capitalism in a Burning Hackney Diner, won the AbcTales.com poetry competition. Most recently, Ballad of a Claret and Blue Boy, a poem celebrating Aston Villa, was featured in the club’s compilation of fan memories prior to the 2015 FA Cup final. Mark’s novel, Hawk Island, is available from electronpress.com

Nina Lewis

Nina Lewis is a published poet, with a fresh and honest approach to her writing. Her writing focuses on honest recollections, retold with often beautiful imagery, as well as being able to touch on more lighthearted moments. She had previously stopped writing for fifteen years and now finds herself back on the literary scene – the journey of which can be followed on her blog awritersfountain.wordpress.com

© Copyright P Café

 

The Kindle Bit (rant)

It was great fun performing an entire set, as I used new material, I also took my Kindle out for its first bought-with-this-intention outing. I have fought against this particular tech since e-readers where invented. A pain in the heart for any bibliophile, and being gadgetry you can’t even safely spray it with old-book-scent. But then in 2015 I read an article in a writing magazine that assured us they were no longer thought to be replacing the book (I mean if Apple can stop making I-pods?!) … and I started to thaw a little. I took a plane to Poland and I was the only passenger with a paperback (and no, no-one had a hardback either) and finally on the circuit I have seen plenty of people using them. I occasionally use my mobile, but I have to enlarge it, which means a lot of scrolling. Also the fact they cost 50% less than they used to is another factor.

I know deep down I am still a little unsure as it was only released from the packaging this month (it was a Christmas present from Mr G). However, I LOVE IT! So much lighter than the laptop and more screen friendly than the phone, perfect at home. I still use the laptop for writing though but have the office packages to import documents onto it. I know the cloud and ever note and the rest of it all exists – but you’ll understand, if I don’t think about it – it’s not real!

Anyway, loved performing with it and it worked well to keep me on track although I did deliver a slightly different set to the one I had prepared.

Lots of positive feedback and a definite emotional response to the more tear jerking poems. I love it when people come to talk to me afterwards, not for the ego boost or praise but to find out which words have lingered, what are the poll poems, what happens to the listener. More and more the feedback is detailed and I get what I need to hear as well as the compliments (which don’t get me wrong) are good for me to hear too. Knowing I am on the right track for my life is what really matters, the creative soul/spirit is in balance and I am a better, happier being for it.

The open mic-ers were amazing and included some real treasure and this evening Stirchley had music and dancing too. I know Jess started it with a spoken word concept and is willing to branch out and have performers open the night up with something different from time to time.

A fantastic night and a great way to start February!

 

September Review

SEPTEMBER 2015 Review – What a month! The end of the month marked 2 years a poet, I had a celebration last year and plan to organise a belated one for this year too. September itself was busy for everyone and October doesn’t seem any emptier. November and December tend to become quieter. I will see when it best fits and hope to manage it before the end of the year.

WEEK 1

I took a trip up to Shropshire to join in with John Hegley’s workshop in Ludlow, followed by the Poetry Lounge in the Sitting Room with headliners John Hegley and Ian McEwan.

https://awritersfountain.wordpress.com/2015/09/25/john-hegley-workshop-performance/

Jean Atkin © 2015

My application for the Poetry Brothel on 31st October at the P Café was accepted by Caged Arts.

I entered the WLF NPD Competition on the theme of light (and shade).

I worked on the Caldmore Garden writing project and continued to edit and redraft my pamphlet poetry.

Rehearsals for NPD Light & Shade were organised and I worked on the poem for this event. I performed at Spoken Word at The Ort.

 

WEEK 2

I finalised my NPD poem for Light & Shade performance event on NPD (8th Oct)

I performed at Mouth & Music and SpeakEasy, attended Stanza. https://awritersfountain.wordpress.com/2015/09/25/poetry-events-september-spoken-word-the-ort-mouth-music-speakeasy/

I had had my first WWM Writing West Midlands group of the new academic year and now in the role of Lead Writer – it went really well and I was  very pleased. The Young Writers enjoyed it and my new Assistant Writer is amazing.

https://awritersfountain.wordpress.com/2015/09/26/writing-west-midlands/

I went to the Plenty Fish Book Launch – By Sarah James, Nine Arches Press and celebrated her success by listening to her guest poets – Fergus McGonigal, Mike Alma, Kathy Gee, Ian Glass, Holly Magill & Maggie Doyle and enjoying an evening of Poetry and Curry.

https://awritersfountain.wordpress.com/2015/09/26/plenty-fish-by-sarah-james-book-launch/

I completed the week in Birmingham with Tessa Lowe at Poets with Passion.

WEEK 3

Started with Arts business meetings and Poetry on Loan training in Worcester, I was booked as a Guest Poet in Cheltenham in October, made the shortlist for WLF NPD Competition, the public were then allowed to vote on their favourite to join the other 3 finalists who are performing at the event on NPD.

I went to Poetry For Lunch – revival 2015 at the P café with Jan Watts and others, performed poetry and enjoyed iced coffee blends. Went to Hit the Ode with Myfanwy Fox to see Jackie Hagan, Toni Stuart and Leon Priestnall.

https://awritersfountain.wordpress.com/2015/09/26/more-poetry-events-september-poets-with-passion-pfl-and-hit-the-ode/

I went to Swingerella’s Wrecking Ball Tour at the Mockingbird Theatre and rehearsed for Caldmore Carnival event in the garden then spent Sunday working on Alice in Wonderland poetry for the AAOTP (Arts all Over the Place) fundraiser next week.

WEEK 4

Heather Wastie, Suz Winspear and I had our first rehearsal for NPD, I am now trying to learn the poems off by heart as we have choreographed a dramatic showing and I want to be able to use my body accordingly. We even sorted costume. Very exciting.

I went to Poetry Bites to watch Liz Berry and Jane Commane headline. I performed as one of the open mic-ers, also had a good catch up with Jonathan Davidson (WWM). I performed my Alice/ Lewis Carroll poems at the Madhatter’s Fundraiser for AAOTP, booked tickets for Swindon Poetry Festival and organised Guest Writers for INKSPILL – our online writing retreat which takes place the 3rd weekend in October. We had wonderful weather for the Carnival Day in Caldmore (postponed from the summer due to bad weather) the choral poem worked really well and we performed some of our workshop poetry too with David Calcutt – Poet in Residence 2014/15.

I finished off the month writing Vampire poetry for 42 – the 50th event of 42. It was pure celebration on the 30th and lots of incredibly talented performers and writers took to the stage.

https://awritersfountain.wordpress.com/2015/09/28/poeting-training-performing-september/

 

WORKSHOPS

John Hegley

 

OPEN MICS

Poetry Lounge in the Sitting Room, Ludlow, 1st September

Spoken Word at The Ort Café, Birmingham, 4th September

Mouth & Music, Kidderminster, 8th September

SpeakEasy, Worcester, 10th September

Poetry For Lunch, P Café Birmingham 17th

Poetry Bites, Birmingham 22nd

MADHATTER’S WONDERLAND OF LAUGHTER – Arts All Over the Place, Fundraiser, Birmingham 24th

Caldmore Carnival Open Day, Group Poem Performance, Walsall 26th

42, Worcester 30th September

 

BOOK LAUNCH / EVENTS

WWM Lead Writer for Senior Group, Worcester, 12th September

Book Launch, Plenty Fish by Sarah James Published by Nine Arches 12th

Poets With Passion at The Ort, Birmingham 13th September

Poetry On Loan Training, Worcester 14th September

Hit The Ode, Birmingham 17th

Swingerella Wrecking Ball Tour, Mockingbird Theatre, Birmingham, 18th

Caldmore Garden – Rehearsals for Carnival event, Walsall 19th

NPD Light & Shade rehearsals, 21st

Stanza

J. H © 2015

October has a busy start with Swindon Poetry Festival, Stirchley Speaks, National Poetry Day, Light & Shade NPD performance and a weekend Book Launch ‘The Girl who Grew into a Crocdile’ By Claire Walker.

I am busy organising our 3rd Online Retreat right here, INKSPILL… LOOK OUT FOR MORE DETAILS SOON!

First Gig of the Year – Guest Poet at The Poetry Lounge

 I booked a spot for The Poetry Lounge before Christmas and was looking forward to the first gig of the year, the Guest Poets were Bert Flitcroft and Nadia Kingsley, I enjoy reading and listening to both these poets.

Then the first miracle of 2015 happened! Jean Atkin asked me to Guest Poet as Nadia was ill (she is going to have her Guest Spot in a few months time, catch her in July), hope you feel better soon Nadia and thanks once again Jean for the opportunity.

This is my 2nd Guest Poet slot and I loved it. I wish I had rehearsed and prepared more but with work and tutoring had little time to extend my set with preparation.

I think I chose a good selection of poems and entertained the crowd. It was lovely chatting to people and receiving positive and personal feedback on poems that had resonated with them.

It wasn’t easy to follow Gaia Harper, an incredibly talented young poet who should definitely run for Shropshire’s next Young Poet Laureate (16th January deadline, I think), she will have the best of luck in the future and is a name to watch out for. Her love of language and words was obvious and her delivery was confident and self assured – and I had to follow that with my books brimming with post-its!

I always enjoy these nights in Ludlow, the atmosphere is always soothing and friendly. It was great to see people again, all ready for a new year of Poetry.

Excellent open mic-ers; Steve Harrison, Gaia Harper, Robert Harper, Graham Attenborough, Steve Griffiths, Deborah Alma, Bethany Rivers and David Harley. I particularly enjoyed hearing Deborah sharing her own poetry with us. She is famous in her Emergency Poet role, and it’s well worth a visit for her special poetry treatments, she is an equally a brilliant writer and I felt privileged to hear her set.

‘A wonderful, warm, funny, transporting Poetry Lounge in The Sitting Room. Thank you wonderful guest poets Nina Lewis (fantastic rant about her car tax Incident) and Bert Flitcroft – we kept recognising ourselves Bert  and great reads from all our open mic slots, with special mention for the astonishing Gaia Harper  who was just fab. Great to hear Deborah Alma read, she should do it more often… Thank you everyone!’

– Jean Atkin

Where I Am At – 21 Months in…

I love the fact that even when I am not writing, I am reading about writing. This summer I have also looked for art opportunities for paid work – the whole idea of teaching irregularly was to bolster on arty days too, last year it was a big leap of faith and I decided that over complicating it would send me crazy, budgeting for the year, I realised I could get by on just supply teaching – although the long holidays and short ones in between have seen me dip into the savings… that’s what they were there for. The leap may have taken a nano-second but it wasn’t impulsive, I have saved wages to bolster this new artistic/creative life of mine and I know – potentially – when I am strong enough I can equal my salary, not through writing alone as I am sure you understand, but having fingers in all the pies – which has always been my style. At 15 my careers advisor advised that I give up half of my hobbies! I have never uttered the words ‘I am bored’ but I am prone to an occasional day of collapse, like yesterday.

Each year of this 16 year plan I am sending my self an email from my future self, stating current position and outlook, hopes and upcoming opportunities and a fantasy projection into the next year. I know I have already surpassed my expectations for 2014 (name on bills, booked for slots, paid performance work, involvement in Literature/Arts festivals) but unfortunately my Outlook inbox froze and somehow the future self email got deleted. I checked the deleted file, nothing – I searched for it – it had gone – POOF! Disappeared…. maybe there was something that I wasn’t supposed to read. But just in case I might copy the email somewhere else this year as back up!

Excitedly in 6 days time I am hosting my first event, a poetry party (with a sprinkle of short stories too). I decided that I wanted to mark One Year in my poetry skin with a celebration. I have invited people who have been a great influence, support, become poetry friends, all of them incredibly talented and all of them willing to perform in an open mic poetry party.

Last year on the 14th September I attended my 2nd network event (Writing West Midlands) drove for hours to the border of Wales to attend as I very much wanted to hear the speakers; SIMON THIRSK & IAN BILLINGS.

Here’s a link to my original post about this turning point day in which I speak to people, get a writing job, attend a book launch, meet lots of lovely poets who I now consider friends.  A whole day with poets – 12 hours and 140 miles….

Turning Point

Book Launch

This was the day I decided to be a poet, to rekindle my love with the pen. After spending the first 9 months of 2013 revising and learning the craft of writing & submitting short stories and the occasional poem. The actual date of my first open mic was 2nd October, this clashes with several festivals including Birmingham Literature Festival and a Mental Health Arts Festival, so I decided the pinnacle turning point should be celebrated instead!

I CAN’T WAIT!

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

 

Mouth & Music – War & Peace – 12th August

© Peter Williams 2014

 

Thank goodness for Classic Mode – it is unusual when tech is improved to leave an option to use the previous format, glad WordPress have – as I have a lot of blog posts to catch up on.

Let’s go back in time… before my birthday there were many events I didn’t blog about and since then I have been busy with events… I have taken the past 48 hours offline – it is a Bank Holiday weekend and we have had the allotment to sort out and friends visiting from London. I would recommend a offline break to anyone – I didn’t even use my mobile phone, the only tech ipods and TVs.

 War & Peace – 12th August

Kidderminster have a brilliant Arts Festival throughout the summer and this month’s Mouth and Music was a festival special. We were all expecting it to be a heavy evening – due to the theme – and the nature of the subject… it wasn’t – it was (as always) a brilliant night!

Jasmine Gardosi – a poet friend from Birmingham and runner up in the recent OXJAM Poetry Slam, is head lining there in a few months time and she came to M&M on the 12th, was great to have her company.

Matt Windle was the poetry headliner this month – love watching him perform – energy, talent and spirit. He is a boxer and is often billed as the Boxing Poet – I like the way he encourages others. Recently, at ‘A Night with Maya Angelou’ I saw Lauren Williams, a student at Birmingham Ormiston Academy & Birmingham Young Poet Laureate perform, having seen her get the acolade last year at the BLF (Birmingham Lit Fest) it was wonderful to see her perform. In conversation she told me that she was inspired by a poet who visited her school…. that poet? Matt Man Windle of course, who was himself a Young Poet Laureate a few years ago.

Matt doesn’t keep still during any performance and the lighting in the venue is a challenge for any photographer.

© Peter Williams 2014

One of the reasons I like to blog about events in real time is because I still have the energy and enthusiasm for it in real time. Whereas at 9 (now 10) in the morning on Bank Holiday Monday trying to recall the night is somewhat harder.

I just remember uplifted feelings and some incredible poetry, music and dance. Sirkel – the music headliners brought DANCE to M&M for the first time.

SIRKEL
Scandinavian influenced folk duo – sax, flute, violin, accordion, guitar & mandola
plus guest appearance from clog dancer Ayliffe Edwards.

 

All photographs © Peter Williams 2014

The clog dancing was captivating!

© Peter Williams 2014

Heather Wastie performing her War & Peace Poetry

© Peter Williams 2014

Me performing mine.

A moving night and a fantastic audience of festival goers. A good time was had by all!

The most magical night.

Hosted this month by Sarah Tamar, congratulations on such a successful evening!

 

 

 

 

 

June Review

 __________            June            _______________

Such a busy wonderful month filled with glorious opportunities!

Blogs and Projects

I signed up for Writing 101 Blogging University Daily Post challenge this month, it stretched ideas with writing and lead to some interesting blog posts – I struggled to post daily as I have been offline busy, but I did manage to complete each task for the first half. After which I became heavily involved in performances and events in the WLF LitFest.

I continued to write poems for 52.

I applied to be part of a collaborative project with Naked Lungs for BLF Birmingham Literature Festival. I had an interview mid-month.

The blog now has 765 followers, an extra 23 people joined in June.

The most popular post this month continues to be;

		Views
Writing Short Stories – Tips on Planning and Structure		367

Submission and Publishing

I submitted poems and was published by Hark.

My poem Clench – will appear in the July issue of Hark, an online magazine.

I also worked on an epic submission for Offa’s Press

and entered a poem for GBWO – Great British Write Off.

 

Performing Poetry

I took a 12 day break from performing poetry at the end of May/June and enjoyed watching others at events instead.

It felt strange to get back up on stage at Mouth and Music – but I was armed with some freshly written -on theme – poems and a great audience who laughed in all the right places.

It was also good to back to Birmingham- performing at York’s Bakery.

It was 10 days of WLF this month – Worcester Litfest, I was asked to take part in a few events that clashed with other plans, including a guest spot for the Decadent Diva gig – Divas and Football, it was my friend’s Woodstock themed party which I was going to (a 50th birthday) and I had already turned down Foxy and Wild – Droitwich Arts Network/ Festival poetry event.

I did perform as a POP UP POET at an event I was asked to take part in.

I managed to get to Tim Cranmore’s Book Launch the week before WLF started and booked to be at the Guildhall for the announcement of the new Poet Laureate (4 of whom I knew) – I gave up a night performing to be part of the first event of the festival.

I was asked to have a guest spot at the Special Festival SpeakEasy (which I could do) and I asked to be on the 42 stage (1 of 8 performers) in addition to this I booked to watch Jonny Fluffypunk Man Up – show and was asked to perform at this event too.

I missed several workshops I wanted to do – because I was also working full time this week – with Summer being so close!

It was my first WLF – but the city’s 4th – I was aware of both this and the Droitwich Festival last year, it was before I started poetry writing again and at the time I was resigning from work after quite a struggle and wasn’t really submerged in the writing world as I am now.

Confab Cabaret – Olivers: Hollie McNish

Writing West Midlands/ Assistant Writer  – Creative Writing Group: Ian MacLeod

Mouth & Music – BHG: Adjectives

Writing West Midlands/ Assistant Writer  – Creative Writing Group: Jean Atkin (cover)

Writing West Midlands This month not only did I have a chance to use my drama background to help support material for the Worcester group with Ian MacaLeod, I also had a chance to cover as an Assistant Writer for the group in Kidderminster – run by Jean Atkin. It is great to experience working with Young Adults – teenagers were slightly older than my group and a different Lead Writer, Jonathan Davidson recommended we swapped groups once in a while to get a better breadth and understanding. For a writer who hopes to become a Lead Writer in 2016 it is great to take on board different approaches and ideas. I thoroughly enjoyed the group and look forward to going back next month.

Performing at Dave’s 50th Woodstock Party including a poem written especially for him! My first Private Function too!

Pop up Poets – WLF

Poets With Passion – Birmingham

With Jonny Fluffypunk – WLF

Meeting Naked Lungs – Project BLF

Special WLF 42 – WLF Lou Morgan

Special SpeakEasy – WLF – Old Recifying House: Emma Purhouse & Scott Tyrrell

Carol Ann Duffy – National Poet Laureate in a joint venture between Ledbury Poetry festival & WLF

The Tea Project – Tara and Lynsey – MAC Atys Centre

Poetry Workshop – Jean Atkin, Acton Scott farm.

 

Mr G and I also saw the Voodoo Rooms (Hendrix/ Cream), celebrated Dave’s 50th Woodstock style, mum’s birthday and he continued to re-landscape the garden, building a pond.

Next month I am looking forward to a workshop and some Literature Festivals, my performance with BrainFruit, Special weekend groups associated with writing I have been involved with this year, Book launches – Restless Bones and seeing my work in print in Hark Magazine.

Roll on the sunshine!

 

My Writing Life: News

Yesterday I had no internet connection! This is an offline post I wrote:

Mr G and I went out on Sunday, for treats and garden/house shopping, after a lovely morning together, (on the last free Sunday I have for about 5 weeks) I popped onto the blog to leave a few posts… low and behold, the phone lines were down in my town… last time I remember this was after a storm many years ago… cannot believe it in the 21st Century, but there you go no internet.

I have decided to write all my posts offline ready to post and go out with Mr G for a lovely Steak meal and forget all about the world I could access… where some very important news was waiting for me in my inbox!

I am very excited about all the wonderful things happening to me right now in the world of writing.

Firstly, at the end of May I applied to Naked Lungs to take part in a pop up poetry event at the next Birmingham Literature Festival this year in October. It is a paid gig too! WOWZERS! Typically they have been inundated with creatives applying to be part of this half hour event, so we have been invited to meet/interview with them to discuss our proposals.

Unfortunately, it was a day I was working full time, I emailed with possible solutions to this problem, then late last week the agency rang and my days got changed about into 2 half days, freeing up potential time on Monday and Tuesday, I now need to decide which slot will be better for me, traffic-wise I guess Tuesday morning is the better option, just hope I can get to work on time! (I received confirmation today my interview is Tuesday morning.)

It is exciting and I hope it provides an opportunity.

Secondly, it is the 4th Worcester LitFest & Fringe starting at the end of this week and I am happy to announce my involvement.

I have been asked to take part in the Pop Up Poets event on Sunday 22nd, it looks great fun.

I am also one of eight performers who will take to the stage at 42, have to get some dark poetry ready for that set. I think my recent poem about Martha Graham, written for the 52 project may be a suitable starting point. Maybe I will dust the Zombie poem off for another outing.

The SpeakEasy Worcs LitFest special was originally invited guests only, I was one of the poets asked to do a 6 minute set. I am looking forward to both of these events and the headline acts.

I am busily involved in other open mic events and workshop/ performances right up until the end of June. Living the dream… 8 months in!

There are even more exciting events taking place in July.

I am performing on stage with The Poetry Army – Brainfruit, in my hometown and also hope to attend the pre-show workshop if Writing West Midlands can find cover for the Worcester group. 

I am attending the Born Free Anthology Book Launch, reading my poems from the book, along with others at various venues in Birmingham, starting with The Ort, where I was hoping to perform with Tim Scarborough again but he has other commitments for the rest of the Summer on Fridays and can’t manage it. I am performing a solo set instead.

Tim and I hadn’t actually seen each other for weeks as we were both performing individually for the last Mouth and Music. Where he performed an incredible set of poetry written about his late wife, poems I was honoured to help him edit. Not that they needed much work. We decided  that we will collaborate for the next Mouth and Music on the theme of Summer. I look forward to squeezing some rehearsal time in!

I am going back to Acton Scott Farm to take part in a celebratory afternoon of Jean Atkin’s residency, including reading some ASF poetry from the workshop day.  Where I also hope to finally buy my copy of DIP by Andrew Fusek Peters.

I am going to Stratford-Upon-Avon, where Jo Bell is the resident poet for the annual Literature Festival, she has organised a 52 picnic, where there will be so many of us hoping to perform we will be selected from a raffle to perform our 52 poems.

I have been so busy this year that I haven’t always managed to write my weekly poem in time to submit it to the 52 group, I have however, tried to catch up, I still have a few missing weeks and I really miss reading other people’s poetry because you learn so much, I hope to catch up with it this summer.

AND excitedly I share news that came after this was written and will have a post of its own. I got published!

 

Vlad Mackevic’s Open Mic; Frightening, Funny, Foolish – Friday 13th

Last night I went to York’s Bakery, it has been ages since I performed in Birmingham and I was looking forward to reuniting with my friends, Vlad Mackevic (who I met at Mouth & Music a few months ago) decided to host a Friday 13th evening of Spoken Word and Music. I only found out about it a few days ago and eagerly watched the list of who was joining and it was lovely to see that I knew many of them.

The bakery was busy with the post-evening rush when we started, despite the ‘atmospheric noise of coffee machines’ it was a good evening and I look forward to the next one, in the Coffee Lounge – which I think has a separate space for performing if it is the one I am thinking about.

Lots of poets took to the stage and the evening was finished off with music from Superlicious Ms T.

I enjoyed looking through my file for the darker pieces, chose something dark, something weird (and a bit yukky) and something scary. My Zombie Poem (written for theme for 42) had an outing again – I hadn’t imagined it would fit into a reading more than once a year! Femi, asked how many poems I was reading and begged for a 4th one – Vlad took my plea from the stage to do 4 – I read my poem about Martha Graham (her depression) written for last week’s 52. It is quite long to read and difficult when competing over noise.

 

I enjoyed the evening! Others did too.

Tessa Lowe wrote a poem about the full moon – which won’t fall on Friday the 13th again until 2049 and by then she will be 103! Glyn Phillips wrote about Friday the 13th in a very humorous poem, the performers were;

Neth Brown,

Olufemi Abidogun,

Tessa Lowe,

Sabina Luciana Tcaciuc,

Chris Akers,

Nina Lewis,

CabdiQani Osman Hassann

Jasmine Gardosi,

Ines McDonald,

Andrea Smith as Swingerella,

Martin Spruce,

Glyn Phillips

The Supercilious Ms T and her Band of Pleasure Dandies.

I don’t have photos of every performance awaiting some professional shots, here’s a flavour from my phone!

  Femi   Chris

 Jasmine  Tessa

                                                                                                                                                   Swingerella

  Glyn  Supercilious Ms T

      and Vlad himself!