Performing & Writing

After taking a three week break over Christmas I am determined to get back into my stride with writing and performing, the heavier proportion needs to be weighted to writing this year as I have a few projects underway.

I have succeeded (partly due to organising an Action Plan) – I can Life Coach myself after all! Another personal qualification of mine. I have this week managed to perform, write new poetry (the first since early December), I thought I’d lost the power! I have even managed a submission too and plan on spending this, my first full writing day of 2016 writing more poetry for submission.

Break your goal into smaller steps, make sure they are achievable.

Spoken Word at The Ort 8th

Last Friday I journeyed over to Birmingham to unite with other poets who were still in shock over the news of Sammy Joe, to welcome in the New Year with Debbie Aldous at her event and to share poetry on the open mic.

It was PACKED! To the point where I began to feel claustrophobic. It was a good night though with lots of poetry/ spoken word. It was mainly good to connect with others and see people that I needed to hug.

Writing West Midlands

I also spent part of the week finalising my plans for the first of the 2016 sessions for WWM working with young writers. We had some new joiners, I am doing my best to increase the numbers for our group this year. I planned a whole session on New Beginnings and it went down well. It was good to be back.

I missed several events this week, Stirchley Speaks, Permission to Speak and Poet’s with Passion.

Headline Bookings

Last year, I was fortunate to appear in lots of headline slots. This week I was asked to Headline next month at Stirchley Speaks alongside; Alisha Kadir and Mark Kilburn. I can’t wait!

Patience Agbabi

I discovered Patience Agbabi was coming to a local university and has a ticketed performance at The Hive on 29th January. I booked a ticket.

As I didn’t get a place on the Arvon City Retreat, I have filled that weekend (29th-31st) with POETRY. The Sunday will be filled with 52 – more on this later.

Mouth & Music 12th

I am dedicating a post to this separately as it was the last one for a while. I will add a link back here.

Thank you for the Music (and Mouth)

SpeakEasy 14th

SpeakEasy was last night, I have not managed to get to one of these for a long time and enjoyed reconnecting. There was a healthy number of audience to performers and some of my favourite poets were performing. It was a lovely evening (if not a tad cold, we have had snow) hosted by Maggie Doyle, who eloquently announced each spot with an blush worthy introduction.

I finally (after a block of a month or so) managed to write three new poems this week and I performed them all last night.

Lindsay Stanberry Flynn was the Headline and she read from her latest novel – ‘The Broken Road’.

http://lindsaystanberryflynn.co.uk/

AVAILABLE TO BUY

https://www.bookdepository.com/Broken-Road-Lindsay-Stanberry-Flynn/9780993418204

A Writing Day

Today is my first official writing day of the month, sacred time. I have my list in front of me and I am busy working through it. I managed to write – edit and submit some work on Wednesday evening – in between going out for a belated New Year’s Meal with Mr G’s family. I was fairly proud of what I managed to accomplish in two hours, let’s hope the editors are too.

Loving the possibilities of the next four days, after a run of (hard) work, I get to tie myself to the desk and get on. I have a manuscript to finalise as well as new writing and of course the inevitable admin tasks (much further down on the list).

This is the good side of the apple.

Eat around the Bruise

I know people who are fussy (or perhaps normal) about food and would bin fruit as a punishment for being bruised. I know that there is still goodness in the remaining unbruised part and will carefully eat around the bruise.

2016 feels a little like this at the moment. I’d let go of negativity dragged from 2015 into this new year and was all ready and primed for a fresh start. Then things beyond my control happened – as they do, otherwise known as life.

When this happens there is no way to protect from bruising. Allow that time and then, get stuck in! Eat around that bruise.

Give what you have to give.

 

Poetry Events – September Spoken Word @ The Ort, Mouth & Music & SpeakEasy

As I am so far behind with the blog, with over 3 weeks worth of activities to post about I have decided to bulk post about poetry events this month.

Spoken Word at The Ort with Debbie Aldous – Birmingham 4th

I was delighted to make it back to this event as the last few have clashed with other things. There was a pop up return of Naked Lungs in the city the same evening over in Digbeth and my original plan was to try to get to both. The days of dual gigs are behind me I think, especially at the end of a busy week. I was still recovering from John Hegley and my night in Shropshire.

It was a great evening packed with fabulous performances and new audience and open mic-ers too! Thoroughly enjoyed sharing poetry.

 

Mouth & Music – Heart, with Heather Wastie – Kidderminster 8th

Headlining this month were Sarah James & Angela Topping, reading from their pamphlet Hearth and Elena Thomas with Dan Whitehouse.

It was a lovely evening of words and music, some great open mic-ers, I especially enjoyed Jan performing with her husband, they were the opening act and got the night off to a great start.

I usually find that writing to theme takes place a few days before the event, this month though because of the KAF special – Slightly Circus M & M event there were only a few weeks between the events. This was fine as with a theme like ‘Heart’ I was able to find an abundant amount of poems I had already written. The tough part was choosing which made the cut for my set.

I am glad that Sarah and Angela were mindful that a small percentage of the audience had seen them in Worcester and they chose different poems to read. It was a smashing performance.

Here’s what Heather Wastie had to say about the event;

September’s Mouth and Music was as pleasing to organise is it always is. Towards the end of the evening, Dave Sutherland sang a song he had composed using lyrics I wrote after hearing Elena Thomas (one of our features) sing her own songs at the launch of her art exhibition. Sorry for the slightly convoluted sentence but “Carrying the evening home”, the title of the song, refers to what we take away in our heads, and bodies, after an event. Last night, not only did I take away… Elena’s beautiful songs and Dan Whitehouse’s gently intricate guitar accompaniment; I also took away the fact that someone from the pub, who I suspect wouldn’t normally go to an event like ours, came in and listened to Elena because she found it provocative that Elena was singing about “the life of a middle-aged woman”. I love Sarah James and Angela Topping’s pamphlet of poetry duets, Hearth, and their reading stirred my own memories of home and family.

The main thing I took away was a feeling of connectedness. I was delighted to see a harmonium on the stage when Jan, a regular and popular performer, was joined by her husband to enhance her poems with musical backing. I enjoyed being teased by Mike Alma’s poem in response to mine about the gherkin which I wrote after seeing one on Angela Topping’s plate! In complete contrast, Mouth and Music’s own Sarah Tamar made a powerful connection with the plight of refugees and Tim Cranmore covered both ends of the … er … spectrum with 2 poems which were uncomfortable to hear, for different reasons: “Inappropriate physical contact” was very thought-provoking, and his final poem ….. ask someone who was there if you want to know.

So many connections were made last night, thanks to featured artists, open mic performers, audience and the lovely staff at the Boars Head. Elena commented on Facebook today, “It’s a special place, Mouth and Music”. I take that as a huge compliment and look forward to seeing some of you on 13th October for some new connections!

Heather Wastie

Next month Birmingham Poet Leon Priestnall takes centre stage, this month he headlined Hit The Ode and stormed it!

 The month after Swingerella takes the Headline spot.

Photographs Peter Williams © 2015

 

Speakeasy, with Maggie Doyle & Fergus McGonigal – Worcester 10th

I have not been able to go to SpeakEasy since the Lit Fest and I was delighted to be back and to be able to take a 6 minute slot too. It was great performing poetry back in the glorious comfort of the Rectifying House. Despite not winning the raffle, I appreciated the new lamp, allowing more light to the page and it was great seeing it busy and catching up with poets I hadn’t seen for ages.

Ruth Stacey was headlining, reading from her latest book, ‘Queen, Jewel, Mistress’. I love the passion she has for this historical collection and that love came across in her set, full of enthusiasm and feeling. A very strong performance indeed.

It was a superb evening of poetry and pleasure. FUN!

RELATED LINKS:

http://worcesterspeakeasy.weebly.com/thursday-10th-september.html

 

 

 

 

Performing Poetry – Spoken Word at The Ort 6.3.15

I haven’t managed to attend Spoken Word with Debbie Aldous for a while, as the dates have often clashed with Stanza meetings. So I was delighted to make it this month and the night proves ever popular. It was originally on a Thursday night and last year they decided to move it to Friday (the Thursday was often shared with lots of other events), since changing the day the crowd has packed the small café.

It was a little awkward standing up for the whole 1st half but I am glad to see the increasing popularity of this event. It was a great night with varied performance; music, comedy, poetry, story telling. Lots of talent on show and as ever, a relaxed atmosphere.

Photographs by Bernard Davies – a selection from the performances.

 Sharon Carr

Joe Smith

 Matt Black

 Andrea Smith a.ka. Swingerella – but for this evening she performed some raw poetry as herself!

 Rachel Mayfield

It was the last event I did for a while as well. Unintentionally I spent the next week doing nothing but work and sleep. I had a dry patch with writing and didn’t attend any of the performance nights that I had intended to support.

Week 3 September 15th – 21st

The week before saw several poetry events & meetings. Mouth & Music, SpeakEasy, Stanza, the return of the Writing Group after the summer for Writing West Midlands at The Hive in Worcester and my One Year a Poet Party, peppered in between all this was a submission (of 3 poems) – fingers crossed.

Needless to say at the beginning of this, the 3rd week in September I was cream crackered – (TIRED)! The 15th was actually scheduled to be a heavy deadline day, a lot of the work was prose and I hadn’t had enough time to invest in it – it is shelved until a day it will be useful. I cut the stress by cutting out the deadline.

It has been a hard lesson to learn – THERE WILL NEVER BE ENOUGH TIME TO DO EVERYTHING – I have to look at each week and decide on the focus – is it writing or performing, new work or a different genre, some days it is just reading – all of it important.

I had some notes by the end of 2013 – look out for X in 2014 – now at the back of the diary I have that same note for 2015 – sometimes you got to practise an aim before you can shoot. I need some more learning time before I am ready. It really is a waste of time to send anything less than your BEST work and if you need more time, use it for something else or save it for the following year – trends may have changed by then, but we are constantly told to write from where it takes us – not study and write to theme, that produces empty, authorless writing which will go out of fashion quickly. Why use crayons when you can learn to blend and paint with oils?

So basically I spent the 15th – bleary eyed, trawling through writing schedules, considering the remaining writing, likely outcome and how much my heart pulled and basically slashed an ink line through every item on the list. It freed a day to read and think and after the OYAP celebration, I needed that. Tuesday was also a full on writing day but I also had work, I looked again and chose what to pursue and what to strike off the list at this time.

All the while conserving energy and getting over the week before. On Wednesday 17th some of the Worcs Lit Fest crowd  – Maggie Doyle, Fergus McGonigal and Polly Robinson were performing in a tea room in Wolverley for an afternoon of Pop Up Poetry. The sun was shining, all the household chores had been done, I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to write – but listening to Poetry was something I could manage.

It had started by the time I reached my destination and I was having an off day with regards to confidence and feeling perhaps some people were getting fed up of me being absolutely everywhere – which I think was just in my own head, people seemed genuinely pleased to see me. I declined performing in the 2nd part and instantly regretted my decision especially when the question changed from ‘are you performing?’ To ‘why aren’t you performing?’

It was lovely meeting Sue, Susan Wood who organised it all and Sue Johnson (incredible workshops) and I met for the first time. It was great to hear a poet who had stood up for the 1st time and everyone seemed to feel inspired.

There is some film of this event, when I track it down I will add some to this post.

 The Village Store/ Tea Shop

On Thursday I performed at Poetry For Lunch at the Mezzanine at the Library of Birmingham with Jan watts. It was fun and I am only sorry that I can’t get to more of these. I missed the special on Tuesday of this week, to celebrate 1 year since the opening of the new library and since then I have been working.

I couldn’t manage HIT THE ODE in the evening – Fergus McGonigal was performing, it would have been great to support him but I was just too tired.

On the 19th I hit the stage at The Ort to perform a varied set, last month it was really hot in the café and it was hot this month too – mainly because it was packed with people – which is great for Debbie Aldous as this night seems to go from strength to strength.

I had planned a weekend off poetry and a break from writing. I did celebrate a big birthday – it was Tim Scarborough’s 50th Birthday (the percussion poet I collaborate with).

Spoken Word at The Ort – Friday 16th May

 

Last week I was trying to limit the open mic events I attended – besides being exhausted after my 10 gigs in 11 days mini run, I have also had a chest infection and a hacking cough for a few weeks – I had practically lost my voice by Monday. On Friday is was a husky luscious sort of voice and worked well with ‘Hairy little secrets’ in our Moustache poem.

I missed Hit the Ode for the first time since February and also another Spoken word night in Birmingham. I would have really struggled to stay awake at any events before Friday night.

Friday I had a (now very rare) day off work – needed to get to the solicitors and sign paperwork for my flat. Hoping to exchange this Friday. After running a few errands I had the afternoon to compose myself (mentally) and rehearse the set poems. I was excited to have enough material for Tim and I to perform a medley of our work.

Collaboration #4 – with Tim Scarborough

We arrived early enough to get a comfortable seat and enjoyed the acts unwinding on the stage, we had no idea of the set list – I think Tim liked not knowing, he sure knows how to pump adrenaline. Debbie told me we were opening the 2nd half – a great position to be in, especially as one of my friends had to leave early, I convinced her to stay for our set.

Our performance was good and I enjoyed it, we had fun and some great feedback.

We performed Rainwatch *the original poem that got us together, the first time I heard Tim perform on his mood drum, this was the poem I had in my mind, it was already written and I thought it would be the perfect accompaniment for the words. We performed our 2 co-written pub poems, Pull the Other One andSocial SATNAV along with the best of our Body Hair Set – The Hair that Wouldn’t Stop and Moustache Poem with Fact Bombs, which resulted in David Rees Jones (MC for the 2nd half), heckling most of the men with facial hair stylizers afterward.

Feedback – people liked Rainwatch with the Mood Drum, Social SATNAV and Moustache Poem with Fact Bombs the best, people were entertained and said we should have done a longer set (I think my voice just about managed to hold out)!

We then sat back to enjoy the rest of the acts.

It was a great night, thank you and well done Debbie Aldous, who organises and MC’s the Spoken Word event.

© 2014 Andrea Smith

© 2014 Zuzana Klementova  – Supercilious Ms T

 

 © 2014 Zuzana Klementova

Swingerella

 

There were many more acts and photographs than I have posted here,  just a little flavour of the event.

Tim and I were prepared to work on a new set, with percussion for next month’s open mic but sadly it clashes with the opening of The Worcs LitFest – which is also the announcing of Poet Laureate, friends of mine are in the running and I had already chosen to support them. I also miss another festival evening due to a friend’s birthday party – but it’s Woodstock themed so it’s going to be great! We will still collaborate again, we just don’t know when.

Spoken Word at The Ort – A Fabulous Evening of Entertainment (18/4)

This was such an amazing night! I am so happy for Debbie Aldous.

I have been going to Spoken Word at The Ort since the tail end of last year, it was always on a Thursday and the first 3 months of 2014 the dates clashed with one or two other events in the city, numbers dropped.

This month was the first FRIDAY (now a regular slot) and it was PACKED! Only half the audience had chairs. I haven’t seen it that busy for a long time. It was great! There were probably an equal amount of audience to performers, which is fantastic.

As I walked in I was actually recognised by somebody who had seen me perform in Worcester, it was good chatting to them. There were lots of familiar faces and some from other events who I have never seen go to The Ort.

There has always been a mix of acts; musicians, comedians, poets, storytellers.

This evening we were treated to 3 bands – who Debbie, has quite rightly invited back to do a whole evening sometime soon. There were Burlesque/ Band singing, Swingerella (a friend of mine, Andrea Shorrick) has a persona and performs her love torn poetry through Swingerella and a case of props, she has branched out into comedy and performs regularly at a Burlesque night herself. She told me on Thursday that she has created other characters, the Steve Coogan of the Poetry/Comedy world! A female version of course, there were some great spoken word/ poets and a couple who had never performed live before!

The atmosphere as always was electrifying and yet relaxed, I love performing at the Ort. I tried to perform using my new mobile phone tech. it let me down half way through the set and I reverted to page copy. I had some positive feedback and really enjoyed the set.

All photography copyright Bernard Davis