Ten Letters

Amazing Poetry Theatre created by the minds of Spoz (Giovanni Esposito) and Lorna Meehan. Fascinating, a should NOT be missed show. Which so far has been performed twice at the MAC and hopefully will continue to develop and grow.

The Concept

Ten Letters is a new piece of intergenerational poetry theatre about Birmingham starring the best in local poetry talent. Produced by Giovanni Spoz Esposito and Lorna Meehan and incorporating multi media and live music, Ten Letters celebrates, procrastinates and immortalises this city we live in through a group of unique voices aged sixteen to sixty.

A cross generational show from 16 to 60 bringing together poets who all know Birmingham in their lives. Poems about the great and grime of the place, of memories and hopes.

Incredibly powerful and moving – I did not expect to be reduced to tears or goose-bumps, but with every voice I felt connection, my own memories resurfaced of trips to the Science Museum, the life-size dinosaur, suburban streets, black and white photos taken by grandparents in front gardens. It was all there buried away inside.

Particular highlights was watching the audience reaction to Maggie Doyle’s letter to Birmingham, the generational memories and Mexican wave recognition going on amongst the middle seats of the auditorium.

Lorna Meehan who wants to stab at your emotion buttons with her letter recalling divorce and the role of the city in her dual living experience, cut deep with parallels and reduced me to teary eyes – thank goodness I was sitting amongst poets.

The passion of Spoz’s letter that was uncensored and raw.

 

On the Night

This is what I wrote when I got home;

Ten Letters… Has to be summed up in 17 letters…

Absolutely awesome!

A Birmingham for everyone! Great show/ media content and live music. Performances that have emotional bite, I ran the whole gauntlet – tears of parallel hurts, tears from laughter, goosebumps! Everything and some unexpected memories came flooding back. Birmingham you are amazing in the skins you have given our lives! Amazing – as were Spoz & Lorna in conceiving this project. Take it to the nation, Birmingham – because you’re bloody brilliant!

There were stunning performances from the entire cast and the whole show was an amazing feat for Birmingham, a love letter, letters of thanks, hidden praise until twisted recollections – a triumph for poetry theatre and the city.

I am SO GLAD I didn’t miss it.

There are plans to move further with it, it was a crowd funded project and incredibly well produced.

Photography by Nigal Goodship © 2015

Top to bottom Performers: Casey Bailey, Maggie Doyle, Joe Cook, Aliyah Denton & Aliyah Holder (A Squared), Lorna Meehan, Jasmine Gardosi, Luci Hammans & Sipho Eric Dube (Unhindered Reign), Spoz, Carl Sealeaf, Emma Purshouse, Callum & Melissa Bate (Prime Poetry)

WLF – SpeakEasy with SPOZ & Brenda-Read Brown

I am so happy with the programme for WLF this year, they made the right decision to have a small selection of brilliant events and not to overcrowd or overstretch the team (as far as committees go, they are small), no-one yet seems too exhausted and so the energy and buzz surrounding each event is electrifying – and that’s before you settle down to watch and listen to the abundant talent this County offers.

It was a real treat to have SPOZ MC the event, especially as it clashed with HTO – HIT THE ODE, Birmingham, it was also lovely to see Maggie Doyle have a well deserved night off and enjoy the entertainment, of course Maggie still had an important role to play, as Heather Wastie – Worcestershire Poet Laureate 2015-2016 officially received her engraved PL trophy.

Heather Wastie presented with her poet laureate trophy at Worcester Speakeasy by Maggie Doyle. WLF Team © 2015

The venue was packed and the list of open mic-ers extended for the LITFEST. The booked performers included;

Leena Bachelor (who is loving the Lit Fest and reminds me of myself last year, when I was taking part for the first time too. A certain familiar Cheshire Cat grin).

Mogs (who was booked as King Mogs after winning the Rubber Sword Play Award on Tuesday evening at WLF).

Kathy Gee (who delighted us all with her character set and a requested performance of her crotch watching poem).

Alan Durham (who moved me with his prayer poem at the end of the set and was a delight to watch as always – another voice I could listen to forever).

Heather Wastie – of course, invited in her official role as WPL (who treated us to some of her new work, including a new commission).

Amanda Bonnick (whose poetry I ADORE, it is always a pleasure to listen to her and now has to write a new poem after her ‘Door introduction’ I think).

Mike Alma (who treated us to snippets from chapters of a much longer work which I think was never finished, it was different to hear his words chopped up this way – I enjoyed letting the sentences seep over me. As his set was 6 minutes he couldn’t treat us to chapter and verse).

Neil Laurenson (who entertained us with his usual dry humour, short poems with a punch-line delivered in a confident, straight manner).

And myself, I changed my set at the last minute – only 1 poem remained from the 3 I had prepared. Andrew Owens greeted me with a gift, he and his wife were shopping for a family camping trip, when he came across a polar cup that made him think of me…

There is a ‘Moustache Poem with Fact Bombs’ that I perform, originally part of the set Tim Scarborough and I presented at Mouth & Music for the ‘Body Hair’ theme. It is far more fun to perform it with Tim and use the fake moustaches etc. but as I researched and wrote it I have been known to perform it solo.

Anyway – I hadn’t performed it for about 4 months, but found I had it on my phone so as a thank you I performed it and then embarrassingly remembered I performed it last year for the WLF SPeakEasy special (back when I still had print outs of all the moustaches)!

I thoroughly enjoyed the evening and all the open mic-ers were fabulous as well, people keep telling me my performance is getting stronger – I think that goes for everyone in Worcester! (Something in the water?!)

The full list of performers (including open mic)

Leena Bachelor 
Mogs
Bronwyn 
Kathy Gee
Alan Durham
Kevin Brooke
Heather Wastie
Amanda Bonnick
Tim Stavert
Mike Alma
Polly Robinson
Neil Laurenson
Nina Lewis
Damon Lord
Headlined by Brenda Read-Brown

Then the headline – Brenda Read-Brown, was delightful – a perfect mix of humour and touching sensitive poetry. I have always loved watching her perform since the 1st time I came across her in Birmingham (Literature Festival) October 2013, at the beginning of my Poetry Odyssey.

A smashing night. Spoz made up unique rhymes for all the open mic slots to introduce them and filled Fergus McGonigal’s MC shoes right up, creating extra energy in an event which was already ‘on fire’!

Photo Credit WLF Team © 2015

Postcard Poets – Birmingham Literature Festival

Postcard Poets: Home-made, Home-grown

Twenty poets were commissioned to write poems on the theme Home-made, home-grown. Six have been chosen to appear on specially-designed postcards, with thousands of copies in libraries throughout the West Midlands.

This year’s chosen poets, Fergus McGonigal, Roz Goddard, Emma Purshouse, Spoz (Giovanni Esposito), Jane Seabourne and Brenda Read-Brown will be appearing at the launch of the Poetry on Loan postcards – and they’ll all be performing their work for you.

© Birmingham Literature Festival 2013

Having absorbed the Benjamin Zephaniah screening and filled myself with some food, I returned to the Library of Birmingham for Postcard Poets event. Sadly I took no pictures, it was a small room and other audience members were being well behaved!

I was also enjoying the performances too much to peel my eyes from the stage, it was a great night, exceptionally entertaining!

Postcard Poets was a great event. 20 Poets were commissioned to write poems around the theme of homemade and home-grown. 6 of these poets had come to perform a selection of poetry and their postcard poems. The postcards are free and available at all public libraries in the region.

I really enjoyed this event and wished I wasn’t as tired as I was, I could barely stay awake and by the time I was home I was too tired to even talk!

The performing poets were;

Fergus McGonigal, Roz Goddard, Emma Purshouse, Spoz (Giovanni Esposito), Jane Seabourne and Brenda Read-Brown

Some of whom I’ve met. Roz was on the picture writing course I took earlier in the summer, Fergus popped into the Sarah James book launch and has also been chosen as the MC for an open night event (that I will also write about) that I attended last week, WLF’s SpeakEasy.

Spoz is regionally very famous, he lost his job (with many others) when the Rover car plant shut down (a major employer for generations in the region) he used his redundancy money to relaunch himself as a poet – a great slam poet who now works with lots of community based projects and has celebrated lots of success. I have seen tickets for his shows, but never managed to catch him. I was impressed by his energy.

I loved discovering all the other performance poets.

It was a fabulous evening and one of the best factors of this Literature Festival, is that many events were free, including this one – and it really was superb.