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!

Poeting, Training & Performing – September

I am currently working against end of month deadlines for a few projects as well as working the proper job to make up for lack of summer funds. I am really too busy to be blogging and in three days time will be reviewing September anyway… but I also believe my poeting needs a mention, after all that is why this blog was created and some of you are following the journey.

 

Business Meetings, Plans & Poetry On Loan Training

This month I have taken on board training – which is something I haven’t done for a while. I had a great business meeting, which was a spin off from the laureateship competition exposure and this guided me through the end of year ideals well. Including some possible job applications, which have now been openly shared across social media increasing my known competition, which is terrifying but hasn’t put me off going for it anyway. This meeting helped me come home and set some clear goals for myself rather than just wavering between writing the manuscript, performing poems and getting involved in projects (like Caldmore Gardens with David Calcutt’s residency, NPD with Heather Wastie, organising the next INKSPILL – AWF’s very own FREE online writing retreat, supporting and promoting Arts All Over the Place Festival in support of Mental Health).

I did ‘Poetry on Loan’ training with Brenda Read-Brown and Jon Seagrave (Jonny Fluffypunk). It was a great session with librarians and poets sharing experiences and evaluating from our roles. I hope one day soon I will be able to provide the service of Poet on Loan. Ready now. Sadly I missed this year’s competition, remembering the deadline as the end of the month rather than the beginning!

 

Rehearsals

I have been rehearsing for Caldmore Carnival (26th)

Janet Jenkins © 2015

and NPD Light & Shade (on National Poetry Day – 8th October). Caldmore was brilliant, a group from the Calcutt/Caldmore workshops sent poems which David then edited into a   CHORAL poem to be performed by Andy Summers, Jimm Rennie, Janet Jenkins and myself, unfortunately after making the rehearsal Jimmie wasn’t well enough to perform this past Saturday and David took his place.

LIGHT and shade 

Suz Winspear and I met with Heather Wastie for our first ‘Light and Shade’ rehearsal and ideas flowed extremely well. The whole spectacle is now blocked and there will just need to be a few run throughs before the night. We have sorted costume and now all we have to do is get to know the final performance draft of our poems, practise and enjoy! It is a great collaboration to be part of.

 

Caldmore Carnival – Choral Poetry Performance

It was a pleasure to see the garden  being used in full summer (September) glory and I am glad we performed before they had all the talented dance and music groups on, the talent of local young people.

Carnival Photography Nina Lewis © 2015

We had a great weather day too!

 

Swingerella – Wrecking Ball Tour – Birmingham

I really feel this show deserves a blog post of its own. I may have to do a feature of some sort as Andrea Smith/Shorrick is taking the world by storm as Swingerella and her show was amazingly powerful with messages that need to be exposed. I booked my tickets to see her show at the Mockingbird Theatre, Custard Factory, pre-Edinburgh – Swing did the fringe and went down a storm there and then came back to perform a swansong on home soil.

When I have some more time next month, I will blog about her fabulous journey and the show, which has reached the end of its run. She may even give us a sneak preview of her next venture.

Jimmy Riddle © 2015

 

Poetry Bites with Jacqui Rowe, Featuring Liz Berry & Jane Commane

It was a pleasure to be at this event, not only to watch the headliners Liz Berry and Jane Commane but also for so many reasons.

It has been ages since I have been able to get to Poetry Bites, there were so many poets I hadn’t seen for a while who also managed to attend and it was great catching up. I got to sit and chat with Jonathan Davidson and Jane Commane AND some poetry friends from elsewhere came to check it out and perform. I think I may have converted several new fans.

It was fantastic to hear Jane Commane’s poetry. She is a well established editor (Nine Arches Press) and so often my involvement with Jane (since 2013) has been when she is wearing her editing shoes. To hear her poetry was a delight.

Liz Berry, well like John Hegley, she is back in my world again, so soon. The upside of this is I remembered to take my book to be signed and as it hasn’t been that long since her KAF appearance, she remembered our conversation about the book.

Poetry Bites is un-mic-ed (without a mic) and Liz is softly spoken. It was a magical combination listening really hard and hanging onto the edge of the last sounds in words.

https://awritersfountain.wordpress.com/2015/09/23/kaf-liz-berry-and-blair-dunlop-13th-august/

 

In Other Poeting News

I was asked to guest poet next month at an event in Cheltenham and started working on some new submissions.

Last month I was booked for the next AAOTP Arts All Over the Place Fundraiser and spent a morning writing poetry about Alice in Wonderland and Lewis Carroll. Due to unforeseen circumstances I wasn’t able to attend this event until it was nearly over, I did manage to perform and the poems went down well and are also be suitable for the Festival display.

I booked tickets for Swindon Poetry Festival and am delighted to be one of ten readers at;

Lunch with a celebration of ’52’ group and Anthology Fri 12:30 – 2 2/10/15 – Lower Shaw Farm: Come along and enjoy lunch at Lower Shaw Farm, after which we will have readings from the 52 group brought together last year by Jo Bell. This will be a celebration of this wonderful project. There will be readings from the book and from 52ers present.

Lunch with a celebration of ’52’ group and Anthology is happening this Friday 2nd October. So I am now rehearsing National Poetry Day Poetry, a headline set and poetry for 52, hard because we will be reading poems on behalf

Hilary Robinson © 2015 52 Flash Bomb Poetry outside Shakespeare’s Birthplace 2014

of people who cannot be there and we all read poetry differently. Fortunately I have just found communication about organising the reading of other people’s poetry. Some of my original selection have already been chosen. We are reading one poem each from the anthology

and one of our own from the 52 Project. I can’t wait – particularly excited as I missed the Stratford meet earlier this summer.

42

Quite unbelievably it is the 50th 42 event this week – looking forward to a celebration and performance this Wednesday. Writing poetry for it over the next 48 hours, poetry that I am hoping will also work for a submission this month.

I have lots of great things to look forward to next month and then I think I will rest back a bit more and see the end of the year off behind a desk (that, I would like to believe… we will see)!

 

 

An Afternoon of Poetry and Waffles

   

Poetry for Lunch today was great and the sun shone – that’s the first time that has ever happened!

‘Wonderful poetry and wonderful poetry this Thursday. Thank you to Swingerella, James Langton, Nina Lewis, Inez MacDonald, Al Barz, Natalie Burdett, Christian Makuta, Maria Isabel and of course a big thank you to Loss the techie.’ – Jan Watts

Next week Worcester Stanza Group (which I am in) is taking over PFL for the whole lunch time! Claire Walker has organised it and I can’t wait. Have even taken the day off work.

A few of us went out afterwards to eat at Something Sweet – an amazing Waffle house on the other side of the city!

    

Since getting home over 6hours later, Mr G has been very productive in the garden, planting asparagus and then we both spent a while up at the allotment, cutting down long grass, weeding and planting potatoes. I will definitely need a lie in tomorrow!

 

Out again tomorrow night for Word Up at York’s Bakery, I was reciting my lines on the way home trying to learn some of my set. Look out for posts about that tomorrow.

Hit The Ode (20/3/14)

 Hit the Ode – was a superb night, as always. We were treated to a night of BSL – British Sign Language and it added something special to everyone’s performances.

The women who did the spontaneous signing were incredible.

I went to support Andrea Shorrick or Swingerella as she has become known. Her set was a real treat – very rude and almost at the end of the end of the night, she was the final open mic slot with a very special Sat Nav!

The rest I leave to the words of Bohdan Piasecki, as he says it best;

Hit the Ode brings the most exciting poets from the region, the country and the world to the heart of Birmingham.

Featuring From Wolverhampton Martin Glynn has gained a national and international reputation for his commissioned work in theatre, radio drama, live performance and poetry, as well as pursuing an active career as a screenplay writer. Martin has worked with Education and Arts establishments in North America, The Caribbean, Europe, and extensively in the UK, developing literature initiatives, producing and directing performances. His most recent poetry collections include Ancestral Whispers (Triangle Press – 1993) and Griot Excursion (Shomari Productions – 1995), and poems published in anthologies including Unzip your lips (Macmillan – 1998) and Dear Future (Macmillan – 1999).

 

From Bristol Donna Williams is a British Sign Language poet based near Bristol, keen on exploring the interplay between spoken / BSL poetry in search of a ‘perfect balance’ where sign language poems are understood and enjoyed by all, irrespective of previous knowledge of sign language. Her ambition is to create beautiful poetry that everyone can access. Donna is a contributing editor for the Limping Chicken, a successful deaf webzine; she has written short plays for Deafinitely Theatre; and her poetry has appeared in anthologies, notably ‘When The Dead Are Cured’ for Deaf Lit Extravaganza, edited by John Lee Clark.

 

From Scotland Rachel McCrum is an award winning poet and performer who has been living and performing in Edinburgh since 2010. She is a poet, performer and promoter of spoken word, a member of Inky Fingers collective and one half of the Rally & Broad literary cabaret. She was a finalist in the 2012 BBC Edinburgh Festival Slam and winner of the International Woman’s Day Slam. In the past year, she has shared stages with Liz Lochead, Phil Jupitus, Carol Ann Duffy, Josie Long and Caroline Bird. Her first pamphlet ‘The Glassblower Dances’ won the 2013 Callum MacDonald Award from the National Library of Scotland. She has recently spent two weeks as the Michael Marks Poet in Residence at the Harvard Centre for Hellenic Studies in Greece.

 

© 2014 Hit the Ode

 

The open mic slots were all incredible and I thoroughly enjoyed the headliners. It was amazing to watch Donna Williams perform both spoken word with BSL and BSL poems that her interpreter spoke, very moving performance. Captivating.

Martin Glynn was thought provoking – I loved his jazz poems and his Mature Cheddar Cheese poem! He has been off the circuit for a while and we made him feel right at home!

Good to see him back – I was a baby the first time and missed his career completely!

 

 © 2014 Hit the Ode

 

 © 2014 Hit the Ode

Rachel McCrum – I love her surname was a real treat! And she managed to follow Swingerella! I bought her poetry pamphlet ‘The Glassblower Dances’ with the last of my money and she was sweet enough to check I had enough money to get home!

A great set.