York’s Bakery | awritersfountain

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 Vlad Chris Chris

Jasmine Tessa

Swingerella

Glyn Supercilious Ms T

and Vlad himself!

I have had an amazing night – now on the post performance adrenalin mixed with sugar rush of waffles from ‘Something Sweet’!

It was an amazing night at Word Up, Ddotti had managed to get a PA system and the mic can really help over the noise of the coffee house/bakery busy times!

Ian Bowkett was brilliant and I loved watching him perform again and have come home with some of his poems to enjoy as soon as I have downloaded them.

All the other performances were a really high standard too and lots of new faces. I managed for the 1st time EVER, to perform a poem from memory and I managed it with a confident performance too!

I was delighted to see Kate Walton (Story Tramp) again, before she goes off to do all the summer festivals, it was a shame she couldn’t perform but the slots were so full, we were bursting at the seams!

After a great few hours it was over, it finishes 9.30 as York’s Bakery shuts, as with last time I made it (back in February I think) a group of us, most of us who performed and some who watch went to the other side of the city to Something Sweet to eat waffles, crepes and sundaes at the 24hour waffle place! It was great fun, despite having to split over 2 tables as there wasn’t a big enough table for us all.

It is a great time to chat – as I have said before, the gigs are great but there is never time to socialise in the interval with everyone and if people all leave at the end of the night there will definitely be a handful of people (at least) who you wanted to speak to and never had the chance.