Month: September 2013

Faber Social: Sam Riviere, Joe Dunthorne, Luke Wright, Ruth Padel

It was a arts-studenty sort of scene last night at the Faber Social in London: a narrow basement room, concrete floor, a sweaty mix of music and conversation growing in volume, a parade of pretty, thin girls in dresses with cinched waists, ponytails and fifties make-up and fresh-looking lads with pale skins and serious glasses. 80% of the audience was probably under 26, judging by the slightly nonplussed reaction to poems about fatherhood and childcare by someone who looked like a student himself (Luke Wright). Meanwhile Ruth Padel held court on a table with various bright young things. Fascinating to watch the milling and mixing.

Luke Wright is very funny. As well as compering, he performed the last set and pulled the audience along with the sheer pace and energy of his poems – ‘The Drunk Train’ on its slow stagger back to Essex on a Saturday night, Wright’s imagined showdown with a sadistic French cop ‘Jean Claude Gendarme’ – fantastic.

Before Luke we’d had a set from Ruth Padel, who seemed slightly out of place in this company but the audience was quiet and respectful (a sure sign this was a serious poetry event, I guess). She read from a new work ‘The Mara Crossing’. I confess I struggled to engage with all the poems – they were quite long and dealt with big issues of migration, human rights and the environment, and Padel’s voice is warm but slight.

The performer whose name had attracted me to the event was Sam Riviere, whose 81 Austerities I love, or rather I should say I found compelling, even though some of the poems were actually repellant.  Interestingly enough, his ‘double act’ last night with Joe Dunthorne was based on the theme ‘Battle’ and was concocted around the idea of two people meeting to collaborate on a poetic work, hating each other but at the same time not being able to let go.

The whole thing was brilliant. I took some video snippets but the visuals were just backs of heads, so here’s a 30 second audio extract of Joe Dunthorne reading, an imagined scene which refers to the fact that Sam Riviere’s poems have no punctuation or capitalisation…

Audio poem (an experiment)

I was inspired by Mark Hewitt’s performance of ‘expiry tbc‘ the other evening here in Lewes. It was actually a 3-person production featuring Peter Copley on live (and looped) cello, and wonderful lighting effects by Kristina Hjelm. I’d had the privilege of being in Mark’s workshopping group led by Mimi Khalvati earlier in the year, and he had brought along various versions of the text. But although some of the words were familiar, it was amazing how exciting and moving the whole package became with the addition of sound, light and staging. I’ve often fallen into the trap of thinking that performance poetry is mostly about shouting, rhyming and making the audience laugh. But this was something else entirely.

So I went back to my ‘3 voice canon’ poem – the one I sent to Magma for their theme ‘The music of words’ (still open for admissions, by the way) but was rejected, because they said they couldn’t see the connection between the stanzas, and I recorded it the way I envisage it being read. I used a bit of software called Audacity, in which it’s easy to record one track and layer copies of it over the top in a stagger. I was having so much fun I gave it four tracks in the end. So maybe I should re-title it ‘4-voice canon’?

I did it on one take, so I’m sure I could improve on it, although I don’t want to start putting on silly voices or making it over dramatic. Let me know what you think – thanks.

Out and about the next few weeks . . .

There seems to be plenty happening at the moment, so here’s a quick round-up of some things I’m going to / involved with …

Improve your social web presence - for writers

Firstly, please bear with me if I give a quick plug to my short course at New Writing South which starts tomorrow week, 26th September, 6.30 – 9pm for three weeks, on ‘Improving your social web presence’. It’s basically for any writer who has made small inroads into social media but may be struggling a bit – with finding the time, wondering what to blog or tweet about, not sure how to find writer communities online, struggling with the etiquette or thinking about a Facebook Page, that sort of thing. Lots of practical examples and exercises designed to help writers be inspired, develop useful contacts and find the joy in social media. It’s £80 for the 3 sessions and 10% discount for NWS members. I think there are only 2 places left but I’ll no doubt be running it again in the Spring.

Faber social

Next Tuesday 24th I’m excited to be going to a Faber Social to hear Sam Riviere, Ruth Padel and others plus music. Yay!

Coming up very soon is my trip to Ty Newydd Writers’ Centre for a residential week with Carol Ann Duffy and Gillian Clarke. I have a feeling it’s going to be pretty epic and I’m so looking forward to it. Not sure what the broadband is like there, so I may be off the grid for a week and blogging about it when I get back.

Next month I’m planning to get to the Troubadour evening on October 21st to hear an array of lovely poets – it’ll be my first trip to the Troubadour, so am looking forward to that. Details of all the autumn Troubadour readings are here. The next day at Keat’s House in Hampstead, the idea of hearing poetry heavyweights Don Share and Maurice Riordan debate Ezra Pound’s ‘Don’ts’ is just too tempting. Tickets for that event are available from the Poetry Society.

Later that week a bit closer to home is Needlewriters, a quarterly event in Lewes. The October 24th event features our very own John Agard and Grace Nichols, so it’s bound to be a sell-out. I’m delighted to have been invited to join the organising committee of Needlewriters. It’s not really a committee as such – with minutes, officers and regulations – thankfully.  (What is it about the word committee? We need a new word which encompasses the idea of a group of organisers working for a common cause, but without the connotations of officiousness, jobsworthyness and petty politics. Or maybe that’s just my take on it?)

Let me know if you going to any of the above, and let’s say hello.

TFL poets

PS completely off-topic but I noticed on the Popshot blog that Transport for London are seeking a number of poets-in-residence to work out of tube stations during the week of National Poetry Day – if you’re in London it sounds like a lot of fun – details here (PDF).

A day at the (Poetry Book) Fair

poetry book fair 2013

Having answered a call for volunteers on Facebook, I found myself yesterday at Conway Hall in London, donning a blue badge and helping out at the Free Verse: Poetry Book Fair.

Organised by Chrissy Williams and CB Editions, with a lot of help also from Joey Connolly, the Fair is in its third year and apparently bigger than ever. I wasn’t sure what to expect but it was quite a crush – and with something like 700 visitors through the door and 50 or so publishers present, I felt nervously close to the epicentre of the poetry world.

When it comes to events I quite enjoy having a job to do, because otherwise I tend to turn up, wander around, not dare to talk to anyone and leave with a sensation that everyone else knows each other and I don’t know anyone. Actually I still felt like I didn’t know anyone, even though I blatantly did – the ever-friendly Mike from the Poetry Society plus several poet friends including Hilda Sheehan, Marion Tracy and Harry Man. I had very nice chats with many of the publishers and by the end of the day had minded shop for Amy from Seren Books and Sophie from Inpress. I even sold a book for Inpress (thanks, Marion!) I introduced myself to Nell Nelson from HappenStance and discovered a poetry press in my own home town that I’d never heard of. Who’d have thunk it?

I nearly bought quite a lot of stuff but in the end restrained myself. On the Templar table I fell for Matt Bryden’s Night Porter, which has got me thinking seriously about how I might group up some of my poems around a distinct theme and enter them for the Iota Shots pamphlet comp.

Then I spent £3 on a set of 4 microbooks from Hazard Press, witty confections and utterly not what I ought to have been buying, but I couldn’t resist.

On the Roncadora Press table, artist Hugh Bryden told me about the processes involved in producing their beautiful publications, all hand-made. I was so, so tempted by Nest – the photo on their site does not do it justice, the whole thing is a wonderful work of art, and they were selling it for just £6. Blimey, that can hardly have paid for the paper.

Astrid Alben

After the publishers had packed up and left, everyone moved over to the pub for an evening of free readings. Although I didn’t stay for them all, I did catch an enjoyable short set from Astrid Alben, reading from her Arc collection Ai! Ai! Pianissimo (memorable or what?) and later on, with a whole army of young male fans in tow, Chris McCabe who read in tandem with Jeremy Reed from their Nine Arches Press publication Whitehall Jackals. Read his blog post about the making of it here. Sorry about the rather grainy pics by the way.

chris mccabe

Chris was the highlight of the evening for me. I loved his poetry and both he and Astrid were readers with real presence – something that’s hard to define and probably impossible to teach, but you kind of know it when you see it. All in all an enjoyable and inspirational day.

BlueGate Poets Anthology

Hilda Sheehan
Hilda Sheehan at the Swindon Festival of Literature

 

Swindon is a hotbed of poetry! I actually live 130 miles from there, but this year I’ve been drawn into its orbit and am very pleased to be a member of BlueGate Poets. Founded in 2008 by the extraordinary and indefatigable writer and arts event organiser Hilda Sheehan, BlueGate Poets hosts events, readings, workshops and open mics, and its membership has grown to fifty or so, from aspiring writers to published and award-winning.

It’s lovely to have a couple of my poems in BlueGate Poets latest online anthology  (check out also a previous anthology, Separate Ways, poems written on the Swindon Art Collection – some lovely gems there.)

Hilda’s first poetry collection The Night My Sister Went to Hollywood was published recently by Cultured Llama and she’ll be reading from it at the  Free Verse: Poetry Book Fair in London this weekend. I’ll be there making tea or something, so hoping to catch with Hilda and other poet friends – let me know if you’re going too!

Seamus Heaney. Just my 2p-worth

What a very sad loss. I think I’d be useless as an obituary writer, as anything I’ve tried writing about the death of Seamus Heaney just sounds crass or obvious. I don’t have anything new to add to what’s been said across the blogosphere, but I enjoyed listening to this short piece on Radio 4 ‘Last Word’, flagged up on Facebook by Josephine Corcoran (thank you).

I thought I would just read here one of my favourite of his poems, ‘Postscript’, from The Spirit Level (Faber, 1996).