September Poems

Posted on October 13, 2012 by garylongden

I had not thought that the Olympics would inspire a poem. However in the Sunday Times Supplement I read a feature article by Giles Coren reflecting on the Games. Although a prose piece, it explored the Shakespearean dimension of the event, its ability to transcend time and place. So I extracted the key themes, developed them, and used his vision as an inspiration for the following poem:

From Stratford to Stratford

As I watched, I wondered how it would be?
Not whether we would get the £9 billion back,
Or whether the legacy
Would turn out to be
Anything more than a rusty
Helter skelter
But how we would be ?

The empty stadium flickered with the light
Of heroic montage
Echoed to familiar voices wishing a safe journey home
Lines of volunteers edged along abandoned rows
Scuttling crab like in search of rubbish which had not been dropped

Fencers, gymnasts, runners and riders
Disappeared into unseen alleyways
Holdalls shouldered, their job done
Expressionless in victory and defeat
Now that no-one was watching,
And I thought: “It’s going to be like this.”

Like an empty bed after sex
Like the school playground in the summer holidays
Like a suburban sitting room at midnight after you’ve turned off the telly
Like a car engine silenced after a five hour drive
Like a still warm corpse

An Arcadian fantasyland in Stratford
Where princes and princesses sat down……
On plastic seating, with their subjects,
One of them even took part
“Where we should be merry and devise sports
What think you of falling in love?”

An Eden devoid of politics and sin
Of winning, losing, and taking part
Where everything was clean

Where it even felt a little bland
As Eden might have been bland
But where you learn to love
The imperfections of your own life
And aspire to better

To appreciate the important things in life
Rowing, cycling, and beach volleyball
“Wrestlers who wrested well and overthrew
More than their enemies”

Rainbow colours drenched our screens
Black Mo, Red Greg, Honey Coloured Jess
Yet to the portent obsessed
The fact passed
That Mo just ran fast,
Faster than anyone else

Hijab blur brought an Arab Spring to an English summer
The Chinese swum too well for some
Cold war clichés rolled irksome

Some find tongues in trees
Books in the running brooks’
Sermons in stones
And good in everything
That competing can bring.
A festival of the young and beautiful
Of synchronised perfection
Of lightning Bolt speed
Of energy

Then what once loomed larger
Became smaller before our eyes
Those who gave us the story
Those who gave us opinions
Those who gave us the glory
Were gone

Leaving the stadium a Monday morning husk
“No, no, life!
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat,have life
And thou no breath at all ?”

And some others:

Elastic Bands

They are everywhere
On the dining room table
On the kitchen surfaces
On the bookcases
On the floor

Used to hold the letters and cards tight
As I once held you tight.
Perhaps the postman thought it was a birthday at first?

But birthdays do not last day after day
And the elastic bands continued to fall
And lie discarded, abandoned.

An almost empty glass

Sits on the bedside table
With just a little water left
Unfinished

There is no trace of the lips that once
Kissed
The rim

Only evaporation
Shall drain
Its shallow draught

Baby Shoes

I opened the boot of your car
And found a pair of baby shoes
They would have been at least 23 years old
But they looked brand new

Fragments

Everywhere there are fragments
In pieces
Scattered

And perhaps that is all that there ever is of us?
Fragments
Scattered

Together they fitted, now they do not
Fragments
Scattered

In pieces.

Dead Flowers

I have watered no flowers
For twenty six days
Since the day you died
I am not sure what they were
It is so difficult to tell now
They rest, shrivelled, gasping
In a pretty ,cut glass vase
Lifeless angular skeletal stems
Drained of colour
And life
A few shrivelled leaves lie on the mantlepiece
It reminds me of you
And what I have become

And finally, a wonderful poem from my dear poetic partner, Amy Rainbow:

For Gary – Words

Yet what is there to add that’s not been said?
What words can comfort on your darkest day?
What lines could calm the stormy seas ahead?
Which wisdoms shared would help you find your way?
All words, once loved, today seem small and dim.
Condoling comments, poor and pale and plain,
Can not convey my sorrow, can’t begin
To tell you of my grieving at your pain.

But know that what they’re saying is I care,
That friends are friends in bad times, not just good,
That if you need a shoulder I’ll be there
To lend support, just like I know you would.

And though my words can never be enough
Please take them all as tokens of my love.

Posted in Poems | 3 Comments

October 2012- What’s On, Midlands Spoken Word

Posted on October 11, 2012 by garylongden

Wellington Literary Festival 29th Sept- 20th October

http://www.wellington-shropshire.gov.uk/literary-festival/

Sat 30th Sept – 7th Oct Lichfield Literary Festival

Thurs 4th -13th Oct Birmingham Book Festival

http://www.birminghambookfestival.org/

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Mon 1st The Poetry Train , Slade Rooms,Broad St Wolverhampton, Open mic, £3 in details from ts@tonystringfellow.com

Mon 1st SlamGorilla Poetry – Poetry Evolution, Dada bar, Trippet Lane, Sheffield, S1 4El, (Off West St) 8pm (7.30 doors)

Mon 1st The SW@N Club – Spoken Word at the Newhampton, Wolverhampton,Meets every 1st Monday of the month at 8 pm – 10.30 pm. Admission – suggested donation on entry.Peter Chand hosts

Tues 2nd Dave Reeves opens Listen ‘Ere, a new monthly night of spoken word and music, with Julie Boden and Campbell Perry at Warwick Space, Coton End Centre, Warwick. Part of Warwick Words festival. 8.00-10.00pm £5.00

Tues 2nd Mee Club, Kitchen garden cafe , Kings Heath,7.30pm: £7 in, a variety and cabaret night Cat Weatherill hosts

Tues 2ndNight Blue Fruit, Taylor Johns, Canal Basin Coventry,8pm start, free in, Tony Owen hosts-ope mic sign up on the night.With Mathew Stewart

Tues 2nd Word ,Y Theatre, East Street, Leicester LE1 6EY, just opposite Leicester Train Station7pm performers, 8pm, Audience, Open mic plus headliner. £6in
WORD! is the longest running poetry and spoken word night in Leicester. Based at The Y Theatre, Leicester, it takes place on the first Tuesday of every month, between 8.00 and 10.30pm. The evening is composed of an open mic, followed by a booked act-

Tues 2nd Poetry Alight, Emma Purshouse,Paul McDonald, Deborah Tyler Bennet and Roy Marshall headline as part of the Lichfield Literary Festival at the Spark Café Bar, 19 Tamworth Street, Lichfield WA13 6JP. 7.30pm prompt start -10pm Free Entry

Thurs 4th Good Impressions Spoken word, Cafe Impression, Atkins Building Hinckley, LE10 1QU,7.30pm £5in Hosted by Tom Phillips,ist Thursday Monthly

Thurs 4th Yard of Tales,Joules Yard, rear of 53-55 High Street, Market Harborough, Leicestershire, LE16 7AF.
Joules Yard is a unique venue with a licensed bar after 7pm, also serving tea and coffee. If you would like to order a vegetarian meal for the evening, provided by ‘The Green House’ please telephone 01858 463250. Market Harborough, Leicestershire, Meets first Thursday in the month.

Thurs 4th Parole Parlate, Autumn Special, Little Venice, St Nicholas st , Worcester, 730 pm, £3 in:

Thur 4TH NATIONAL POETRY DAY, Matt Black at Ripley Library from 3.00pm till 4.00pm, and then at Belper Library from 7.00 – 8.45. Both are FREE events, but please book tickets from Ripley Library Tel: 01773 743321, or from Belper Library Tel: 01773 824333.

Thursday 4th Word Birthday Special with Kwame Dawes,Central Lending Library, Bishop Street, Leicester 8pm:

Join us at Leicester Central Library for this ‘Lyric Lounge’ and ‘Everybody’s Reading’ special -marking National Poetry Day, Black History Season, , World Mental Health Month -and Word!s 11th Birthday !

£6/£4 concessions

It will feature the Emmy Award winning Kwame Dawes. Born in Ghana and raised in Jamaica, Kwame will share work from his rich body of writing, including his latest poetry collection, ‘Wheels’, and his edited anthology of 50 great Jamaican poets, ‘Jubilation’.

Prior to his performance Kwame will lead a special WORD!Shop, at Leicester Central Library.2-4pm.£3/£2 . To book please email lydia@wordpoetry.co.uk

Performers should arrive at 7.15 to sign up

Word! is brought to you by a committee of volunteers and visuals are by film-maker, Keith Allott.

Thursday 4 Poetry Brunch with Birmingham Poet Laureate 2011/2012 Jan Watts,Festival Bookshop, Central Library, Chamberlain Square, Birmingham, B3 3HQ,11am-1pm

Meet the poets who have been shortlisted to take over as Birmingham’s Poet Laureate 2012/2013. With coffee and croissants!

Admission is free, just drop in.

Thurs 4th Double Takes, Ludlow Library,2.30pm free,
A programme of readings in celebration of National Poetry Day

Gareth Owen and Liz Lefroy

Gareth Owen was born in Ainsdale, Lancashire and left school at 16 to serve in the Merchant Navy. For four years he taught in a London Secondary Modern School, before becoming a lecturer in English and Drama at Bordesley College of Education, Birmingham.

He began writing his poems for children while a teacher and his first published collection, ‘Salford Road’ won high praise from fellow poet Patric Dickinson:
‘…original,beautiful, serious, funny, real and imaginative. Nothing quite like it has been done before.’
His second, ‘Song of the City’ won the Signal award.
Over the years he has published four further volumes of poetry, the last a collection of football poems: ‘Can We Have Our Ball Back Please?’ (Macmillan in 2006).
His work has been published in over a 100 anthologies.
In addition to the poetry, he has published four novels, as well as books for younger children.
An accomplished verse reader, he has won both the Welsh Academy Spoken Poetry Award and the National Speak a Poem Award. For two years he presented the BBC’s long-running Poetry Please!

Four of his plays have been produced by the BBC, in one of which, ‘The Game’, he played the lead.

In 1993 he was prize winner of the Leeds Playhouse/W.H.Smith Play-Writing Competition. The play became the novel: ‘Rosie No Name and the Forest of Forgetting’

He lives in Ludlow, Shropshire where he writes and performs the occasional satirical Country song under the stage name of Virg Clenthills.

Liz Lefroy won the inaugural Roy Fisher prize in 2011 and has published two pamphlets – ‘Pretending the Weather’ and ‘The Gathering’, both by Long Face Press. Her work has appeared in Mslexia, Magma, The Frogmore Papers, Shoestring, and on The Writers’ Hub and Psychogeographic Review. She lives in Shrewsbury and runs the monthly Shrewsbury Coffeehouse poetry event.

Thurs 4th Birmingham Poet Laureate launch with Elvis McGonigal and Deborah Alma, aka, The Emergency Poet ,Yumm Café, Zellig (The Custard Factory), Gibb Street, Digbeth, Birmingham, B9 4AA:6 – 8pm

Free, please book to avoid disappointment

Birmingham Book Festival, Birmingham Poet Laureate 2012/13 & National Poetry Day

Special Guest: Elvis McGonagall – One Man & his doggerel!

Join us as we launch the fourteenth Birmingham Book Festival, celebrate National Poetry Day and announce the new Birmingham Poet Laureate 2012/13.

Writing West Midlands’ Programmes Director, Sara Beadle, will say a few words to introduce the Festival and some of the wonderful events to come over the next ten days. Festival staff and volunteers will also be on hand to tell you more and to answer any questions.

The annual Birmingham Poet Laureate programme is run by Birmingham Libraries. Each year a new Laureate is appointed to encourage local people to get involved in poetry. This year’s contenders have been through a rigorous selection process and we wait with anticipation the announcement of the winning poet. To lighten the tension, the out-going Birmingham Poet Laureate, Jan Watts, will be hand to perform alongside the new Laureate, handing over the honorary title with some choice wit and wisdom.

And to round off our evening’s celebration who better than Elvis McGonagall, stand-up poet, armchair revolutionary and recumbent rocker! Elvis, we are told, is the sole resident of The Graceland Caravan Park somewhere near Dundee, where he scribbles verse whilst drinking malt whisky and listening to Johnny Cash. He is also a former World Slam Champion, compere of the notorious Blue Suede Sporran Club and is one of the poets occasionally in residence on BBC Radio 4’s “Saturday Live”. Oh, and he is very, very funny!

The Emergency Poet – The World’s First & Only Mobile Poetic First Aid Service

‘Between the Fountains and the Green Man’, The Custard Factory, Gibb Street, Digbeth, Birmingham, B9 4AA

1 – 6pm. Free, drop in!

As a service to the City of Birmingham, we present the Emergency Poet – a vintage 1960s ambulance in which ‘Dr’ Deborah Alma can minister to the poetic needs of all and sundry. No appointment necessary, simply drop by if you’d like the ‘Dr’ to offer an up-lifting couplet or a life-enhancing stanza or two. Free at the point of demand and unaffected by NHS reforms, let our highly trained medic use the latest diagnostic techniques to prescribe just the write (ha, ha!) poem. Why feel worse? Take Verse!

Fri 5th Malvern Slam at the Cube, Malvern, Attila the Stockbroker headlines with a host of Malverns finest and beyond competing for the coveted title of Malvern Slam Champion currently held by the fragrant Amy Rainbow.

Friday 5th Somon Armitage, walking Home,Adrian Boult Hall, Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, Birmingham B3 3HG, 7.30pm,
£10 / £6

In summer 2010 poet and writer Simon Armitage decided to walk the Pennine Way. The challenging 256-mile route is usually approached from south to north, from Edale in the Peak District to Kirk Yetholm, the other side of the Scottish border. He resolved to tackle it the other way round: through beautiful and bleak terrain, across lonely fells and into the howling wind, he would be walking home, towards the Yorkshire village where he was born.

Travelling as a ‘modern troubadour’ without a penny in his pocket, he stopped along the way to give poetry readings in village halls, churches, pubs and living rooms. His audiences varied from the passionate to the indifferent, and his readings were accompanied by the clacking of pool balls, the drumming of rain and the bleating of sheep.

Walking Home is the story of that journey, about facing emotional and physical challenges, and sometimes overcoming them. It’s nature writing, but with people at its heart. Contemplative, moving and droll, it is a unique narrative from one of our most beloved writers. Join him at the Birmingham Book Festival to explore this extraordinary journey.

Simon Armitage was born in 1963 and lives in West Yorkshire. He has published ten volumes of poetry including Selected Poems, 2001 (Faber & Faber). His most recent collections are Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus the Corduroy Kid and Seeing Stars. He has received numerous awards for his poetry including the Sunday Times Author of the Year, one of the first Forward Prizes and a Lannan Award. His most recent book, Seeing Stars, was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize and was a Poetry Book Society Choice.

He writes for radio, television and film, and is the author of four stage plays, including Mister Heracles, a version of the Euripides play The Madness of Heracles. His recent dramatisation of The Odyssey, commissioned by the BBC, was broadcast on Radio 4 in 2004 and is available through BBC Worldwide. He received an Ivor Novello Award for his song-lyrics in the Channel 4 film Feltham Sings, which also won a BAFTA.

<Sat 6th Being Human,The Custard Factory Theatre, The Custard Factory, Gibb Street, Birmingham B9 4AA 8pm,£10 / £6

Charting the drama of our lives, Being Human presents thoughtful and passionate poems that will touch the heart, stir the mind and fire the spirit; poems about being human, about love and loss, fear and longing, hurt and wonder. Being Human is a dramatic performance of poetry drawn from the anthology Being Human (Ed. Neil Astley), published by Bloodaxe Books. Directed by Steve Byrne of Interplay with design and music from Talking Birds, it is performed by Barrett Robertson, Benedict Hastings and Elinor Middleton. After sellout performances in the Midlands in June, Being Human is now on a national tour and this is one of your last chances to see a show that audiences have described as ‘…an amazing theatrical experience’ and ‘absolutely stunning’. We think it is this year’s best poetry experience!

Copies of the anthology, Being Human, will be on sale during this event and at the Festival Pop-up Bookshop.

@BeingHumanPoet

Sun 7th Oct Buzzwords, Exmouth Arms,Bath Road Cheltenham, Gloucestershire GL53 7LX, 7pm Workshop, open mic plus Daniel Sluman

Sun 7th Tell Me on a Sunday, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, 7pm. CatWetaherill and Jane Campion Hoye

Mon 8th Pub Poetry Nottingham The Canal house, 48-52 Canal Street, Nottingham, NG1 7EH,8pm, 2nd monday : Free in, Open micContact Nick on pubpoetry@nottscomedyfestival.co.uk

Mon 8th pure and good and right, Sozzled Sausage, Leamington Spa, CV32 4NX,This month’s special guest poet is the wonderful… Eleanor Brown
Passionate, articulate and graced with a profound simplicity, Eleanor Brown’s words and music embrace life’s joys, sorrows and beauty, weaving folk tales and broken hearts into a broad tapestry that includes barn raising, train journeys and anarchistic farmers. Eleanor’s poems and songs call out to the need in each of us to connect with nature, ourselves and one another.

Tuesday 9th Writers Without Borders, Library Theatre, Paradise Circus, Birmingham, 7.30pm, Free in. Poetry perf.

Tuesday 9 Caitlin Moran, CBSO Centre, Berkley Street, (Off Broad Street) Birmingham, B1 2LF,£10 / £6. 7pm
Caitlin Moran grew up in Wolverhampton. Her feminist handbook for modern times, How To Be A Woman, won the Galaxy Book of the Year Award 2011 and set the record straight on a number of important issues. Her new collection of writing, Moranthology, sets Caitlin free to talk about just about everything else. It proves that she is no slouch when it comes to wrestling with cultural, social and political issues, including ‘The Big Society’, Big Hair, The Welfare State, caravans, Doctor Who, binge-drinking, Downton Abbey, pandas, library closures and poverty (so, something for everyone, then…).

And if this level of top-rank wisdom wasn’t enough, we are delighted to welcome back to the Festival polymath, Birmingham resident and all round good bloke Stuart Maconie, a Patron of Writing West Midlands but more importantly author of brilliant books about our life and times, including Hope and Glory: A People’s History of Modern Britain and Pies & Prejudice.

Together, Caitlin and Stuart will talk about important stuff and manage to be high-minded and frivolous in equal measure. How to be a Woman and Moranthology by Caitlin Moran and Hope and Glory, Adventures on the High Teas, Pies & Prejudice and Cider with Roadies by Stuart Maconie will all be on sale at this event and at the Festival Pop-up Bookshop throughout the Birmingham Book Festival.

Supported by the new Library of Birmingham.

Tuesday 9th ‘City Voices’, City Bar, King Street, Wolverhampton. WV1 1ST 7.45pm Free admission.

Tuesday 9th ‘Mouth and Music’, the Boars Head Gallery, 39 Worcester Street, Kidderminster, DY10 1EW. 8.00pm Tickets £3.00

Tues 9th Spire Writes, Havana Whites,12 Corporation St, Chesterfield. 7.30pm, Open Mic, Helen Mort officiates, Martin Figura and Helen Ivory headline. Come along to Havana Whites bar, more or less opposite Pomegranate Theatre, in Chesterfield, for a night where Spoken Word and page poetry rub shoulders in a very friendly manner. t http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/groups/268421253224932
all set up by the wondrous poet Helen Mort, famously of the greyhounds (or are they whippets, Helen?) by her side.

Tues 9th Jeff Phelps and Emma Purshouse are taking part in the 10th anniversary celebrations for ‘City Voices’ in Wolverhampton. 7.45pm Free

Tues 9th Wordsmiths & Co, Warwick Arts Centre,7.45 The UK’s first live poetry talk show, featuring poets you know from the pages of books and from festival stages. A rare opportunity to witness them sharing stories, poems and opinions as they engage in no-holds-barred conversation right before your widened eyes.
Francesca Beard, Zoe Brigley with support from Phil Brown, Stephen Morrison-Burke and hosted by the wonderful Jo Bell.

Tues 9th Scribal Gathering The Crown Stony Stratford:7.30pm,The Autumn Equinox is behind us and the long dark nights are drawing in. Scribal Gathering is staying in with it’s feet under a blanket and both bars on, as the wintry elements howl around the rickety windows and the chimney pots rattle.

So come together in the spirit of gathering, as we huddle around a nice blazing night of musical performance with a steaming hot bowl of poetry soup. We have special guest performances from headline acts Kezzabelle and Pat the Hat, along with the usual open-minded open mic, welcoming performers of any style, genre or penchant for obscure weirdness to share their creativity, show off their talent, shine before a crowd and preserve the summer berries of music and poetry in a tangy and tantalising open mic jam to see us through the winter months.

Tues 9th Tales at the Edge, White Lion Inn, Bridgnorth, Shropshire,Tales at the Edge is one of the country’s oldest and most established storytelling clubs, meeting in Bridgenorth on the 2nd Tuesday of every month (except August) at 8 pm.

Wed 10 th The Quad Derby QUAD, Market Place, Cathedral Quarter, Derby, DE1 3AS Second Wednesday 19.30 Free in, A monthly night of performed poetry for everyone, new performers always welcome or just come and listen, More details from QUAD or contact Les on T: 01332 206 734, http://www.derbyquad.co.uk

Wed 10 Funny Women (Emma & Win only) at Streetly Library, Walsall, 10.30am. Free.

Weds 10 The Kingdom of the Heart , Guildhall Theatre, Market Place Derby.7.30pm is an evening of storytelling and music based on two rarely heard Czech wondertales. Storyteller Katy Cawkwell, returning to performance storytelling after a few years bringing up her young family, has partnered with a wonderful cellist, Sarah Llewellyn-Jones, to tell a story of keeping hold of the meaning in life, amidst the everyday. Three age-old characters – a hard-working fisherman, a restless young king and the youngest son of twelve, find doorways into a shining golden kingdom where the cares of this world fall away. What happens when they reach through into this other world, what strange sights and challenges await them and will they ever be happy if they go back to their previous lives?
Tickets for Flying Donkeys regulars are specially discounted to the usual price £7 full price, £5 concessions.
However, this offer is only available if you book online BEFORE the day of the show.
To book click this link: http://www.derbylive.co.uk/Public_Event.aspx?ID=1520

Thursday 11th Poetry Night, Shrewsbury Coffee House Cafe, Castle gates, Shrewsbury, 7.30 pm, free in with Ted Eames standing in for Liz Lefroy

Thursday 11th Carol Ann Duffy and Gillian Clarke William Aston Hall ,Wrexham 7.30pm
Carol Ann Duffy was appointed Britain’s Poet Laureate in 2009. She has won many prizes, including the Whitbread Poetry Award, the Forward Poetry Prize, the TS Eliot Prize and the Costa Poetry Award. Her collections include Mean Time, The World’s Wife, Rapture and The Bees and she is editor of Jubilee Lines, 60 Poets for 60 Years: a specially commissioned anthology marking the Queen’s 2012 Diamond Jubilee.
Gillian Clarke has been the National Poet of Wales since 2008. In 2010 she was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. Her Collected Poems was published in 1997 and collections published since have included Five Fields and A Recipe for Water. Ice is due out in October 2012. At the Source, A Writer’s Year, gives a lyrical insight into Gillian’s life as a writer set in the rich landscape of Ceredigion.

Thursday 11 Meet the New birmingham Poet laureate,Mstr Morrison at the Festival Bookshop, Birmingham Central Library Foyer, Chamberlain Square, Birmingham, B3 3HQ5 – 6pm

Thurs 11th Shipping Forecast The Rude Shipyard, 89 Abbeydale Road, S7 1FE Sheffield,7.45pm An open mic night of poetry, prose, music, performance, raffles and fun.
This is a very informal cosy monthly night of joy in the snug environs of the marvellous Rude Shipyard in Sheffield (UK). The night provides a platform for established and first-time performers to play to a warm and appreciative audience.
Always a surprise, always a treat, grab yourselves a cuppa, some tasty homemade cake and join the fun.moi miss piggy or stan skinny host.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/169584853087066/

Fri 12th Wednesbury Art Gallery and Museum, open mic poetry, 7.30pm, free admission

Fri 12thAfrica Rising The Drum, Aston, Birmingham:8pm,£4, Festival pass £20, The Drum & UK Arts International presents,Afrovibes – Africa Rising Poetry Jam ,with Sonia Radebe & Zena Edwards Poets, emcees and dancers!
Pay homage to contemporary Africa and the themes of Black History Month in this one-off Township Café poetry event.
Featuring Zena Edwards and Sonia Radebe with host Sic’Nis.

To take part contact j.morley@the-drum.org.uk

http://www.the-drum.org.uk/event/africa-rising-poetry-jam

Sat 13th Notes From the Underground, Hollybush PH, Newtown lane, Cradley Heath, 8pm Start, Free in, Poetry and music Open Mic with Jack Edwards and William Shatspeare

Saturday 13th , Oxjam Takeover day Café Blend, Unit 4, Orion Building, 90 Navigation Street Birmingham B5 4AA 5.30pm a spoken word and acoustic event featuring Naomi Paul,Full details of the day’s Oxfam fundraising events across lots of city venues are here:@oxjambrum on twitter,

Saturday 13th Smart Poets, Urban Coffee Shop, 30 Church St, Birmingham B3 2NP, 2pm, informal read around, Shaun Rolls officiates

Sat 13th Oct 8th UK All Stars Poetry Slam at the Cheltenham Literature Festival . Twenty poets will contest the Qualifier at 3.30pm, with half a dozen places up for grabs in the Final at 8.30pm. Book early, as both events are likely to sell out quickly.

spielunlimited@gmail.com

Sun 14th Taking the Mic, Poems stories tall tales and more, Townsend Hall, 52 Sheep St, Shipston on Stour, CV 36 4AE,1-3pm: free in, open mic, arrive early to book a slot, MC Dave Reeves from Radio Wildfire

Mon 15th Gorilla Poetry,Dada Trippet Lane Sheffield S1 4EL,8pm,Slam Winner Stan Skinny is our headliner. A comic force of entertainment from Spots to Eye Pads you will be taken on a journey were your funny bones will jiggle.Flex your prolix and were all suffer obesity verbosity.An evening of top poetry and be prepared to be captivated.

Tues 16th Mee Club, Kitchen Garden Cafe , Kings Heath,7.30pm: £7 in, a variety and cabaret night for singles. Cat Weatherill hosts, Charlie Jordan headlines

Wed 17th , Storytelling Cafe Kitchen Garden Cafe,York Rd, Kings Heath, 7.30pm (Doors 6.30pm)
Wed 17th Templar Poetry, Lamb & Flag, The Tything, Worcester, 8pm; Open mic, third Wednesday, Alex officiates contact:Alex McMillen, Alex McMillen,Templar Poetry, PO BOX 7082, Bakewell, Derbyshire, DE45 9AF,Tel: 01629 582500, Mobile: 07918166975
info@templarpoetry.co.uk

Wed 17th Launch of anthology We’re All in This Together at Oswestry Library, Oswestry, Shropshire. 7-8pm. Free

Wed 17th Speak Up, Hare And Hounds, Kings Heath , 7.30pm,One of Birmingham’s best loved spoken word night returns with beanbags, cakes, fairy lights, rhymes, and stories, featuring Toby De Angeli and Nichol Keene (open mic slots available).

Wed 17th Simon Armitage, Keele University, 7.30pm:
SIMON ARMITAGE: ‘Walking Home’ – – A cancer charity reading as part of Keele University’s 50th Anniversary Charter Year.

Please join Simon for a special evening of film footage and readings from his new bestselling memoir ‘Walking Home’, which describes his attempt to walk the Pennine Way as a modern troubadour. Travelling penniless, Simon relied on bartering poetry for his B&B and bacon butties while walking the 256 miles from north to south towards the Yorkshire village where he was born. Every night he gave free readings in village halls, churches, pubs and living rooms before passing round a walking sock and asking people to give him what they thought he was worth. As he discovered, this wasn’t always cash! Simon will also read from his acclaimed translation of the medieval poem ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, which is associated with Lud’s Church in the Staffordshire Moorlands. Simon will be available to sign books afterwards.

All proceeds to a hospital-based charity for women with breast cancer.

Venue: Westminster Theatre, Keele University, ST5 5BG
Tickets: £5 (£2.50): ring 01782 734169 or buy on campus at the Chancellor’s Building reception (cash please), Mon – Fri, 09.00-17.00

Thur 18th Funny Women at Long Lane Library, Halesowen, 7pm. Free

Thurs 18th Goblin Poetry and Folk Club, Giggling Goblin Cafe, Ashby de la Zouch; 7.30pm start. Brian Langtry hosts.

Fri 19th Spoken Worlds 19:30 The Old Cottage Tavern , Byrkley St,eet, Burton-upon-Trent DE14 2JJ Open mic gajwriter@btinternet.com

Fri 19st Word Up – SixEightCafe ,Temple Row Birmingham. 6.30pm fre in,Fourth Friday,Word Up’ is a spoken word night with a difference. Created and run by Mark Watson and Rosina Caldwell. It is a monthly event held at the highly renowned ‘Six Eight Kafe’ (www.sixeightkafe.co.uk) in Birmingham, who kindly provides a fitting venue for the night.

Fri 19 Launch of anthology We’re All in This Together at Wolverhampton Art Gallery, 7-8pm. Free

Sun 21st WLF Malvern Walk and Poetry, 11am -2pm,Meet at the British Camp Car Park £5.

The inaugural WLF Walk will take place Sunday 21 October 2012. Meet at The British Camp car park at 11am for a walk to savour.
Join us for a mapped walk, good company, stories and poetry on the Malvern Hills – discover something of the heritage we so often take for granted – walk archaic tracks – see Clutter’s Cave – Hangman’s Hill – Swinyard Hill – The Ridgeway – find out about local history and enjoy stunning views over Worcestershire and Herefordshire. Tickets from http://www.worcslitfest.com – click on WLF Walk in the right hand column – or tickets available from Parole Parlate or WLF team members. Call us on 0845 490 0157 for information.
No charge for children. Adults £5 each. All proceeds support the Worcestershire Literary Festival.
Please purchase your tickets in advance, this will help us with the number of people returning to the Malvern Hills Hotel for readings, drinks, food, after the walk.

Sun 21st Sunday Xpress Fourth Sunday Doors 1500, Start 16:30 Adam & Eve Bradford Street, Birmingham B12 0JD Open mic
jameskennedycentral@yahoo.co.uk

Sun 21st Rhyme and Tells at the Six Bells in Bishops Castle, Shropshire,Meets every 4th Sunday of the month (except for public holidays) at 8 pm – 10.30 pm. It is free admission and an open session for poetry, prose and storytelling.
For further details please contact Mike on 01588 680685.

Sunday 21st ,Bewdley Book Week ,Black Country Poetry Dinner with Brewers’ Troupe,A tremendous evening of entertaining and insightful poetry. Two talented, funny and thoughtful Black Country poets, Heather Wastie and Brendan Hawthorne, will entertain over a dinner of great local fare.
Hop Pole Inn, Cleobury Road, Bewdley, Worcs DY12 2QH,Tickets: £15 including meal
http://bewdleybookweek.org.uk

Tues 23rd Purole Penumbra,Langley theatre Oldbury:
Brilliant, superb, fantastic, incredible…. But that’s enough about me, let’s talk about the 4th edition of Purple Penumbra, that ray of joy in the Autumn calendar.
I am personally delighted that the previous Penumbras (Penumbrae?) have been so literarily successful and now entreat you and yours to treat yourselves to a lovely evening away from whatever the weatherman hurls at us, by being in the sumptuous confines of the Theatre bar at Oldbury Rep (The Barlow) in Langley. Do come and chill. And if you can write a passable limerick/sonnet or two, or give us a song or play us a tune, do that too, do.
But mostly come and be entertained by some of the best in performance poetry available in England today, or at least in Langley.

Wed 24thPackhorse Poets,The Packhorse Inn, Crowdecote, near Longnor,Derbys on the fourth Wednesday of each month, 7.30pm

Wed 24th “Girl’s Got Rhythm Launch, Drummonds, New St, Worcester, Girl’s Got Rhythm” is the debut collection of poetry by Polly Robinson.
Come join us for a wonderful evening of performances to celebrate Polly’s first book. The event will be hosted by Andrew Owens and will take place at Drummonds, Worcester on Wednesday October 24th 2012. Doors to open at 6:30pm.

Confirmed performers include:

Gary Longden
Suz Winspear
Catherine Crosswell
Lindsay Stanberry-Flynn
Hollyanne
Spoz
Maggie Doyle
Amy Rainbow
and
Polly Robinson

Thur 25 Dave Reeves appears at Bilston Voices as part of a Black Country themed night. Café Metro, Church Street, Bilston. 7.30pm start. £2 admission.

Thur 25th Hit the Ode, Victoria PH, Birmingham City Centre 7.30pm. Hit the Ode brings the most exciting poets from the region, the country and the world to the heart of Birmingham. Join us! We have poems. Poems which taste of burnt eggs and black coffee; poems hot like summer afternoons should be; poets quietly buzzing like the wires on a pylon. Good poems. Come and get them.
Featuring Jess Green, Tim Clare and Lillian Allen.

Tues 25th The Telling Space, Mythstories, *NEW VENUE* (relocated from Wem) Mythstories,The Shrewsbury Coffeehouse,5 Castle Gates, SY1 2AE,Wem, Shropshire,The club meets on the 4th Tuesday of every month unless otherwise stated. Please check the website under ‘opening hours and events’ http://www.mythstories.com or contact Dez or Ali on 01939 235500 for further information.
Meet at 7 pm for refreshments (bring food to share) or at 7.30 pm for stories. A chance to listen or an opportunity to tell. Admission is free.

Tues 30th Word Wizards Buckingham Hotel Buxton 19.30. Open mic three minute slam format More info Poetryslamuk@aol.com

Wed 31st “42″ Open Mic Night (Gothic, Horror, Sci-Fi & Fantasy) Lunar Bar, New St Worcester, 7.30, Free in:last wed monthly E-mail: 42openmicnight@42genrearts.co.uk

————————————————–Coming soon—————————————————————–

Thurs 1st NovThe Shrewsbury Coffeehouse,5 Castle Gates, SY1 2AE Shrewsbury 7.30pm:Emma Purshouse, Jane Seabourne and Nick Pearson, all published by Offa’s Press, will be reading.

Sun 4th Nov Buzzwords, Exmouth Arms,Bath Road Cheltenham, Gloucestershire GL53 7LX, 7pm Workshop, open mic plus Jo Bell

Mon 5th Slam Semi,Gorilla Poetry – Poetry Evolution, Dada bar, Trippet Lane, Sheffield, S1 4El, (Off West St) 8pm (7.30 doors)

Sat 17th Nov Book Launch, Will Buckingham, Simon Perril and Maria Taylor.The Crumblin’ Cookie,68 High Street, LE1 5YP Leicester,7.30pm: Come to the Crumblin’ Cookie for the book launch extravaganza of the year. An evening of poetry, fiction and fun, with novelists Jonathan Taylor and Will Buckingham, and poets Simon Perril and Maria Taylor. Between us, we will be launching four books: Maria’s poetry collection, “Melanchrini”, Will’s novel, “The Descent of the Lyre”, Jonathan’s novel, “Entertaining Strangers”, and Simon’s poetry pamphlet “Newton’s Splinter”.

Come for some or all of the evening: the event is free and the bar is open all evening.

Mon 19thGorilla Poetry – Poetry Evolution, Dada bar, Trippet Lane, Sheffield, S1 4El, (Off West St) 8pm (7.30 doors)

Sun 2nd Dec Buzzwords, Exmouth Arms,Bath Road Cheltenham, Gloucestershire GL53 7LX, 7pm Workshop, open mic plus Kate North
Mon 3rd Slam Final, Gorilla Poetry – Poetry Evolution, Dada bar, Trippet Lane, Sheffield, S1 4El, (Off West St) 8pm (7.30 doors)

Fri 7th Dec The 1st Cirencester Christmas Slam at New Brewery Arts Circencester, where first round poems will be themed, ho ho ho.Details:spielunlimited@gmail.com

Posted in Midlands Poetry What's On | 4 Comments

Shindig, Western PH, Leicester

Posted on September 19, 2012 by garylongden


The formidable Shindig flexed its bi-monthly poetic muscles for its September offering hosted by the effusive Jane Commane and the urbane Jonathan Taylor. As is the custom, four diverse guest poets had been hand-picked, and an open mic of amongst the sharpest performers around miraculously assembled, along with Ezra Pound, of whom more later. Jane could barely contain her excitement as the evening wore on. Jonathan was in fine form, not least in performing a poem about a Dolls House chez Taylor that hugely entertained, and is likely to have both Quentin Tarantino, and Social Services knocking on his door.

The two guest poets for the first half had travelled from Gloucestershire, the first of whom was Daniel Sluman. I first saw Dan at the Cheltenham Poetry Festival alongside the considerable talents of Luke Kennard and Phil Brown, he comfortably held his own. I have recently been critical of some publishing houses whose output is narcissistic ,inward looking and self –aggrandizing. Equally I have been critical of poets who see being published as an end in itself, and fail to support the publisher in promoting the work. Neither criticism would be true of Nine Arches Press, or Dan ,whose talent deserves to be heard, and whose presence was testimony to his determination to reach an audience.

His performance, mainly from Absence has a Weight of its Own, was assured and compelling, as the material itself is. Some is born out of, and borne by, personal triumph over adversity, but is never maudlin. He speaks to the reader of themselves, not of himself. His writing is concise and intense; “If you cleave me in two you will smell your perfume on my bones”. The absence theme a haunting constant in a powerful set.

Angela France hosts Buzzwords, a highly successful poetry evening in Cheltenham and looked delighted to be able to stand in front of an audience and do her own thing rather than introduce others, that delight instantly communicated itself to the audience. With Mallemaroking (the carousing of seamen on board Greenland whaling ships) she was playful, with her pastiche of Sunday Sport headlines, which went on to be published by the same paper, she was self effacing, and with her Lightship Prize winning poem The Visit her poetic craft was plain for all to see.

Sarah Jackson is a senior lecturer in English and Creative Writing; Programme Leader, MA in Creative Writing at Nottingham Trent University. Her debut poetry collection Pelt has won 10th place on the Guardian first book award long list 2012. Her writing is a beguiling mix of the sensual, sinister and macabre, if she was a character in a horror film , she would certainly be the one to watch out for. Something rather unpleasant happened whilst a child was using the Red Telephone, and she revelled in the tale of The Ten o’clock Horses trading on a story told to frighten young children to bed and sleep in her village. She declared a fascination for submarines with their stealth, and desire to be unseen. That fascination with the unseen is an apt metaphor for her poetry.

Rory Waterman was born in Belfast , but grew up in rural Lincolnshire. With Nick Everett, he is the General Editor of New Walk Magazine, a new international journal for poetry and the arts. His studies, writing and publishing encompass an extensive range of themes, but tonight he was largely in reflective, retrospective family mode, most notably and effectively with Stranger when a small child asks, “Who are you?” However, it was the opening, West Summerdale Avenue, centred around the serial killer John Gacy, which showed him at his best :

“the sprinkler slashes its crest across your lawn and back again, and slashes its crest across and back again”

The open mic slots were, as always, a delight. Bob Richardson’s trademark is to carry a bag with him on stage. With each successive appearance, the bag he brings becomes larger. Before long he will require a fleet of pantechnicons leaving the tour managers of the likes of Lady Gaga and the Rolling Stones in despair when Bob is on the road. Many of us carry collections of our favourite poets with us, Bob carries their portraits too, hence his need for the large bag, and a lightning tour through Imagist luminaries Hilda Doolittle, Richard Adlington and Ezra Pound, the latter of whom then seemed to inspire several poets thereafter. Bob rightly drew our attention to the debt that much modern poetry owes to the Imagist movement.

The regulars set their usual high standard. Kathy Bell’s completed sequence of Balance Sheets for Medieval Spinsters was satisfying, and accomplished. Amongst the new and less regular performers Becky Bird’s poem of a woman who exchanges one worn pair of sandals for identical new ones whilst sat at a cafe was wry, sharp and well observed, Kerry Featherstone’s graveyard poem lived up to his brash chutzpah. Yet the spirit of edge and enquiry which is synonymous with Shindig was best kindled by Roy Marshall before he performed:

“Between Harry’s bits and Kate’s tits can anyone tell me whether Syria is fixed yet?”

Shindig next meets on Monday 19th September at the great Western Public house, free in, 7.30pm.

Posted in Behind the Arras Reviews | Leave a comment

Poetry@ The Shrewsbury Coffee House, Shrewsbury

Posted on September 16, 2012 by garylongden

One of the only downsides of being amongst a very few reviewers of Midlands poetry is that my own performance is rarely commented upon. I am grateful to Liz Lefroy for giving her time in this regard on the occasion when my myself, and David Calcutt, visited Shrewsbury. She reports as follows:

I like living in Shrewsbury, and I like it more since The Shrewsbury Coffeehouse opened. As well as being an excellent café and meeting place, it provides a venue for music and words on a scale which feels democratic and authentic.

The Coffeehouse is located on busy Castle Gates, reported in 2011 as having some of the worst air quality in the country. This is surprising in some ways, as the town, with its medieval and black and white buildings, looping river and self-claimed subtitle: ‘Town of Flowers’, has the feel of a place with kinder air.

On Thursday night, the audience for the monthly Coffeehouse Poetry evening was treated to fine performances from Gary Longden and David Calcutt. It was only the ninth event in what has become a feature of the West Midlands / Borders poetry calendar and it was good to see newcomers in the audience as well as regulars.

Gary, who travelled from Birmingham, opened the evening in style with his unabashed poem, ‘Adultery’ which toys with our expectations and nervousness, describing changes in behaviour which arouse a partner’s suspicions. And the cause? The narrator’s obsessive attendance at poetry readings. I suspect that there is a strong autobiographical element to this poem – Gary’s numerous reviews of poetry events across the Midlands is evidence of his not-so-secret and generous devotion. And he showed the necessary charm, acknowledging both audience and venue by featuring the Shrewsbury Coffeehouse as the backdrop for his next poem, The Moment.

Playfulness was a constant in Gary’s energetic set, delivered with a confidence which enabled the audience to relax and enjoy the words and (often double) meanings. His is a playfulness with a sharply witty edge – the vibrant Dead Pop Stars laments that ‘Rock and Roll death is not what it used to be’ and Going through the Wardrobe was nothing to do with Narnia, but everything to do with all the stereotypes linked to female insecurities about appearance. Whilst my inner feminist was stamping her feet, my outer woman was laughing in recognition as the pile of disappointing, and therefore discarded, clothes grew. And this is one of Gary’s skills – to show us the common ground of assumptions and then to take us beyond them to make us recognise some other truth. This is the case with his more serious poems as well. A particular favourite for me was Loose Change, a tribute to coinage pre-decimalisation, when tanners, farthings and half crowns were ‘always a name, never a number.’ Gary rightly observes that our new coins have acquired no such names.

In all, then, a set which showed a poet with an exceptional range, from beautiful and haunted lines – ‘sometimes swifts lean their heads to listen to the rising tide’ – to the downright colloquial but immaculately placed ‘Say cheese!’ in At the Charles Cotton Hotel. From ironic (I hope it was ironic …) confessions about a crush on Rebekah Brooks, to the sensitive exploration of the language of serious illness, all was delivered at pace and on time.

After the break, David Calcutt took the stage – which is interesting, because there is no stage to take. Unusually, and completely successfully, he began his set sitting down, and performed initially from memory. The Coffeehouse was busy, and in addition to street noises, the sound of cups and chatter from upstairs was a background reality. David created a sense of calm and intensity, a cocoon-like pod of drama. Like Gary, he made the audience feel utterly confident in his performance, and any unsettling occurred through the power of his words. Simile and metaphor leapt into the room as ‘the sun rose like the barrel of a gun’. We were there in woods with him, could visualise Dead Badgers, ‘each one a nail driven flush into my head’. David’s pamphlet Road Kill, co-written with Nadia Kingsley and published by Fair Acre Press, which Nadia runs, is out in December, and I am looking forward to reading these poems, and more.

David Calcutt

Next came two poems inspired by works in Walsall Art Gallery: The Enchanted Forest and Broken Children. The forest has ‘no way in except, perhaps, through the soul’s enchanted eye.’ Poems inspired by other works of art can be difficult to appreciate without the visual image that prompted them, but not in this case. These are stand alone works but nonetheless have made me resolve to make a long overdue visit to the gallery.

David is a playwright, novelist and poet, and has a strong list of publications for young people including Crowboy, Shadowbringer and The Map of Marvels, all published by OUP. His work is powerful and mystical, full of sharp imagery and quick-as-a-flash moments that touch something deeper. David’s view of his work is that its seriousness is best expressed in free verse, and he is right, but the audience enjoyed a poem written the day before which uses rhyme entirely successfully. In contrast to the lighter mood evoked by rhyme was the beautifully wrought She is Trying to Get back to What She Was. Full of strength and stark imagery, not a word is wasted, nothing is easy or explained away; David’s technical skills are impressive.

A consummate performer, David entertained us with two speeches from a recent production of Robin Hood, a script which captures the tradition of Mummers plays but with a contemporary and West Midlands twist. Also produced with a flourish was Sister Dora’s speech from The Alchemist and the Devil, the second of the Bayard’s Colts Mummers Plays for Walsall, due to be performed in the town centre on Saturday 17th November.

Thanks to Gary and David for an enjoyable and inspiring evening – we hope to welcome them back to The Coffeehouse soon.

Next month, Thursday 11th October, is an open mic (slots are currently full, but if you’d like to put your name on the reserve list, or to read in future, please email Liz Lefroy liz.lefroy@btinternet.com). The following month on Thursday 1st November we welcome Emma Purshouse. 7.30 for 7.45pm.

Liz Lefroy teaches at Glyndwr University, Wrexham, where she is a Senior Lecturer in Social Care. She has had two poetry pamphlets published,Pretending the Weather in 2011 , The Gathering in 2012, and won the 2011 Roy Fisher Prize for poetry.

Posted in Behind the Arras Reviews | 3 Comments

Spire Writes, Havana Whites, Chesterfield

Posted on September 12, 2012 by garylongden


Not only was this my first visit to Spire Writes, but also my first visit to Chesterfield. I was sufficiently inspired by Jo Bell’s glowing endorsement of host Helen Mort’s poetic credentials to make the effort to check out Spire Writes, and see what North Derbyshire had to offer. I was not to be disappointed. Havana Whites is a trendy bar in the shadow of Chesterfield’s crooked church spire in the middle of the town, with car parking and the railway station close by. The “locals made good” list of any place always makes for fascinating reading. Chesterfield boasts the likes of Barbera Castle, Olave Baden Powell, wife of Robert, and former butler to Princess Diana, Paul Burrell, as well as page three model Jo Guest, former Motorhead drummer Phil “Filthy Animal “ Taylor, and two of 80’s synth rock stars the Thompson twins. It’s an eclectic mix. Chesterfield throws up some interesting and diverse folk.

Poet, Host, and MC- Helen Mort

The format of the evening was of a headliner performing two sets, and a supporting bill of open mic poets. Helen hosts the night with a light hand on the tiller and quite clearly has poetic pull. A distinguished open mic crowd had assembled. Past guests have included Tony Walsh, next month’s are Helen Ivory and Martin Figura , but this month’s headliner was local hero Matt McAteer whom I was seeing for the first time.

Performing wholly rehearsed , his style is reminiscent of John Cooper Clarke, his acerbic social and political content travelling with Mark E Smith, both of whom he name checked. His presentation and content is strident performance, the composition subtle and nuanced, working a style similar to that of Polar Bear. An interesting quirk was that in several of the pieces, rhymes were not emphasised ,so that aurally the listener was frequently playing catch up as the narrative raced ahead.

Matt McAteer

His first set was a sequence based around modern attitudes to art.”If you say you’re an artist it’s art, if you don’t , it isn’t”. He opened with Charles Bukowski’s damning indictment of the mob, The Genius of the Crowd, a cover version if you like, a brave, confident and successful move, fortunately the proceeding original material was up to the job with Getting Kettled and Autodidact particularly strong. The second set, although not sequenced, displayed an assured local identity ,be it in remembering the defiance of the Clay Cross council in the 1970’s against the government, or most memorably, in a poem which drew together the only person from Chesterfield who fought and died in the Spanish Civil War and an imagined meeting with Alex from A Clockwork Orange. You had to be there!

Stan Skinny

The open mic roster were no makeweights. Stan Skinny runs the Shipping Forecast poetry night in Sheffield. School Disco was a mini overture, an object lesson in how to get the most out of one poem, funny, engaging, and with all present cringing at the accuracy of the observation. Current Derbyshire Poet Laureate Matt Black took inspiration from a taxi rank in an everyman piece that could have been anywhere, yet whose sense of place was a delight. Past Derbyshire Poet Laureate, River Wolton, read of her unexpected meeting with Gok Wan when she was “looking daggy” and “her shame at being ashamed”,which was both poignant, and entertained. However it was Psalm of Those who go Forth on the Day of Redundancy which packed the visceral punch. Both were consummately crafted.

Matt Black


River Wolton

The rest? Dwane Reads railed against cod nationalism, Danny Tooher navigated the bypass, Dave Atrill warned us against the fag man in Sheffield, Alex Webster tackled employment at Remploy, Bob Roberts took us on a road trip through the Czech Republic ,and Adam Morris questioned The Nature of Inspiration. Sadly there was no time for Helen Mort to perform herself.

A little gem of a venue and evening, Spire Writes next meets on Tuesday 9th October at 8pm, free in, with East Anglian luminaries Helen Ivory and Martin Figura topping the bill.

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Poetry at the Abbey, Polesworth Abbey, Polesworth

Posted on September 8, 2012 by garylongden

Workshop Leaders – from left, Jo Bell, Jenny Hope, Maeve Clarke, Mal Dewhirst, David Calcutt ,Jacqui Rowe, Matt Merritt. Photo by Janet Jenkins


“What is poetry?” is a question beloved of teachers, lecturers and workshop leaders. It invariably elicits a myriad responses , each one a little less sure than the one just offered. It lies all around us in different forms, guises, and disguises. A great goal at football is sometimes described as poetry, maybe a pop lyric, maybe a line from Tennyson. You know it when you see it, or hear it. It was certainly alive at Polesworth Abbey on Saturday afternoon.

On arrival I was greeted by Fr Philip in full clerical robe and high viz jacket, frankly, you can’t carry much more authority than that. On a blazing late summer’s day The Abbey and grounds were packed with a mixture of crowds who had spilled over from the village carnival, and the many who had come to see the archaeological dig on its final weekend and listen to the poetry, which had been written as a parallel project.

It was a testimony to the emotional commitment that the poetry workshop leaders had to “Dig the Poetry” that all returned to see the climax and denouement of everyone’s efforts. David Calcutt, Jenny Hope, Matt Merritt, Jacqui Rowe, Maeve Clarke, Jo Bell and organiser Mal Dewhirst performed work they had written , as well as bask in the glow of appreciating work which their workshops had inspired. Furthermore, the omnipresent Tim Upson Smith, community archaeologist and tour leader, decided to unleash his own poetry , a clever take on the classification of soil types to show that there was more to him than a shiny trowel and an Indiana Jones inspired hat.

In the grounds, period displays of tile making, stone masonry and medieval firearms engaged a throng soaking up the sun and the atmosphere. Children gambolled, ladies wore floppy hats, and men wore unwise shorts – this is England. It was the dig which had inspired the poetry and it was wholly appropriate that the performance should have been held al fresco with the sights that had inspired the words all around us. Sat down on the lush grass the spoil heaps of disinterred earth overlooked an audience that was part of the physical and poetic landscape.

Thus, for ninty minutes an egalitarian procession of performance unfolded telling the rich story of the dig ,and the responses which it had evoked in the poets. David Calcutt captured the volksseele of the summer with Dig, its opening lines:

“And we are on our knees,
Faces close to the ground,
With earthworms”

an archaeological call to arms, as we surveyed the spoil soil and trenches around us. The eternally neanimporhic Jo Bell closed the day with her customary assured poetic spezzatura. Her poem ,Last, considering what will be left of us after we die, assuming an ethereal spiritual dimension in the shadow of the thousand year old Abbey.In between, a wonderful array of ordinary poets offering extraordinary responses to their surroundings over two months, entertained and enthralled.

“What is poetry?” it lies all around us in different forms.

Posted in Behind the Arras Reviews | 2 Comments

Parole Parlate, Little Venice, Worcester

Posted on September 7, 2012 by garylongden


Parole Parlate will always have a special place in my affections. When I first ventured beyond the Birmingham conurbation poetry scene the organisers were friendly, warm and welcoming, both as an audience member and performer. Two years on that hasn’t changed. I arrived an hour and a quarter early expecting to have a pizza on my own, instead I was greeted with a table full of old friends, and soon to be new ones. It is an ideal setting, the downstairs Italian restaurant so suitable for preprandial chatter with literary minded folk, the upstairs a self contained private area with its own bar and toilets. The bill is always a smorgasbord ( to mix my culinary identities) of literary talent, this evening was no exception.

Lichfield Poet Ian Ward opened proceedings with a gentle, wistful set to ease us out of the summer holidays, neatly rounded off with Perfect Day. Damon Lord of Worcester Writer’s Circle read a very strong Notional Health Service and The Kid which I enjoyed despite the panning which he claimed some had previously given it,sometimes writers need to have the courage of their convictions. Euginia Herlihy‘s thoughtful spiritual poems clearly had substance, which will gain traction as she develops the projection of her delivery.

By contrast Christopher Kingsley was not lacking in projection. He prefaced his set by stressing that he was just starting out, but all the raw ingredients are there for a promising performing career. The material was diverse, humorous and bulging with ideas. Mutt about his inherited dogs, and Talking Balls about bureaucratic nonsense were particularly strong. Straight from the bandit country of South America , Nick “Grizzly Adams” Turner delivered a very powerful prose tale from his adventures there with one of the best opening lines I have heard in a very long time.

Closing the first half was Spoz. Vastly experienced, Spoz knows the performing deal, and it always shows. Take a good idea, engage with the audience, work the idea hard , and the audience well, and then leave them wanting more. It is an effective blueprint. He read just one poem, Without You, performed first in Italian, and then in English, it was a great comic device. In lesser hands rhyming “Nessun Dorma” with “korma”, and “cough” with (David Hassel) “hoff” would be a disaster, in Spoz’s expert hands it is a triumph!

Under the Lone Night , published by Vanguard Press is the current collection by David Johnson whose selections included DNA inspired by the heritage of English Stately homes. David read well and I would like to have heard more.

Polly Robinson

Polly Robinson is a luminary of the Worcester literary community and her writing, whether prose, or poetry, is always worth listening to. Her poem of a tube ride on a sticky day with its onomatopoeia driven structure is very satisfying, whilst Across the Timeless River, “ Five past six, light bright evening across the wrinkled river” does for the River Severn what Waterloo Sunset did for the Thames. Presenting short stories is no easy task. Andrew Owen used an innovative device with A Picture Tells a Thousand Words by bringing a graduation photo of himself, and then telling a story around it. It worked well, as did his Facebook inspired Like Mother like Daughter. Jeremy Holtom finished the section before the headline act with an intriguing extended performance. It was a little like watching footage of Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock, one minute you were with him, the next you were in another cosmos.

Finally, I was honoured to perform a headline set as one half of The Imperfect Pair, with Amy Rainbow, at which point Polly Robinson reports:

A packed house enjoyed the poetry and prose performed at Parole Parlate with the headline double act from Amy Rainbow and Gary Longden as The Imperfect Pair.. Gary will be writing about everyone else on his blog, but I thought I’d add my two-penn’orth about Amy and Gary ~ if you haven’t yet seen their sparky poetry be sure to catch up with them soon!The brickbats and banter between the two of them had everyone in hysterics, we can all identify with the sentiments that these two practiced poets invoke. Their two central pieces, ‘The man who wears tweed’ from Amy and the riposte, ‘The girl who wore floral prints’ from Gary, were funny, poignant, alliterative and well rhymed.

Parole Parlate next meets on Thurs 4th October at 7.30pm. Polly Robinson blogs at:http://journalread.wordpress.com/

Photographs by kind permission of Geoff Robinson

Posted in Behind the Arras Reviews | 6 Comments

September 2012- What’s On, Midlands Spoken Word

Posted on September 5, 2012 by garylongden

Birmingham Artsfest – 7th-9th
http://www.artsfest.org.uk/

Wirksworth Arts Festival, Derbys 7th-23rd Sept
http://www.wirksworthfestival.co.uk/

Stafford Arts Fest 15th

Click to access Stafford-Arts-Festival-Timetable.pdf

Warwick Words 28th Sept – 7th Oct
http://warwickwords.co.uk/

Wellington Literary Festival , Shrops29th Sept- 20th October
http://www.wellington-shropshire.gov.uk/literary-festival/

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Saturday 1st Simon Fletcher will be talking about Offa’s Press at the Assembly Rooms, Ludlow, South Shropshire, as part of a Writing West Midlands networking afternoon. 2-4pm Free.

Sat 1st Sept Buddy Wakefield, MAC Birmingham, 7.30pm £5in
The two-time Individual World Poetry Slam Champion visits Birmingham with his raw, rounded performance style. This is a unique chance to catch Buddy Wakefield on one of his very rare European tours and witness see one of the top spoken word artists in the world live and unpluggedin an intimate venue. Buddy will be supported supported by up-and-coming West Midlands poets Mstr Morrison, Jodi Ann Bickley, and Rehema Njambi.

Where: mac Birmingham, Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham, B12 9QH
Tickets: £5
Info: macarts.co.uk/event/apples-and-snakes-buddy-wakefield
Booking: macarts.co.uk / 0121 446 3232

Sun 2nd Sept Buzzwords, Exmouth Arms,Bath Road Cheltenham, Gloucestershire GL53 7LX, 7pm Workshop, open mic plus Michael Thomas

Mon 3rd SW&N ClubThe Newhampton Inn, Riches Street (off Newhampton Road West) Wolverhampton WV6 0DW 8pm £3 in,Storytelling, poetry, a tune, or a song!

Tues 4th Mee Club, Kitchen garden cafe , Kings Heath,7.30pm: £7 in, a variety and cabaret night for singles. Cat Weatherill hosts, Amy Rainbow stars

Tues 4th Night Blue Fruit, Taylor Johns, Canal Basin Coventry,8pm start, free in, Tony Owen hosts-ope mic sign up on the night.

Tues 4th Word ,Y Theatre, East Street, Leicester LE1 6EY, just opposite Leicester Train Station7pm performers, 8pm, Audience, Open mic plus headliner. £6in
WORD! is the longest running poetry and spoken word night in Leicester. Based at The Y Theatre, Leicester, it takes place on the first Tuesday of every month, between 8.00 and 10.30pm. The evening is composed of an open mic, followed by a booked act- Sophie Blackwell

Thurs 6th Good Impressions Spoken word, Cafe Impression, Atkins Building Hinckley, LE10 1QU,7.30pm £5in Hosted by Tom Phillips,ist Thursday Monthly

Thurs 6th Yard of Tales,Joules Yard, rear of 53-55 High Street, Market Harborough, Leicestershire, LE16 7AF.
Joules Yard is a unique venue with a licensed bar after 7pm, also serving tea and coffee. If you would like to order a vegetarian meal for the evening, provided by ‘The Green House’ please telephone 01858 463250. Market Harborough, Leicestershire, Meets first Thursday in the month.

Thurs 6th Parole Parlate, Autumn Special, Little Venice, St Nicholas st , Worcester, 730 pm, £3 in: Gary Longden & Amy Rainbow Headline with:
Polly Robinson
Christopher Kingsley
Euginia Herlihy
Andrew Owens
Ian Ward
Jeremy Holtom
Damon Lord

Fri 7th, 8th/9th Birmingham Artsfest- the Uks largest Arts festival;http://www.artsfest.org.uk/
Poets include Sammy Joe, Shabz Ahmed,Brendan Hawthorne,Kimmy Sue Anne, decadent Divas, Jan Watts and Dwayne Reads.

Sat 8th Poetry Reading, Polewsorth Abbey 2pm: Free in a celebration of the results of Dig the Poetry including an exhibition of finds and poetry written.

Sunday 9th Nick Pearson will be running an Offa’s Press bookstall (with volunteers) at the Birmingham Independent Book Fair, Council House, Victoria Square, Birmingham, B3 3BD, part of the Birmingham ArtsFest 2012. 11am-6pm.

Gary Longden will be at the launch of “Here Comes Everyone” by Silhouette Press

Mon 10th Pub Poetry Nottingham The Canal house, 48-52 Canal Street, Nottingham, NG1 7EH,8pm, 2nd monday : Free in, Open micContact Nick on pubpoetry@nottscomedyfestival.co.uk

Mon 10th pure and good and right, Sozzled Sausage, Leamington Spa, CV32 4NX,This month’s guest poets are..
Vois:Vois are an acoustic and a cappella collective, whose mission is to release the talents of musicians throughout the midlands. Combining soulful song, righteous rap and melodic musicianship, Vois are a rare blend of talent and technique who provide a real treat for appreciative ears.
&
Armadeep Dhillon:Armadeep Dhillon is a young poet who wowed on PGR debut with the soulful power of his writing. Returning for a long overdue feature slot, Armadeep is the kind of young voice our world so urgently needs.Admission £3 (£2 Student/OAP)
From time to time we are located upstairs, so please let us know if you require disabled access before the event.
If you would like to know more about the night email: pgrpoetry@gmail.com

Tuesday 11th Jane Seabourne and Nick Pearson will be reading at ‘City Voices’, City Bar, King Street, Wolverhampton. WV1 1ST 7.45pm Free admission.

Tuesday 11th Dave Reeves guests at ‘Mouth and Music’, the Boars Head Gallery, 39 Worcester Street, Kidderminster, DY10 1EW. 8.00pm Tickets £3.00

Tues 11th Spire Writes, Havana Whites,12 Corporation St, Chesterfield. 7.30pm, Open Mic, Helen Mort officiates, Matt McAteer headlines

Tues 10th Scribal Gathering The Crown Stony Stratford:7.30pm,Get ready for another fantastic feast of musical mastercraft and poetical proficiency, bringing together lachrymatorially lyrical local live talent and perfervid performers from perfurther afield. We have headline performances from special guests Dan Plews and Alan Wolfson, as well as the open-minded open mic, welcoming all to muse upon their views, share their wares, show their stuff, shine before their peers and shout what it’s all about, to a tolerant and very forgiving audience. Join us, and invoke the spirit of gathering…
When: Tuesday 11th July 2012. Doors open at 7.30 for a prompt 8.00 start.
Where: The Crown, Market Square, Stony Stratford MK11 1BE.
How: Free entry. Sign up for open mic on the night. Arrive early to avoid disapproval.
Performance slots are available to anyone who has learned their times tables or is hard enough; there will be special guest headline performances and a lunch-money / cigarette racket from Kevin Sullivan and the SAKS duo and Antipodean exchange student Liz Breslin. We welcome musicians, poets and performers of any style, genre or level of experience to share their creativity, show off their talent, pass notes around or just try and fit in and get through the whole ordeal without being noticed. So get your tie and blazer on, tuck yourself in and get embroiled in a footwear-based elitist social hierarchy system. We’re jumping on the Scribal Gathering Back To School Bandwagon. Join us…
…or you’ll have to do it next time in your pants and vest.

Tues 11th Mouth & Music 6,Boars Head Gallery, Kidderminster 8pm, £3 in:The 6th in our monthly series of totally & utterly acoustic spoken word & music nights! Open mic sign-up from 7.30 5 minutes / 2 songs each, Admission £3 (free to performers) Presented by Heather Wastie & Sarah Tamar for kaf creatives

Tues 11th Tales at the Edge, White Lion Inn, Bridgnorth, Shropshire,Tales at the Edge is one of the country’s oldest and most established storytelling clubs, meeting in Bridgenorth on the 2nd Tuesday of every month (except August) at 8 pm.

Wed 12th Spoken Word,Old Cross, Church Street, Stapleford 7.30pmThe third evening of poems and stories from two local performers – Dave Wood and Richard Young.This time featuring Jackie Brewster.Those wishing to read/perform are welcome to for (depending on circumstances) approximately 5 minutes.Anything spoken word is fine. A great chance to try out your writing in a fun way and there may even be cake for saleEntrance is £1.There will be no microphones and all seating will be in the round.

Wed 12 th The Quad Derby QUAD, Market Place, Cathedral Quarter, Derby, DE1 3AS Second Wednesday 19.30 Free in, A monthly night of performed poetry for everyone, new performers always welcome or just come and listen, More details from QUAD or contact Les on T: 01332 206 734, http://www.derbyquad.co.uk

Thurs 13th Shipping Forecast The Rude Shipyard, 89 Abbeydale Road, S7 1FE Sheffield,7.45pm An open mic night of poetry, prose, music, performance, raffles and fun.
This is a very informal cosy monthly night of joy in the snug environs of the marvellous Rude Shipyard in Sheffield (UK). The night provides a platform for established and first-time performers to play to a warm and appreciative audience.
Always a surprise, always a treat, grab yourselves a cuppa, some tasty homemade cake and join the fun.moi miss piggy or stan skinny host.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/169584853087066/

Thurs 13th Coffeehouse Poetry Open Mic, Shrewsbury Coffee House , Castle Gate, Shrewsbury with Liz lefroy, 7.30pm, free in. David Calcutt and Gary Longden headline

Thursday 13th Jane Seabourne will be reading at Coleshill Library, Warwickshire, 7pm, as part of the Literature on Your Doorstep project. Free.
Fri 14th Open Mic, Wednesbury Museum & Art Gallery, 7.30pm, free in

Thurs 13th Hit the Ode,The Victoria, 48 John Bright St, Birmingham B1 1BN 7.30 pm, £5 in,Hit the Ode brings the most exciting poets from the region, the country and the world to the heart of Birmingham. Join us! We have poems. Poems which look good in red; poems displayed under protective glass cases; poems cobbled together from kite string and transistor radios. Great poems. Come and get them.Line-up:Al Hutchins, Harry Baker, Luanda Casella,A very few open mic slots will be available on the door (the pre-bookable slots have all been claimed). For more info, contact bohdan@applesandsnakes.org.

Fri 14th Wednesbury Art Gallery and Museum, open mic poetry, 7.30pm, free admission

Fri 14th Two way Street,Bookmark Bloxwich,B​loxwich Library, ElmoreRow,​ Bloxwich,W​alsall. WS3 2HR. 01922 655900
Appletree Theatre and Film Company will present their most recent piece, Two Way Street at Bookmark Theatre Bloxwich on Friday 14 September at 7.30pm. The popular, Midlands-based company returns to the Bookmark following their hugely successful tour of The Browning Version last year. They will perform an evening of comical duologues using both live performance and recorded footage and featuring 3 duologues by local writer/ producer David Tristram. This performance will showcase the work of the company’s professional West Midlands based actors as Appletree’s profile continues to rise.

Two Way Street forms part of Bookmark Theatre’s Autumn programme of events. Their touring piece of 2011, The Browning Version, attracted much acclaim and caused audiences to leave feeling entertained and impressed.

Fri 14thNew Mills Festival presents a Poetry Slam at the wonderful new Spring Bank Arts Centre
Spring Bank, New Mills, High peak, Derbys SK22 4BH Tel 01663 3082022 7pm-10.30pm,£5 /£4 concessions Tickets on the door,A Spring Bank Production, Everyone welcome to read or listen

Sat 15th Stafford Arts Festival, Poetry at the Council Buildings, 10-4pm. Free in
Poetry @ Stafford Arts Fest: Programme

10:00 Jack Edwards
10:10 John Mills
10: 20 Jae Alexander Linsey
10:30 Helen Mort
10:40 Ian Ward
10:50 Liz Mills
11:00 Richard Faulkener
11:10 Sammy Joe
11:20 Rohit Ballal
11:30 Deborah Alma (Provisional)
11:40 Mike Tinsley (Provisional)
11:50 Ian Bowkett
12:00 The Trent Vale Poet

12:10 – 13:00 BREAK

13:00 Helen Calcutt
13:10 Tom Wyre
13:20 Gary Longden
13:30 Janet Jenkins
13:40 Janet Arnold
13:50 Rosina Trotman
14:00 Daniel Shelley Smith
14:10 Al Barz
14:20 David Calcutt
14:30 Emily Oldham
14:40 Tony Stringfellow
14:50 Veronica Shepard

15:00 – 16:00 OPEN MIC

Sat 15th Notes From the Underground, Hollybush PH, Newtown lane, Cradley Heath, 8pm Start, Free in, Poetry and music Open Mic with Jack Edwards and William Shatspeare

Mon 17th Shindig, Western PH, Leicester:7.30pm, free in:Crystal Clear Creators and Nine Arches Press present Shindig! Open-Mic Poetry Evening: Free and Open to All.
Featured poets are: including featured writers Rory Waterman, Sarah Jackson, Daniel Sluman and Angela France
Sign up for open-mic slots on the door.
Email Jonathan Taylor (crystalclearjt@hotmail.co.uk) for further details.

Mon 17th Gorilla Poetry,Dada Trippet Lane Sheffield S1 4EL,8pm,Slam Winner Stan Skinny is our headliner. A comic force of entertainment from Spots to Eye Pads you will be taken on a journey were your funny bones will jiggle.Flex your prolix and were all suffer obesity verbosity.An evening of top poetry and be prepared to be captivated.

Tues 18th Mee Club, Kitchen Garden Cafe , Kings Heath,7.30pm: £7 in, a variety and cabaret night for singles. Cat Weatherill hosts,

Wed 19th , Storytelling Cafe Kitchen Garden Cafe,York Rd, Kings Heath, 7.30pm (Doors 6.30pm)
Summer is in the air and we dream of lands far away. Take a journey into your imaginations with the Christine McMahon. Enjoy a relaxed and compelling summer’s night of storytelling with a glass of wine and a relaxed sociable atmosphere. Food Served from 6.30, Stories start at 7.30.
Tickets: £7
Tickets available from the Cafe or http://www.wegottickets.com

Wed 19th Templar Poetry, Lamb & Flag, The Tything, Worcester, 8pm; Open mic, third Wednesday, Alex officiates contact:Alex McMillen, Alex McMillen,Templar Poetry, PO BOX 7082, Bakewell, Derbyshire, DE45 9AF,Tel: 01629 582500, Mobile: 07918166975
info@templarpoetry.co.uk

Thurs 20th Goblin Poetry and Folk Club, Giggling Goblin Cafe, Ashby de la Zouch; 7.30pm start. Brian Langtry hosts.

Fri 21st Spoken Worlds 19:30 The Old Cottage Tavern , Byrkley St,eet, Burton-upon-Trent DE14 2JJ Open mic gajwriter@btinternet.com

Fri 21st Word Up – SixEightCafe ,Temple Row Birmingham. 6.30pm fre in,Fourth Friday,Word Up’ is a spoken word night with a difference. Created and run by Mark Watson and Rosina Caldwell. It is a monthly event held at the highly renowned ‘Six Eight Kafe’ (www.sixeightkafe.co.uk) in Birmingham, who kindly provides a fitting venue for the night.

Saturday 22nd Emma Purshouse is running a variety evening at The Imperial in Bilston, Wolverhampton, 7.30pm. Tickets are from £10 and can be reserved through Emma by emailing: emmaasif@hotmail.com

Sun 23nd Sunday Xpress Fourth Sunday Doors 1500, Start 16:30 Adam & Eve Bradford Street, Birmingham B12 0JD Open mic
jameskennedycentral@yahoo.co.uk

Sun 23rd Sept Powwow, Prince of Wales Lit Fest, Alcester Rd, Moseley,http://thespidermonkey.co.uk/litfest2012/
It’s great value for a line up which includes R J Ellory (million selling crime writer), S F Said (Award winning children’s author), Luke Brown (Tindal Street Press), Charlie Brotherstone (A M Heath Literary Agency), Tim Broughton (Harper Collins) and William Gallagher (freelance script writer – credits include Doctor Who audio dramas for Big Finish).

Sun 23rd Pooley Country Park, 10th Anniversary Celebrations,11am, readings from the Polesworth Poetry trail

Sun 23nd Rhyme and Tells at the Six Bells in Bishops Castle, Shropshire,Meets every 4th Sunday of the month (except for public holidays) at 8 pm – 10.30 pm. It is free admission and an open session for poetry, prose and storytelling.
For further details please contact Mike on 01588 680685.

Mon 24th Poetry Open Mic, calahouse, Nottingham, 8pm

Tuesday 25thPurple Penumbra Open Mic, Barlow Theatre, Oldbury:7.30pm
Bring your poetry and your pals to this open mic event, or just come and be entertained.
Those with a musical bent who can fill in a gap or two with something melodic and acoustic are particularly welcome.
Enliven, enrich and enhance the experience of the famous Barlow Theatre bar with your presence, why not?

Tuesday 25th Fizz, Polesworth Abbey, Poleworth, Open Mic and Guest Gary Carr.7.30pm, Free in

Tues 25th The Telling Space, Mythstories, *NEW VENUE* (relocated from Wem) Mythstories,The Shrewsbury Coffeehouse,5 Castle Gates, SY1 2AE,Wem, Shropshire,The club meets on the 4th Tuesday of every month unless otherwise stated. Please check the website under ‘opening hours and events’ http://www.mythstories.com or contact Dez or Ali on 01939 235500 for further information.
Meet at 7 pm for refreshments (bring food to share) or at 7.30 pm for stories. A chance to listen or an opportunity to tell. Admission is free.

Tues 25th Word Wizards Buckingham Hotel Buxton 19.30. Open mic three minute slam format More info Poetryslamuk@aol.com

Tues 25th , Poetry Bites Kitchen Garden Cafe,York Rd, Kings Heath, 7.30pm (Doors 6.30pm) Christine Coleman and Jan Watts guests, Jacqui Rowe hosts, loads of open mic, £5in

Wed 26th Phenomenal Women 5, Library Theatre, Birmingham, 7.30pm: Free in,A showcase for the top women poets in the region, men welcome as part of the auidience

Wed 26th “42″ Open Mic Night (Gothic, Horror, Sci-Fi & Fantasy) Lunar Bar, New St Worcester, 7.30, Free in:last wed monthly E-mail: 42openmicnight@42genrearts.co.uk

Wed 26th Smart Poets Open Mic, Veggd out, Fletchers walk, Paradise Circus, Birmingham City Centre, 7pm.With Penny Hewlett

Wed 26thPackhorse Poets,The Packhorse Inn, Crowdecote, near Longnor,Derbys on the fourth Wednesday of each month, 7.30pm

Thur 27th Bilston Voices Cafe Metro 46 Church Street, Bilston WV14 0AH Fourth Thursday 19:00 Only booked poets perform: emmaasif@hotmail.com

Thurs 27th Rob gee@ Speech Therapy, Bar Deux, Nottingham 8.30pm: Speech Therapy returns from its summer break with a fast fading suntan, weary smile on its face and a carrier bag full of cheap duty free plonk. This month we are tickled to bits to welcome as our headline performer, the amazing Mr Rob Gee.

Poet, comedian and reformed psychiatric nurse, Rob has clocked up over two thousand shows, toured extensively, and performed with acts such as Jimmy Carr, Harold Pinter, Jo Brand and Frankie Boyle. Appearances at festivals include the Glastonbury and Edinburgh Festivals
, the Sydney International Poetry Festival, the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word and the Austin International Poetry Festival in Texas. He is sometimes sent into schools as a warning to children.

http://www.robgee.co.uk/

There will also be appearances from Miggy Angel, who mainly does poetry and swearing, John Marriott, who will once again be treating us to the thoughts and inner workings of the mysterious Bobby Shoes and of course there will be the infamous Raffle of Rammel.

MulletProofPoet will be on hand too, generally not getting people to behave. Anyone wishing to take part in the open mic section should e mail in advance.

info@mulletproofpoet.co.uk

£3.00 entry. See you there
Fri 28th Poetry Juke Box, The Unitarian Chapel, warwick 9pm: £5in, Maria taylor, Luke Kennard and Dan Sluman,Nine Arches Press presents a poetry reading with a unique twist: the audience has a hand in choosing the themes of the poems. So prepare for work that touches on the big issues, and some of the little ones too – everything from love, death and madness to laughter, losing and indulging our vices!

This promises to be a show full of surprises, with three poets who are among the most striking voices in contemporary British poetry.

Sat 29thSaturday 29th Jeff Phelps will be at Wellington Library, Shropshire, from 10am to 2pm as part of the Wellington Literature Festival local authors’ events.

Saturday 29 th Whistle with Martin Figura,Bridge House Theatre,7.30pm: £8,Profoundly honest and at the same time joyfully entertaining Independent on Sunday,When Martin Figura was nine years old, his father killed his mother.Whistle uses family photographs and striking visuals to explore themes of identity, forgiveness, loss, adoption and family with insight and gentle humour, to tell a unique coming-of-age story. After a successful Edinburgh Festival Fringe run in 2011 this award-winning spoken-word show is touring across the UK including a week at the Roundhouse London, before heading to the USA and Europe in 2013.

Whistle is a tender, beautiful, funny and moving childhood and coming-of-age story, which the poetry conveyed vividly to my imagination, as did Martin Figura’s telling of it, which was spellbinding. Chloe Garner, Director Ledbury Poetry Festival

Winner Poetry Society’s Hamish Canham Prize 2010
Short-Listed – The Ted Hughes Award for New Work 2010

Tickets: £8.00
(£6.00 concessions)
Tickets available from Festival Box Office 01926 776438.

http://www.martinfigura.co.uk

Sun 30th Sunday Xpress, Adam & Eve PH, Bradford St , Digbeth, Birmingham: 4pm, free in,Birmingham’s long-serving open mic afternoon. People say “The Sunday Xpress? Is that still going? I must come down to that again sometime.” Well, yes, it is, and it’s still worth a visit. To paraphrase John Peel talking about The Fall, the Sunday Xpress is “always different, always the same.”

Hosted by Birmingham’s answer to Carol Ann Duffy – the bard of Yardley Brendan Higgins – the Sunday Xpress is the ideal platform for the beginner, the seasoned professional, and the artist who wants to try something
t
hat’s a bit different or some new material. Over the years we’ve had many acts perform and find their voice, and who have gone on to bigger things because of it. The Sunday Xpress offers a strict freedom of speech policy. Anything goes.

Anything goes indeed – the Sunday Xpress is an open mic that encourages performers to do what they want to do – we’re spoken word friendly (indeed, the event was created from a writers’ co-operative) so we welcome poets, storytellers, fiction and non-fiction writers – we showcase drama, one-person-shows, stand up comedy, even people talking about their artwork and on some occasions – interpretive dance!! Musicians will find a great atmosphere to play in – we have a mixing desk and a mic/stand set up – but do bring any spare cables if you think you need it.

Doors open at 3, show starts around half 4 and goes on until everybody’s been on (usually around 7ish) The afternoon is compered by Brendan who will devise the running order and introduce you – it’s up to you to do the rest. The Adam doesn’t offer any grub so you’d be advised to have your dinner before you get there.

Hope to see you all there!

Sun30th Sept “Written on water” Aylestone Meadows, Leicester :Written on Water is a community event where writers, artists and the local community will come together to create words and pictures celebrating Leicester’s largest nature reserve. The event is planned for 30 September 2012 and all are welcome.

On 30th September participants will be encouraged to share their Meadows’ memories, words and stories with a team of volunteer Word Rangers. The Meadows is for everyone and everyone’s words will go towards a new Written on Water website and anthology. Artists and photographers will also paint, sketch or photograph this diverse environment in the heart of Leicester.

Written on Water is part of the Everybody’s Reading community festival, to do whatever it takes to get every child in Leicester reading. Written on Water is also supported by Leicester City Council, Aylestone Meadows Appreciation Society and Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust.

————————————————–Coming soon—————————————————————–

Mon 1st SlamGorilla Poetry – Poetry Evolution, Dada bar, Trippet Lane, Sheffield, S1 4El, (Off West St) 8pm (7.30 doors)

Thursday 4th Word Birthday Special with Kwame Dawes,Central Lending Library, Bishop Street, Leicester 8pm:

Join us at Leicester Central Library for this ‘Lyric Lounge’ and ‘Everybody’s Reading’ special -marking National Poetry Day, Black History Season, , World Mental Health Month -and Word!s 11th Birthday !

£6/£4 concessions

It will feature the Emmy Award winning Kwame Dawes. Born in Ghana and raised in Jamaica, Kwame will share work from his rich body of writing, including his latest poetry collection, ‘Wheels’, and his edited anthology of 50 great Jamaican poets, ‘Jubilation’.

Prior to his performance Kwame will lead a special WORD!Shop, at Leicester Central Library.2-4pm.£3/£2 . To book please email lydia@wordpoetry.co.uk

Performers should arrive at 7.15 to sign up

Word! is brought to you by a committee of volunteers and visuals are by film-maker, Keith Allott.

Thursday 4 Poetry Brunch with Birmingham Poet Laureate 2011/2012 Jan Watts,Festival Bookshop, Central Library, Chamberlain Square, Birmingham, B3 3HQ,11am-1pm

Meet the poets who have been shortlisted to take over as Birmingham’s Poet Laureate 2012/2013. With coffee and croissants!

Admission is free, just drop in.

Thurs 4th Double Takes, Ludlow Library,2.30pm free,
A programme of readings in celebration of National Poetry Day

Gareth Owen and Liz Lefroy

Gareth Owen was born in Ainsdale, Lancashire and left school at 16 to serve in the Merchant Navy. For four years he taught in a London Secondary Modern School, before becoming a lecturer in English and Drama at Bordesley College of Education, Birmingham.

He began writing his poems for children while a teacher and his first published collection, ‘Salford Road’ won high praise from fellow poet Patric Dickinson:
‘…original,beautiful, serious, funny, real and imaginative. Nothing quite like it has been done before.’
His second, ‘Song of the City’ won the Signal award.
Over the years he has published four further volumes of poetry, the last a collection of football poems: ‘Can We Have Our Ball Back Please?’ (Macmillan in 2006).
His work has been published in over a 100 anthologies.
In addition to the poetry, he has published four novels, as well as books for younger children.
An accomplished verse reader, he has won both the Welsh Academy Spoken Poetry Award and the National Speak a Poem Award. For two years he presented the BBC’s long-running Poetry Please!

Four of his plays have been produced by the BBC, in one of which, ‘The Game’, he played the lead.

In 1993 he was prize winner of the Leeds Playhouse/W.H.Smith Play-Writing Competition. The play became the novel: ‘Rosie No Name and the Forest of Forgetting’

He lives in Ludlow, Shropshire where he writes and performs the occasional satirical Country song under the stage name of Virg Clenthills.

Liz Lefroy won the inaugural Roy Fisher prize in 2011 and has published two pamphlets – ‘Pretending the Weather’ and ‘The Gathering’, both by Long Face Press. Her work has appeared in Mslexia, Magma, The Frogmore Papers, Shoestring, and on The Writers’ Hub and Psychogeographic Review. She lives in Shrewsbury and runs the monthly Shrewsbury Coffeehouse poetry event.

Thurs 4th Birmingham Poet Laureate launch with Elvis McGonigal and Deborah Alma, aka, The Emergency Poet ,Yumm Café, Zellig (The Custard Factory), Gibb Street, Digbeth, Birmingham, B9 4AA:6 – 8pm

Free, please book to avoid disappointment

Birmingham Book Festival, Birmingham Poet Laureate 2012/13 & National Poetry Day

Special Guest: Elvis McGonagall – One Man & his doggerel!

Join us as we launch the fourteenth Birmingham Book Festival, celebrate National Poetry Day and announce the new Birmingham Poet Laureate 2012/13.

Writing West Midlands’ Programmes Director, Sara Beadle, will say a few words to introduce the Festival and some of the wonderful events to come over the next ten days. Festival staff and volunteers will also be on hand to tell you more and to answer any questions.

The annual Birmingham Poet Laureate programme is run by Birmingham Libraries. Each year a new Laureate is appointed to encourage local people to get involved in poetry. This year’s contenders have been through a rigorous selection process and we wait with anticipation the announcement of the winning poet. To lighten the tension, the out-going Birmingham Poet Laureate, Jan Watts, will be hand to perform alongside the new Laureate, handing over the honorary title with some choice wit and wisdom.

And to round off our evening’s celebration who better than Elvis McGonagall, stand-up poet, armchair revolutionary and recumbent rocker! Elvis, we are told, is the sole resident of The Graceland Caravan Park somewhere near Dundee, where he scribbles verse whilst drinking malt whisky and listening to Johnny Cash. He is also a former World Slam Champion, compere of the notorious Blue Suede Sporran Club and is one of the poets occasionally in residence on BBC Radio 4’s “Saturday Live”. Oh, and he is very, very funny!

The Emergency Poet – The World’s First & Only Mobile Poetic First Aid Service

‘Between the Fountains and the Green Man’, The Custard Factory, Gibb Street, Digbeth, Birmingham, B9 4AA

1 – 6pm. Free, drop in!

As a service to the City of Birmingham, we present the Emergency Poet – a vintage 1960s ambulance in which ‘Dr’ Deborah Alma can minister to the poetic needs of all and sundry. No appointment necessary, simply drop by if you’d like the ‘Dr’ to offer an up-lifting couplet or a life-enhancing stanza or two. Free at the point of demand and unaffected by NHS reforms, let our highly trained medic use the latest diagnostic techniques to prescribe just the write (ha, ha!) poem. Why feel worse? Take Verse!

Friday 5th Somon Armitage, walking Home,Adrian Boult Hall, Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, Birmingham B3 3HG, 7.30pm,
£10 / £6

In summer 2010 poet and writer Simon Armitage decided to walk the Pennine Way. The challenging 256-mile route is usually approached from south to north, from Edale in the Peak District to Kirk Yetholm, the other side of the Scottish border. He resolved to tackle it the other way round: through beautiful and bleak terrain, across lonely fells and into the howling wind, he would be walking home, towards the Yorkshire village where he was born.

Travelling as a ‘modern troubadour’ without a penny in his pocket, he stopped along the way to give poetry readings in village halls, churches, pubs and living rooms. His audiences varied from the passionate to the indifferent, and his readings were accompanied by the clacking of pool balls, the drumming of rain and the bleating of sheep.

Walking Home is the story of that journey, about facing emotional and physical challenges, and sometimes overcoming them. It’s nature writing, but with people at its heart. Contemplative, moving and droll, it is a unique narrative from one of our most beloved writers. Join him at the Birmingham Book Festival to explore this extraordinary journey.

Simon Armitage was born in 1963 and lives in West Yorkshire. He has published ten volumes of poetry including Selected Poems, 2001 (Faber & Faber). His most recent collections are Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus the Corduroy Kid and Seeing Stars. He has received numerous awards for his poetry including the Sunday Times Author of the Year, one of the first Forward Prizes and a Lannan Award. His most recent book, Seeing Stars, was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize and was a Poetry Book Society Choice.

He writes for radio, television and film, and is the author of four stage plays, including Mister Heracles, a version of the Euripides play The Madness of Heracles. His recent dramatisation of The Odyssey, commissioned by the BBC, was broadcast on Radio 4 in 2004 and is available through BBC Worldwide. He received an Ivor Novello Award for his song-lyrics in the Channel 4 film Feltham Sings, which also won a BAFTA.

Fri 5th Oct, 4th Malvern Slam plus Attila the Stckbroker, the Cube, Malvern: Attila is sharp tongued, high energy, social surrealist rebel poet and songwriter. His themes are topical, his words hard-hitting, his politics unashamedly radical. Inspired by the spirit and the ‘Do It Yourself’ ethos of punk rock, and above all by The Clash and their overtly radical, political stance.

The fourth Malvern Poetry slam will be held over two rounds. 10 Poets go head to head, in a battle of verse and wit until the last one standing is crowned Malvern slam champion 2012. Hysterical, poignant, moving. Not to be missed.Doors open 7.30 Entrance £ 7.00

Sat 6th Being Human,The Custard Factory Theatre, The Custard Factory, Gibb Street, Birmingham B9 4AA 8pm,£10 / £6

Charting the drama of our lives, Being Human presents thoughtful and passionate poems that will touch the heart, stir the mind and fire the spirit; poems about being human, about love and loss, fear and longing, hurt and wonder. Being Human is a dramatic performance of poetry drawn from the anthology Being Human (Ed. Neil Astley), published by Bloodaxe Books. Directed by Steve Byrne of Interplay with design and music from Talking Birds, it is performed by Barrett Robertson, Benedict Hastings and Elinor Middleton. After sellout performances in the Midlands in June, Being Human is now on a national tour and this is one of your last chances to see a show that audiences have described as ‘…an amazing theatrical experience’ and ‘absolutely stunning’. We think it is this year’s best poetry experience!

Copies of the anthology, Being Human, will be on sale during this event and at the Festival Pop-up Bookshop.

@BeingHumanPoet

Sun 7th Oct Buzzwords, Exmouth Arms,Bath Road Cheltenham, Gloucestershire GL53 7LX, 7pm Workshop, open mic plus Daniel Sluman

Tues 9th Spire Writes, Havana Whites, Chesterfield, 8pm, free in:
After a great gig from Chesterfield’s very own Matt McAteer in September, we return next month with two very special guests from further afield.

HELEN IVORY is a poet and artist. Her fourth Bloodaxe Books collection Waiting for Bluebeard is due in May 2013. She is an editor for The Poetry Archive and edits the webzine Ink Sweat & Tears. She teaches for The Poetry School, The Arvon Foundation, The Poetry Society and UEA. She is co-editor with George Szirtes of In their Own Words: Contemporary Poets on their
Poetry (Salt, October 2012)

MARTIN FIGURA is a photographer and poet living in Norwich where he works for Writers’ Centre, Norwich and Chairs Café Writers. His Collection and one-man-show Whistle (Arrowhead Press) was shortlisted for the 2010 Ted Hughes Award for New Work. He won the 2010 Hamish Canham Prize. A new pamphlet Arthur due out with Nasty Little Press in November. http://​www.martinfigura.co.uk/

As usual, there’ll be open mic slots (please let me know if you’d like to perform), doors open at 7.45 and we’ll finish in time for the last train back to Sheff. Havana Whites is two minutes from Chesterfield train station (or two seconds if you’re Usain Bolt).

FREE ENTRY so you can spend your money at the well-stocked bar instead…

Tuesday 9 October, CBSO Centre, Berkley Street, (Off Broad Street) Birmingham, B1 2LF,£10 / £6. 7pm
Caitlin Moran grew up in Wolverhampton. Her feminist handbook for modern times, How To Be A Woman, won the Galaxy Book of the Year Award 2011 and set the record straight on a number of important issues. Her new collection of writing, Moranthology, sets Caitlin free to talk about just about everything else. It proves that she is no slouch when it comes to wrestling with cultural, social and political issues, including ‘The Big Society’, Big Hair, The Welfare State, caravans, Doctor Who, binge-drinking, Downton Abbey, pandas, library closures and poverty (so, something for everyone, then…).

And if this level of top-rank wisdom wasn’t enough, we are delighted to welcome back to the Festival polymath, Birmingham resident and all round good bloke Stuart Maconie, a Patron of Writing West Midlands but more importantly author of brilliant books about our life and times, including Hope and Glory: A People’s History of Modern Britain and Pies & Prejudice.

Together, Caitlin and Stuart will talk about important stuff and manage to be high-minded and frivolous in equal measure. How to be a Woman and Moranthology by Caitlin Moran and Hope and Glory, Adventures on the High Teas, Pies & Prejudice and Cider with Roadies by Stuart Maconie will all be on sale at this event and at the Festival Pop-up Bookshop throughout the Birmingham Book Festival.

Supported by the new Library of Birmingham.

Wed 10th October at the Guildhall Theatre, Derby – Katy Cawkwell and Sarah Llewellyn Jones with “The Kingdom of the Heart” Book in advance and quote “Flying Donkeys” to get a special discount that brings it down to our normal Flying Donkeys ticket prices. (Book direct with Derby Live!)

Wed 10th oct Funny Women, Streetly Library, Blackwood Rd Streetly, 10.30-11.30 free in with Emma Purshouse and Win Saha

Wed 10th October, 2012,7.30pm, The Guildhall Theatre, Derby Live! Market Place, Derby, DE1 3AE. katy cawkwell (storyteller) and sarah llewellyn jones (cellist) – “the kingdom of the heart”

Thursday 11 Meet the New birmingham Poet laureate,Festival Bookshop, Birmingham Central Library Foyer, Chamberlain Square, Birmingham, B3 3HQ5 – 6pm

Thurs 13th Coffeehouse Poetry Open Mic, Shrewsbury Coffee House , Castle Gate, Shrewsbury with Ted Eames, 7.30pm, free in.

Thur 11th Carol Ann Duffy,Gillian Clarke at Glyndŵr University, Mold rd, Wrexham, 7.30pm,An evening of poetry with the Poet Laureate and the National Poet of Wales.

Mold Road, LL11 2AW

Sat 13th Oct 8th UK All Stars Poetry Slam at the Cheltenham Literature Festival . Twenty poets will contest the Qualifier at 3.30pm, with half a dozen places up for grabs in the Final at 8.30pm. Book early, as both events are likely to sell out quickly.

spielunlimited@gmail.com

Mon 15thGorilla Poetry – Poetry Evolution, Dada bar, Trippet Lane, Sheffield, S1 4El, (Off West St) 8pm (7.30 doors)

Wed 17th Speak Up, Bulls Head, Moseley: 7.30pm Nichol Keene and Toby De Angeli from Elephant Collective headlining. Cake, beanbags and sexy babes

Wed 17th Simon Armitage, Keele University, 7.30pm:
SIMON ARMITAGE: ‘Walking Home’ – – A cancer charity reading as part of Keele University’s 50th Anniversary Charter Year.

Please join Simon for a special evening of film footage and readings from his new bestselling memoir ‘Walking Home’, which describes his attempt to walk the Pennine Way as a modern troubadour. Travelling penniless, Simon relied on bartering poetry for his B&B and bacon butties while walking the 256 miles from north to south towards the Yorkshire village where he was born. Every night he gave free readings in village halls, churches, pubs and living rooms before passing round a walking sock and asking people to give him what they thought he was worth. As he discovered, this wasn’t always cash! Simon will also read from his acclaimed translation of the medieval poem ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, which is associated with Lud’s Church in the Staffordshire Moorlands. Simon will be available to sign books afterwards.

All proceeds to a hospital-based charity for women with breast cancer.

Venue: Westminster Theatre, Keele University, ST5 5BG
Tickets: £5 (£2.50): ring 01782 734169 or buy on campus at the Chancellor’s Building reception (cash please), Mon – Fri, 09.00-17.00

Thurs 1st NovThe Shrewsbury Coffeehouse,5 Castle Gates, SY1 2AE Shrewsbury 7.30pm:Emma Purshouse, Jane Seabourne and Nick Pearson, all published by Offa’s Press, will be reading.

Sun 4th Nov Buzzwords, Exmouth Arms,Bath Road Cheltenham, Gloucestershire GL53 7LX, 7pm Workshop, open mic plus Jo Bell

Mon 5th Slam Semi,Gorilla Poetry – Poetry Evolution, Dada bar, Trippet Lane, Sheffield, S1 4El, (Off West St) 8pm (7.30 doors)

Sat 17th Nov Book Launch, Will Buckingham, Simon Perril and Maria Taylor.The Crumblin’ Cookie,68 High Street, LE1 5YP Leicester,7.30pm: Come to the Crumblin’ Cookie for the book launch extravaganza of the year. An evening of poetry, fiction and fun, with novelists Jonathan Taylor and Will Buckingham, and poets Simon Perril and Maria Taylor. Between us, we will be launching four books: Maria’s poetry collection, “Melanchrini”, Will’s novel, “The Descent of the Lyre”, Jonathan’s novel, “Entertaining Strangers”, and Simon’s poetry pamphlet “Newton’s Splinter”.

Come for some or all of the evening: the event is free and the bar is open all evening.

Mon 19thGorilla Poetry – Poetry Evolution, Dada bar, Trippet Lane, Sheffield, S1 4El, (Off West St) 8pm (7.30 doors)

Sun 2nd Dec Buzzwords, Exmouth Arms,Bath Road Cheltenham, Gloucestershire GL53 7LX, 7pm Workshop, open mic plus Kate North
Mon 3rd Slam Final, Gorilla Poetry – Poetry Evolution, Dada bar, Trippet Lane, Sheffield, S1 4El, (Off West St) 8pm (7.30 doors)

Fri 7th Dec The 1st Cirencester Christmas Slam at New Brewery Arts Circencester, where first round poems will be themed, ho ho ho.Details:spielunlimited@gmail.com

Posted in Midlands Poetry What's On | 1 Comment

July August Poems

Posted on September 5, 2012 by garylongden

These months have been dominated by the Dig at Polesworth but a few others have crept in, taking in Bradley Wiggin’s tour de France triumph, and a moving visit to the German War Cemetery at Cannock Chase

In A Clearing

My name is Gary Longden,
It is 4/9/12
At the Deutsche Soldatanfriedhof
Cannock Chase

Minor roads bisect the pine forests
Myriad autumnal shades swamping
Every view, the turning could be missed

A sign declares the gates close at 4pm,sharp
A time that seems premature, well before nightfall
Sometimes life is like that

The outbuildings lie low, austere, tomb-like
Signage is minimal- but you know the way
Everyone does

A glazed panel stares out from reception hall gloom
Opaque glass reflects no sunbeams
Smooth one side , mottled on the other

Multiple ridges ripple in silent dissonance
Each indent the resting place of one
Of 5000 dead souls

Low slung doorways draw you to the Hall of Honour
And the twisted bronze corpse of the fallen warrior
Frozen in perpetual torment

Above a triangular concrete tent vaulted ceiling hangs
Supported by ugly pillars, no wind billows its lifeless sails
High walls offer little natural light to a monochrome howl

Six steps rise to a terrace, where the crews of four Zeppelin crews
Are buried together, as they fell
Looking down in death as they did in life

Outside, two verdant slopes blaze, sloping as a hull
The low valley floor a keel supported by lines of rib like graves
Whose journey is done.

Beauty and silence tower over all
Whilst worldly things cower
Watched by a simple cross

Lawn lies in perfect grass corridors
Cricket wicket width
Cushioning an even pace

Purple heather laps around Belgian granite
The face flat, the edges rough and unfashioned
As though torn from the bedrock

My fingers stuttered as they grazed the headstone
Caught by an uneven surface
And then we touched

His name was Kurt Raetsch
Buried in the Deutsche Soldatanfriedhof
Died 4/9/40.

Danger Perception

Travelling at speed at night
The cat’s eyes disappear
Into the dark void

On the left they illuminate red
Evenly spaced, appearing closer
Together in the distance
Until they just vanish

Yet they are ever present

Vive Les Rosbifs

Upon the occasion of Bradley Wiggins becoming the first Englishman to win the Tour de France in its 109 year history

In a blur of whirring spokes he did it
Defeating the French on their home soil
As Henry v had done before at Agincourt
His lamb chop sideburns taunting them

But in this hundred years war
Of cycling endurance
The King and Queens’ men
Had been found wanting
Until now

It was his turn to burn
Dans le maillot jaune
Leaving the peleton,
Long gone
Gasping in his wake

Three weeks in the saddle, across a nation it straddles
From Nice to the Pyrenees
From Epernay to the Champs Elysee
To reach the final summit

No tacks could puncture his ambition
No slope could flatten his spirit
As England now adores Le Tour
La France rises to celebrate his name
With “Allez Wiggo”, and a glass of champagne

Daybreak

A clear light brightened the dark water
Promising warmth to frost bitten stone
Teach me to hear the mermaids sing
The flapping beat of a dragon’s wing

Innocence is closing up his eyes
As clenched hands deal the final blow
Now at the last gasp of loves’ latest breath
Her farewell lingers on the morning breeze

I have completed what you desired
The deed is done, to be judged by God and eternity

Floor Tile ,Circa 16th century, Polesworth Abbey Dig

Solitary in kiln baked symmetry
Your underside bears the wounds
Of mortar roots, roughly torn from its bed
Sunlight sparkles over fractured veins
Remnants of green glaze, defiantly glisten

A fleur- de- lis splays for those
Who have fought, worked and prayed
In service to regents, long gone and yet to be
Exhumed to daylight glare
In fragmentary reveal

Your ridged recesses betray
Uncertain colours, long lost, in matt surround
An abused, bruised corner reluctantly flakes
But precise smooth sheer edges define your purpose
Your subterranean russet clay cries

To be interred, once more
From whence you came, in place.

The Archaeologist

Ask the time- and they look somewhat shifty
It could never be simply seven fifty
With their hats, beards and boots
In search of old loot
To them it is always 1950.

Don’t Touch

The ripped surface drops in sheer sondage
Cloying clay smearing my outstretched palm

Tough and tantalisingly moist unyielding
Its secrets held absorbed congealed
A slippery residue resists exploring touch

Brittle flaking sand flickers
Disintegrating from casual brush
Escaping my flaying grasp
To rest again

Light ash cushions tennis ball bounce no more
Unnatural vertical smooth rough textures teeter
Precipitously clinging

In varying degrees of decomposition
In abandonment

Stripped
Exposed to brutal light
Soft layers stripped in stripes
As cruel steel tears at healed ground

Delicate roots dangle, ripped
A torn comfort blanket, rumpled
Ruptured, crumpled

The disturbed interred
Shrinking and blinking
Glanced at in curiosity
In startled exposure

Defiled and painted in India ink
Remembered for a moment
In a catalogue, in a drawer
To be discarded ,its decay
Untroubled once more

Fragments Out of Time

The gabble from behind the Red Lion’s shut door reverberated
Stella clenched in hands rotund and stumpy
Allowing men to forget in meditations of excess
To loose the bonds of the accused , searching for soft peace
The bell tolls for all ghostly and bodily victories
Bringing light to the blind
Robbed of foolish painted things
To still survive in immortal song
Leaving echoes of Welsh hooves
Steadfast in the High Street
By his help and grace it is done

Timeless Flight

Roughly fired tiles still bake careless paw prints
Eager hands claw tense ground

From above glanced from grey heron path
Pedalling across an indifferent sky

White lily pads flutter in canvas murmur
Hinting at shadowed movement

Walls hunch hidden from Viking glare
Still crouched in silence

Enclosure breached by betrayed vows
No magnificat rises from stubby rubble

Earth which now takes no service only hears it
Absorbing fresh dead

Whilst rent ground lays bare
What we already knew once

Discarded

Spoil fed giant thistles sway,
Guardian sentinels of the past

Below ,black tarpaulin frays,
Under spewed weight
Its fringe like artificial whiskers
Touching now and then

Hanging off its pink painted axle
A plastic wheel rests
Almost consumed by weeds and nettles
In fading farewell

Palm up, a glove’s fingers stretch
Its ripped fabric partially enveloped

All lie waiting to be discovered

Archaeology

Find or fraud
Inside or outside
Above or below
This way or that
Now or then
It all depends

Wheel

Trenches radiate around
In pronounced symmetry

Ground lies punctured
By spade and trowel

The Abbey watches, hub to all
Where nuns seldom spoke

Diggers make inflated claims
For uncertain finds

Watching where they tread
Shoulders hunched and tired

Earth sand and robber rubble
Is turned once more

Whilst those who till the land
Pray for a good year.

Found in a Pit

I-phones, I – pads, I –mmac
To be cherished for a moment
For transitory gratification
Before technological stratification
Is assessed

X-Box
Commodore
Game Boy
ZX Spectrum

Whose exact order may be lost
Does Super Mario come before Lara Croft?

Flat screens larger than windows
Windows from which you could see
But not touch
A vision distorted
Of cracked glass
And broken discordant keys

The Roofers’ Dog
Paw prints from the past
Baked frozen by midday sun
An unwelcome feat

Pit Tip

Giant thistles sway
Wild sentinels of the past
Hover restlessly

Lost Foundation

Dormitory walls
Whispering prayers and secrets
In stony silence

Fleur de Lis Tile

Fading glazing now
Still bearing witness to those
Who worked fought and prayed

Line Call

Grey ash packed strata
Hears, no longer takes, service
Echoing above

Refectory Hearth

Stone fireplace keeps watch
Poets’ words flame and flicker
Their work not yet Donne

Sandals

Lost just underfoot
Simple sandals tap softly
But now there are none

The Dig

Nights’ shadows draw in
Dancing like crazy mourners
Over opened pits

Oak Lintel at the Stables

Your shoulders still strain
Under the weight of centuries
With well seasoned wood

The River Anker

Wrenched this way and that
To suit human caprice, the
Anker meanders

Bone Fragments

Reborn to light’s glare
Exhumed from dark interment
Cruel resurrection

Shattered Pottery

Random broken shard
Irregular memento
Your sharpness cuts deep

Dress Pin

Bronze dress pin dropped lost
Cast adrift from flowing robe
Recovered in awe

Font

Stone Baptismal font
Defaced by fragment’ry loss
Unquenched by water

Effigy

Osanna lies still
Hair smoothed by pilgrim’s touch
Bible tightly clasped

Polesworth Abbey

Ancient
Stones linger still
Held in forgotten walls
Amongst earthy robber rubble
Waiting

Egbert
Mercian king
Rested, then settled here
His divine, precious legacy
A saint

Ora
Proud devotion
Returns, a heard unheard
Whispering in lavender leaves
Once more

Fireplace
Still burning bright
Drayton Johnson and Donne
Whose omnipresent oration
Endures

Abbey
Weathered and worn
Closed enclosure now breached
Dissolution could not dissolve
Your stones

The Dig Pt 2

Nature’s fine weave lies breached
Brutal hands scour below
In ghoulish exhumation
In ground at rest no more

Each day the pits grow
Earth’s belly spewing its guts
Half, barely digested
Splattered over tables

The Anker washes silently by
Salving, cleansing its wounds
Of the twisting distorting agonies of centuries
Its course only now restored

A holy site, visited by saints
Gouged and disfigured
For us to read its entrails
In detached curiosity

Where nuns once keened
Where oblations once soared
Now the dull thud of spade in dirt
Now the shrill trill of trowel on find

Around the borders, patient trees watch
Boughs bursting with leaves
Waiting for their moment
They will not be denied

Upon the Exhumation of a Dress Pin circa 700 AD.

A bronze dress pin appears in the ground
Two World Wars resound
Queen Victoria’s Empire gains pre-eminence
American War of Independence
Guy Fawkes fails and pays the price
Leonardo Da Vinci dies
Christopher Columbus discovers the New world
Chaucer ‘s Canterbury Tales are unfurled
Genghis Khan’s Mongols rise again
Notre Dame dominates the river Seine
The walls of the Tower of London soar
Bears in Britain are now no more
The end comes for Alfred the Great
Vikings storm Lindisfarne to pillage and take
Osanna’s nunnery kissed by the waterside
The Anker’s flow slips and slides

The Anker’s flow slips and slides
Osanna’s nunnery kissed by the waterside
The Vikings storm Lindisfarne to pillage and take
The end comes for Alfred the Great
Bears in Britain are now no more
The walls of the Tower of London soar
Notre Dame dominates the River Seine
Genghis Khan’s Mongols rise again
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales unfurled
Christopher Columbus discovers the New World
Leonardo Da Vinci dies
Guy Fawkes fails and pays the price
American War of Independence
Queen Victoria’s Empire gains pre-eminence
Two World Wars resound
A bronze dress pin appears in the ground.

The Dig Part Three

Your face yields few clues
Except when you frown
And the wrinkles become rivulets
For sweat and tears
Which scour your skin
At once soft and hard
A pentimento exposed

Gouged, the detritus of years laid bare,
Discarded memories, cherished days
Disturbed and disjointed from where
They once laid, resting in situ

Sometimes they surface, disinterred
To be examined, dated, reassessed
Then reburied, if you are fortunate
Snug and neat

Sometimes they emerge broken
Disfigured from an uncertain time
Jagged, rough, still bleeding
Impossible to return, they just don’t fit

Others taunt, fraud or find
Their uncertain provenance
Seducing with specious allure
Wanting to be whatever you desire

And some lie rotting, barely recognisable
Half remembered only by their juxtaposition
With the rest, distorted and uncertain
Fading in decomposition

Remnants
What will survive of us?
A snapped twig crushed underfoot
On a woodland walk
Displaced grains of sand
Compressed by the imprint of our sole
Bruised wood on a door shoved open
And the torn peel
From a half-eaten apple


Discovered After I Am Gone

They found bones stripped of corpulent flesh
Rubbery composite tread
Abandoned by perished leather – size nine
Molars rough tended by dentists
Zip teeth grin in death grip
Eleven sixteen
A watch of cheap inconsequential value
Which was worn on that day not for its lustre
But for the value of the giving

Find

The Football grounds of England Wales and Scotland by Simon Inglis
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars by David Bowie
A grain of sand from Caswell beach
A Canaletto oil painting of La Canal Grande
A Pen
Hope

Fragments

At 6.32 Venice is quite still
Even the morning breeze holds her breath
Lest the sunlit beauty be disturbed
Or a ripple appear on the Grand Canal
No bird dare sing
In fear, in wonder

It appeared, a giant wall of black steel
Towering, defying the largest wave
Or coldest iceberg
To challenge her riveted wonder
A benevolent behemoth calling
To cradle me in her carcass

Posted in Poems | Leave a comment

Dig The Abbey – Part Four

Posted on September 1, 2012 by garylongden


Day seven, and our workshops of exploration drew to a close with a familiar , faithful retinue of regular poets in attendance sprinkled with some occasional visitors. The atmosphere was akin to that on a ship on the day of disembarkation, with an acknowledgement that the journey was nearing its end, and a desire to make sure that we made the most of the last few hours on board.

Our pilot for this final leg was poet, former archaeologist and canal skipper Jo Bell. By chance, as our journey was closing, so hers was beginning, as this was her first day divested of her responsibilities as Director of National Poetry Day. The entire poetic community in the country owes a debt to Jo who over several years has led national poetry day with enthusiasm, vigour and vim. She hands it over in rude health, and if the day is a pointer, has energy to spare as she applies the skills which made her past tenure such a success on new challenges and opportunities. We wish her well.

Jo Bell

I am, through experience, wary of workshops. Wary of poor leadership and poor value. Jo operates at the polar opposite of this scale. Organised, inspirational and focussed, she sets a demanding pace within an empowering framework designed to motivate, encourage and enable. I was astonished and delighted that the usual “I’m no good at writing in workshops/ this isn’t really finished” excuse train was banished to the sidings resulting in consistently impressive pieces being produced during ten minute exercises. Why settle for less?

Previous workshops had majored on fieldwork, touching, feeling, smelling, seeing, hearing and experiencing the archaeology first hand. Jo took a more cerebral approach asking us to consider archaeology as a metaphor for our existence. What six items might be buried with us to reflect our lives?:

Find

The Football grounds of England Wales and Scotland by Simon Inglis
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars by David Bowie
A grain of sand from Caswell beach
A Canaletto oil painting of La Canal Grande
A Pen
Hope

I liked the numeric restriction, the random selection of items, and the lack of ability to explain and expand upon their choice. They are what they are, just as archaeological finds appear without explanation leaving the finder to fill in the gaps. Six items, make of them what you will.

Next followed the question of what would remain of us if we died here and now, in Pompei style pyroclastic freeze-frame. It was a clever question, for it was immediate, it could not be written later, what would be left if we were to die now? It was a sobering thought, no grand designs, just the grey of haphazard ephemera:

Discovered After I Am Gone

They found bones stripped of corpulent flesh
Rubbery composite tread
Abandoned by perished leather – size nine
Molars rough tended by dentists
Zip teeth grin in death grip
Eleven sixteen
A watch of cheap inconsequential value
Which was worn on that day not for its lustre
But for the value of the giving

A lottery style draw of phrases and sentences to inspire and provoke produced a fortunate result as I drew Philip Larkin’s “What will survive of us………” which felt a natural progression from the previous exercise. Inevitably my mind raced into metaphysical contemplation, yet I rapidly found myself swamped in cliché and cod philosophy. John Donne , who had written and performed in that very room seemed to be cautioning ;“Don’t- unless its bloody good” (It wasn’t). But what if I were to answer the question counter-intuitively?:

Remnants

What will survive of us?
A snapped twig crushed underfoot
On a woodland walk
Displaced grains of sand
Compressed by the imprint of our sole
Bruised wood on a door shoved open
And the torn peel
From a half-eaten apple

When a site is excavated the location of the trenches and the depth dug are arbitrary – as are the finds. This poem mirrors that in snatches of my life:

Fragments

At 6.32 Venice is quite still
Even the morning breeze holds her breath
Lest the sunlit beauty be disturbed
Or a ripple appear on the Grand Canal
No bird dare sing
In fear, in wonder

It appeared, a giant wall of black steel
Towering, defying the largest wave
Or coldest iceberg
To challenge her riveted wonder
A benevolent behemoth calling
To cradle me in her carcass

More generally, the site, and dig has prompted me to see parallels between physical archaeology buried in the ground, and the cerebral emotional archaeology lying layered in our souls by experience and time. They were more closely related than I at first thought:

The Dig

Your face yields few clues
Except when you frown
And the wrinkles become rivulets
For sweat and tears
Which scour your skin
At once soft and hard
A pentimento exposed

Gouged, the detritus of years laid bare,
Discarded memories, cherished days
Disturbed and disjointed from where
They once laid, resting in situ

Sometimes they surface, disinterred
To be examined, dated, reassessed
Then reburied, if you are fortunate
Snug and neat

Sometimes they emerge broken
Disfigured from an uncertain time
Jagged, rough, still bleeding
Impossible to return, they just don’t fit

Others taunt, fraud or find
Their uncertain provenance
Seducing with specious allure
Wanting to be whatever you desire

And some lie rotting, barely recognisable
Half remembered only by their juxtaposition
With the rest, distorted and uncertain
Fading in decomposition

Which just about wraps up my writing, and experiences ,at the Polesworth Dig, 2012. The ground soon to be backfilled, what has been glimpsed for the first time in up to thirteen hundred years, maybe up to two thousand years, returned to darkness. A heritage day presentation of the groups’ writing, and Dig finds, takes place on Saturday the 8th, at the Abbey at 2pm.

But I cannot resist a postscript. This blog is read by over 1500 people a month, but the following, self –indulgently , will make sense to only perhaps two dozen people. This is a tribute to one of our senior group writers, Ray Jolland, a dignified, humble and talented writer who illuminated the sessions with his humour – and his songs. Thanks Ray:

Riff to Ray Jolland

If you like to dig, I tell you Ray’s your man
You win some, you lose some, it depends what’s in your pan

Ray’s the Ace of Spades,
Ray’s the Ace of spades

The pleasure is to play, it makes no difference what you say
If you tell him to write stuff, about old things and muck
He doesn’t give a fig, you’ll be right out of luck

Ray’s The Ace Of Spades
Ray’s The Ace Of Spades

He always knows the score, he’s been there long before
Writing without rhyme, is always such a crime
He’s the king of poetry and archaeology
The only thing you’ll see, you know it’s gonna be,

Ray’s The Ace Of Spades
Ray’s The Ace Of Spades

He can say it in a song
Coz blank verse is so wrong

Ray’s The Ace Of Spades
Ray’s The Ace Of Spades

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