Reviews of the Ephemeral

Posts Tagged ‘Anna Le’

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Review: Sage & Time’s 2nd Birthday 18/07/12

In End of year round-up, Performance Poetry on February 21, 2013 at 9:00 am

- reviewed by James Webster, Dana Bubulj and Koel Mukherjee -

s&t2

The Birthday Boy, um, Girl, um, Evening.

Regular readers will know I’ve hardly been restrained in my love of Sage & Time. The brainchild of Anna Le and home of the Dirty Hands collective, it has been a welcome mainstay of my spoken word experience and that’s why it was so lovely to attend its 2nd birthday party back in July. The evening had an uplifting celebratory feel that was reinforced by the various poems from both the regular and newer performers and it was all totally lovely.

No party’s complete without an excellent host …

The evening was hosted by the confident and fiercely warm Kat Francois, who was always quick to quip and jest with the audience. She focused us into rapt silence before the performances, and provoked rapturous applause after them; you can really see how her experience as a stand-up comic has honed her crowd-handling skills. Francois kicked things off with a machine-gun rata-tat of words explaining why she performs. It was a storm of a poem, stressing the importance of poetry, claiming her place on the stage and asserting her ownership of words. And ‘I Love Being a Woman’ was amazing fun, full of sing-song joy, sensual language, silly orgasm noises, and a perceptive take on the give-and-take of relationships (though it was a bit odd that a poem with that title was all about her relationship with a man). Top stuff.

The party’s welcome guests – highlights of the Open Mic

  • Mark ‘Mr T’ Thompson, S&T regular, kicked off the open mic with a quick and powerful flash of a poem on Usain Bolt, before giving us an incredibly sweet take on his youthful gawkish self’s inability to dance.
  • Elaine O’Neil then showed off her way with words with ‘Light Rail’. I really enjoyed how she penciled in the potential of the places railways can take you to, and she took us on a witty and intelligent journey from hope to capitalism.
  • The Wizard of Skill gave his usual madcap performance, full of amusing repetition and imaginative phrasing. Though, some might say that the repetition and disparate references that characterise his offbeat style sacrifices structure and progression.
  • Jazz Man John’s ‘Advice to Young Poets’ was a short piece on classic poets that was nicely witty (if a bit off-kilter).
  • Anna Em’s ‘Chain Letter’ was impressively haunting, had some good natural and supernatural imagery and some killer lines like “he counts his lost days on a calendar of broken dreams”.
  • Errol McGlashen’s ‘One Drop’ (inspired by Stephen Lawrence) was full of powerful rhythm, ranging across civil rights history to a brutal depiction of Lawrence’s death. It was powerful and chilling (and occasionally very funny).
  • Jill Abram performed ‘I have Forgotten my Father’, an endearingly nostalgic piece that was full of touchingly tiny remembered details that captured the miracle-magic that parents can make for their children.
  • Achilles read ‘My Finger’, an amusing take on technology making fingers obsolete that elicited ripples of laughter from the audience.
  • Richard Watkins had some wonderfully tinkly sing-song language in his piece that was a celebration of the mineral world and send-up of the material world. The point was a bit hackneyed, but it worked.
  • Tim Wells gave two poems, the first a witty ‘love poem to anger’, while the second was dedicated to girls his daughter’s age who date hipsters with “tight trousers, a weak moustache and pox” and was super-bleak, but much fun.
  • Koel Mukherjee’s ‘Love Poem to the Universe’ was a stunning mix of pure beauty and ultimate whimsy. Having started performing at S&T only recently, she had clearly grown massively in confidence to reinforce her heady talent with words.
  • Edward Unique’s piece ‘The Rainforests’ came together really well, mixing images together into a cohesive whole he sometimes struggles to achieve with his plurality of ideas.

The guests of honour – Features

  • Anna Le performed two pieces herself, the first ‘What is it?’ was an evocative and endearing description of walking into an open mic for the first time and segueing on to sum up some of the lovely things about Sage & Time (“S&T loves the jokes, but doesn’t need the happy every after”). And her ‘All the While’ was especially heartfelt on the night, its verse reaching out to you, the cadences rising and dropping just as you think it’s going to peak.
  • Lettie McKie: Lettie’s first poem was a humorous take on getting groped on the tube, which hilariously summed up a familiar feeling, but didn’t seem to offer any new/interesting perspective. That said, her performance (complete with amped-up middle class voice) was top notch.
  • While her second was a poem of two halves, the first essentially a very well constructed list of minor annoyances and first world problems that combined to blow each other out of all proportion. While the over the top hatred of life was fun, it didn’t really speak to me and felt a bit trite. The second half, however, was a lovely, soft and tender piece on the joy of words, friends and people’s differences and segued charmingly into congratulations for Sage & Time’s 2nd Birthday.
  • Keith Jarrett is a charming performer. Coupling intense and lush poetry with a winning stage presence, he started with an awesome piece made entirely of references to the previous performer’s poems that was a lovely and inclusive way to start his set. He also performed a fun, lyrical and accessible poem that was great on how the young construct their sense of selves and sense of ‘cool’ and also turned into a surprisingly good sing-a-long. It was rich with nostalgia and warmth and it really invited the audience into his reminisces.
  • Amy Acre continued the trend of poems celebrating Sage & Time with an immensely fun rap to introduce herself to the stage. She followed up with ‘Run’, a poem apparently inspired by a woman she met travelling in Nepal. Now … I’m usually wary of this kind of introduction, as far too often it leads solely to a vacuous poem that either reduces the locations talked of to mere exoticism or exposes nothing but the poet’s own privilege. However, this piece was a beautifully simple and incredibly powerful poem on gender disparity and the dangers of tradition for tradition’s sake that actually acknowledged the speaker’s own privilege along the way. Gorgeous stuff.
  • James Webster performed “Flat-Pack Lover”, his contribution to the Penning Perfumes collection of poetry inspired by different scents. The imagery was a rich, sensual, slightly quirky jumble, describing a personified piece of furniture, a warm, inviting, pinewood-and-brass lover. This was followed by a lovely tribute rooted in the there-and-then – “The House of Sage and Time” imagined Sage & Time as a home, the walls made of words that you could spend a hundred years reading, the spice cupboard full of sage, and the doors only open to those with “words in their hearts and fire on their tongues” – an electrifying statement of welcome and intent for anybody who loves poetry.
  • Peter Hayhoe … how do I even describe the ridiculous genius of his poem? He performed a poem that was pretty much his entire life in poetry form (all the way up to that very moment) and it was spellbinding. It was filled with geeky nostalgia, teenage doubts and plenty of jokes; a disarmingly honest and adorable performance.
  • Maddy Carty finished the night off with an ice-cool set of songs that we both perceptive and entertaining; a real treat for the ears.

Overall this was a warm embrace of an event. An inclusive welcome for the new, a celebration for the regulars, and a damn good party for all involved. While there were some poets I enjoyed more than others, the joy of Sage & Time is how inclusive and supportive it is of everyone and that tells in the ever-improving and enjoyable poetry its regulars perform. And this was such a fun night I’m already excited about the 3rd birthday!

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Top Spoken Word Moments of 2012

In Performance Poetry, End of year round-up, Festival on February 3, 2013 at 11:00 am

- listed by James Webster -

As the year is (fairly) recently ended and a new one begun, it seems a reasonable (ok, fairly late) time to round up some of the Spoken Word events and reviews that have made this such a successful year for Sabotage.

Top 5 Most Viewed

1. Edinburgh Coverage – by far and away the most viewed Spoken Word reviews were from Sabotage’s coverage of the Edinburgh Fringe. You can find them here: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4 part 1, Day 4 part 2, Day 5, Day 6 part 1, Day 6 part 2, Day 7 part 1, Day 7 part 2. Phew, that was a lot of reviews: special mention should go to the most viewed day featuring: Ben Mellor’s ‘Anthropoetry’, Lucy Ayrton’s ‘Lullabies to Make Your Children Cry’ and Phill Jupitus’s ‘Porky the Poet – 27 Years On’

2. Hammer & Tongue National Slam Final!  - a wealth of poets competing from all over the UK with Adam Kammerling emerging as the worthy winner and UK National Slam Champion.

3. WASTED – by Kate Tempest – Tempest’s first play blended theatre and poetry into a heady intoxication of words.

4. The Stoke Newington Literary Festival – a bevy of events, speakers and performers all descending on Stoke Newington in a myriad of Literary goodness.

5. Edinburgh International Women’s Day All-Female Slam – a brilliant idea to promote female poets in the Spoken Word scene in a medium still dominated by men.

My Personal Top 5

On a more subjective note, here are a few of the events that I’ve most enjoyed this past year.

1. Nth Entities by Anna Le and Phil Manzanera - I’ve long been an Anna Le fan, and hearing her complexly evocative language soaring around Manzanera’s dizzying guitar created a unique duet of words and music.

2. Hammer & Tongue Oxford: Valentine’s Day Slam featuring Dizraeli and Superbard – Sabotage didn’t actually review this one, but it was a phenomenal evening of wordplay, love and gorgeousness. Dizraeli’s set was stupefying in its verbal ingenuity and poignancy, while Superbard’s interactive love story was a monument to his storytelling prowess and creativity.

3. Once Upon a Time in Space by the Mechanisms – an event of storytelling and music, twisting well-known fairytales into a dark sci-fi setting that frightened and delighted.

4. Dirty Great Love Story by Richard Marsh and Katie Bonna – full of memorable characters, hilarious wordplay, and all tied together by the charming performances of two outstanding poets.

5. Word Wrestling Federation Presents: Page Match 2 - bringing together my love of poetry and professional wrestling in a way I didn’t think possible. For all its flaws, this night was great fun; full of posturing, put-downs, poetry and larger-than-life performances.

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Review: Sage & Time 23/05/12

In Performance Poetry on July 17, 2012 at 3:56 pm

-reviewed by Koel Mukherjee-

@ the Charterhouse

This edition of Dirty Hands’ Sage and Time promised two truly excellent featured poets in Keith Jarrett and James Webster (both of whom will be at Sage & Time’s 2nd Birthday this coming Wednesday 18th of July!), and the usual diverse open mic’ers and cheerful, inclusive vibe. This month the three minute time limit for the open mic was being enforced more strongly than I’ve seen before, but the informal-yet-emphatic way in which the rule was enforced was disarmingly funny and kept things light-heartededly flowing along.

On to the night’s poetry!  

  • Co-host Richard Marsh never disappoints.His peppy opening piece told the tale of a bespectacled lad out on the town (“I’m going to be the speccy James Bond tonight”), who has an encounter with a fellow four-eyed hottie. The piece’s fast, choppy rhymes, comic swagger and nerd pride, produced some gloriously terrible glasses-based puns ( “tonight I’m going to be my own Specsaver”). A truly spec-tacular start to the evening.
  • Esther’s accomplished “Travelling Light” was a beautiful, intimate meditation on death and grief, reflecting on a recent bereavement. The piece focused on vivid fragments of images and memories associated with the person who had died.  Threaded with these were more general thoughts on life and the reasons for the things that happen in it, which gave the poem an overall feeling of acceptance, calm and ultimately, empowerment, the poet resolutely urging us all not to forget that “life – this life – is for living.” This performance made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
  • Cezanne’s “Sex with the Ex” was a cheeky and fun cautionary tale against relapsing into sleeping with an ex. Some clumsy rhymes and corny phrases made it feel a bit clunky and flat, however her sheer relish and gusto made for an entertaining performance.
  • Lettie McKie issued acomically exaggerated call to arms for fellow sufferers under the yoke of anti-ginger prejudice, with a gradual morph into advocating ginger supremacy which was enjoyably sinister. However, emphasising the oppressed status of gingers by comparing it to that of every “she/he” (evoking a commonly used slur against transgender men and women), seemed highly unnecessary, and sat uncomfortably within the comic absurdity of the piece.
  • Lucy Ayrton has an expressive and versatile voice that is very good at animating what she’s performing. Her piece about a miserable corporate job she once had took us straight into the world of that office, conjuring mechanical office-phone-speak, the hollow enthusiasm she tried to feign, the acerbic disgust of how she really felt, the disapproval of managers, and the disappointment and sadness of unfulfilled dreams.
  • Elaine O’Neill wittily illustrated the complicated, merry-go-round bureaucracy of the NHS with some fun wordplay on hospitals / hospitable and doctors’ practices and surgeries / doctors practicing surgery.
  • Amy Acre’s “1.21 Gigawatts” reflected on the failure of a past relationship. An accomplished marriage of language and rhythm made this piece flow beautifully, packing it full of vivid imagery. And numerous Back to the Future / time travel references (including, of course, the title) presumably referencing an in-joke in the relationship, gave the piece a particularly intimate feel.

Featured Poets

  • Keith Jarrett is a wonderful performer. He knows his material inside out, to the point of complete mastery over every word, resulting in supremely well-judged pacing and tone that makes each piece so captivating he could draw you in just by reading the phonebook. (That said, his words are pretty great too, so there’s plenty to enjoy once you’ve been drawn in).
  • For sheer entertainment, my favourite of his pieces was “Midsomer Murdered”. This satirised the perspective of the Midsomer Murders producer who defended the show’s lack of ethnic minorities as representing “the last bastion of Englishness”.  The producer’s refusal to allow ethnic minorities the right to be murdered in his fictional village gets increasingly and absurdly comical as it references the famously ridiculous ways people are killed: “There will be … no pillows to smother you goodnight”, “no poisoned teas”, “You are too dark to stain these stable doors with your blood”. And, perfectly, “So shut up and live.” The deadpan sincerity of the delivery made this all the more hilarious.
  • “You’ve been writing poetry again” was the piece that had the most resonance in a room full of poets. This was a piercing self-examination that started out as light-hearted and playful, the poet chiding himself for his “dirty addiction to watching couplets form” and “urges to splurge your emotions onto innocent sheets”. Gradually though, it revealed deeper layers of self-doubt and suggestions that poetry is both his armour for dealing with “the cold daylight of the outside”, and an excuse not to. The piece ended on an exceedingly relatable self-rebuke for wasting time messing around with language while “cities riot and burn” and “there are too many wrongs to write”.
  • James Webster often exudes a sort of charming awkwardness on stage, which sits surprisingly well with the fierce intent and passion of much of his poetry. His style is at its best when performing a piece that combines strong emotional / political conviction with moments of playfulness and self-deprecation – it’s like seeing the different facets of someone’s personality reflected in their performance. His feature slot did come with added nervousness – which gradually dissipated as he got more into the set.
  • The highlight of his set was one of the highlights of the whole night, a searingly honest and raw yet entertaining poem imagining a conversation between the poet as he is today, and his younger self.
  • It worked because he really committed to the idea of such a conversation: there’d be disagreements and dislike, probably on both sides, but also similarities (it’s still the same person after all), probably some exchanging of advice and jokes, and you’d naturally want to compare notes on the worlds of the past and the future.
  • James’s poem contained all of these aspects, giving it a great mix of humour and emotional depth. The aspect that really drove the poem was present-James’s ruthless deconstruction of his former self’s “Nice Guy” self-image / entitlement complex. This harshness was coupled with some poignant life advice (“Stop treating life as a test/ We’ve already passed / We’re alive, and ace”) and tempered by comical nods to shared interests and differences between their past and future worlds. Despite its anger and disgust in places, this was ultimately a positive reflection on the ever-unfinished work of becoming the person you want to be. The piece’s lovely last line reflected this optimistic spirit: “we’ll stop worrying about being a nice guy, and start to worry about being a good man.”
  • I also enjoyed his long-lens take on the “we are the 99%” protest slogan. Pointing out that the consistent exploitation and subjugation of the many by the few is a recurring theme in human history, he declared, simply, “We want more”, more food, more of a voice, and “just a little more justice”.  A poem full of intense conviction and humanity that gave me goosebumps.

Conclusion A nice mix of regular and not-so-regular voices (all of whom I would have liked to mention), brilliant feature slots, a good range of styles, perspectives and subjects and a satisfying balance of humour and depth overall. Great poetry, great people and great fun.

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‘Nth Entities’ by Anna Le and Phil Manzanera – Poetry Album Launch

In Pamphlets, Performance Poetry on May 22, 2012 at 11:12 pm

@ The Charterhouse Bar

25/04/2012

- reviewed by James Webster -

On the Collaboration

Mixing poetry with music can be a tricky business. For every resounding success where the music sets off the rhythms and themes of the poetry and vice-versa (such as Kate Tempest’s Sound of Rum or Dizraeli’s Small Gods), there’s a smattering of poems set to music that do little to compliment either medium and seem to exist solely to fulfil the poet’s long-standing desire to be in a band.

Anna Le and Phil Manzanera’s Nth Entities happily slots into the first bracket, with Anna’s poetry roaming and diving through Phil’s rich and diverse music, each highlighting the strengths of the other.

It’s a collaboration born of mutual interests and, perhaps more importantly, mutual friends. Gavin Martin, who introduced the pairing at his ‘Talking Musical Revolutions’ event, gave a warm description of how he had met the two individuals and the part he played in bringing them together. It was a great intro that highlighted the role the various interlinked strings of their lives had started to intertwine (from Anna’s beginnings on the spoken word scene to Phil’s background with Roxy Music), making the collaboration seem the easiest and most natural thing, whilst also gently reminding us of all the little turns their careers had taken to bring about this album.

The Evening

The Charterhouse was packed, full of friends, long-standing admirers/fans and family, making for a welcoming and friendly atmosphere (though the sheer number of people standing in the room did make things a little sweltering).

The event was gracefully hosted by Richard Marsh who needed only the gentlest of touches to set the night in motion and guide it along. He gave a charming welcome, doing what was needed then humbly letting their work speak for itself.

The Music highlighting the Poetry

From the moment Anna and Phil started their first piece ‘All the While’ it was clear that Manzenera’s guitar (alternately cheerfully jangly and mournfully ambient) was an excellent companion to Le’s powerful verse, the constant rhythm of his music grounding the poem, just as his occasional wail of strings washed over it. Anna’s repetitions of ‘continuously’ were very effective in settling the poem into the music’s beat, while her words pulsed with Phil’s lower bass notes in a poem that described the beat of a life both everyday and beautiful. The music’s reverb highlighted such lines as ‘reverberations, bamboozlements, a bomb or two’ and after the closing line of ‘I am continuously, all the while continuously … inescapably falling in love with you’ the music’s flow swelled and broke like a wave washing over the audience, driving home Anna’s words.

‘Nth Entities’ was similarly excellent, Phil’s guitar reverb’ing soft thunder that Anna’s voice rolled over, before Phil’s beat began to build dangerously beneath her. It’s Anna’s love poem to everything that has made her herself, explaining that she ‘come[s] from many rivers’, that she ‘season[s] everything with anything I can think of’, and Phil repeats a nice harmonious chord throughout that emphasises each different current of the rivers that have made her. And as Anna weaves her words around the music, announcing ‘I am the nucleus of my destiny’, Phil builds the music into a discordant storm around her voice, ending in a simple heart-like beat.

‘Mountaintop Dreaming’ was possibly the only piece where I felt the music added little to Anna’s excellent poem on race, politics and Black History Month. Starting with the amusing idea of a computer virus “from Enoch Powell corrupting [her] PC” asking her “why an entire month is dedicated to black history?”, it ranges onwards in a complex dissection of Black History Month’s importance in helping our society get to a stage where we no longer need something as potentially patronising as Black History Month, describing it as another “jagged piece of the perplexing puzzle”. The music for this piece took a necessary back seat, retreating into a more relaxed kind of easy listening that let the poem make its point (which was needed), but adding little other than (possibly) a bit more urgency.

The Poetry highlighting the Music

In ‘Jimi’ Phil’s Hendrix-esque guitar riffs and soaring solos took centre stage, while Anna’s words formed a steady build and backbone of the piece. Phil’s guitar work really summoned the spirit of Hendrix to the audience, while Anna’s lyrics matched the riffs with effective repetition (a particularly nice moment was the “his-his-his-his-his-history” repetition that echoed the barely constrained ‘dum-dum-dum-dum’ of the guitar) and mirrored the solos with her aspiring and spiralling wordplay and impressive vocabulary. And as the cascade of guitar span into silence, Anna left us with the simple words “James Marshall Hendrix, music misses you.”

‘Scratch’ was another poem where Manzanera was given free reign to play music (clearly inspired by Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry) with real swerve and sway to its rhythm, getting the whole audience swaying their hips in time. It’s appropriate that Anna talks of Perry’s “musical voodoo” just as Phil is employing some pretty powerful melodic mojo himself; while Anna’s verses spin on between the music, providing us with a moving and imaginatively described biography of Lee Perry’s life and the “simplicity that made his approach complex”. My only criticism is that the words get a little bogged down in the details of his life, but this may be necessary to allow the music to take the forefront.

‘Lego Limbs’ was a poem transformed by the music. Always a hugely sweet poem, the Dylan-like quality that Phil gave to the jangly guitar, complete with harmonica, really set off the whimsical beauty of Anna’s piece about getting to know a new lover through the night-time wrestle of trying to get comfortable (the lover tells her “wouldn’t this be easier if we had limbs of detachable lego?”). The jauntiness of the music perfectly set off the comedy and romance of the poem, and it was very impressive how Anna’s words were detached from each other to fit around the music, just like the ‘Lego Limbs’ she’s talking about.

Buy this Album

Is the only conclusion I can come to. It’s a great mixture of different styles of music blended seamlessly with Anna’s powerful, funny and moving verse. It’s clear a lot of love and care has gone into making it work this well.

It’s available in a truly gorgeous book/cd combo that has the text of the poems, lovely intro’s from Phil and Anna, and all the poetry and music on CD. It’s also available to simply download (at a much cheaper price).

If you like the sound of this then Anna’s regular poetry night Sage & Time resumes tomorrow night at 7.30pm at the Charterhouse Bar in Farringdon. Be there.

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Sage and Time @ The Charterhouse Bar 22/02/12

In Performance Poetry on March 19, 2012 at 6:00 pm

- Reviewed by Dana Bubulj -

Perhaps it was the weather that kept this night to an intimate gig of fewer people than usual, which is a shame, as it was another event of the fantastic standard that we are used to with Sage and Time.

Hosts

The hosts opened each half with their own poems, setting the tone of the evening with effusive introductions to both the open mic poets and the excellent features.

  • Richard Marsh’s take on the bizarre love between two people at the gym, each embodying each other’s ideals was a nice opening to an evening whose theme seemed love-bent. It’s a shame he forgot sections, but with asides like “basically, it turns out she likes him too” to continue the narrative, he acquitted himself admirably.
  • Anna Le‘s All The While was a tender take on love whilst the world continues. She acknowledges politics and injustice (“teachers not renumerated”) and in doing so, the declaration becomes more powerful for not being rose-tinted. There’s a beautiful calm, amidst the “commotion” of the world, where the poet is “inescapably falling in love with you”.

Features

  • Dean Atta has a great stage presence, performing his confessional poetry with confidence. His sensual first poem was about Grindr in Italy, where “new technology found intimacy…in an ancient city”. His second, My Love, (5th Draft),was a delicate portrayal of feelings not ready to be pinned down. As a “manifesto of love”, I Don’t Want To Write You Poems, also sought to define feelings with a lovely mix of ephemeral messages left on mirror steam and physical demonstrations.
  • Mother Tongue is an interesting one about not sharing his mother’s first language (Greek), leaving him an outsider when “forgetting to translate”. I loved the line: “our mother has swallowed her tongue”.
  • This is not supposed to be Therapy was a great take on the expectations placed upon us by both society and ourselves. Congenially taking us through familiar doubt (“I am a leader… right?”), Atta turns away from what we’re “supposed to do” as a way to define the self, vowing instead to do so individually by “any app necessary”.
  • He finished with the poem that brought him most into the public eye via Youtube (& now iTunes), “I am nobody’s nigger”: a commentary on language (“don’t tell me it’s a reclaimed word”) in relation to racially incited violence (“that’s one of the last words Steven Lawrence heard”). It’s performed passionately, with stirring references to ancestry and the slave trade, finishing elegantly: “call me nigger cause you’re scared of what brother means”.
  • Deanna Rodger was an exuberant performer whose work is very rooted in her past.  My favourite begins: “I always get asked, where’re you from?”. It’s a great take on the frustration of growing up in London, steeped in British culture while also (and more visually apparent) “a product of miscegenation”.
  • Her main focus is her youth, mostly in its innocence. In her 22 Now and 22 to 19, she we see her hanging out after school, mooching with friends on routemaster buses like “fresh princesses” with a breathlessly sincere nostalgia that that certainly took a few of the audience back. Young love doesn’t escape her canny gaze: from the plausibly confused 1432, complete with premature declarations “slipping out as easily as he slipped in” to the obsessive Love Ambitions (I liked wanting to be their student ID  “so you need me to get into the library”, and that she peppered her delivery with interjections like “I feel like a stalker!”)
  • Turning to the present were two poems: If Chloe Can and Nowadays. The former, about a young girl’s shattered self esteem, was earnest and hopeful. Nowadays tackled contemporary apathy in a heartfelt plea for people to once more pay attention to the world around them (“who cares about voting nowadays?”) While not new in content, it was passionately performed and a great close to her set.
  • Peter Hayhoe and Sarah Redington performed Dalston, a poem accompanied by music. Descending into Someone Like You worked, but could have been more effective in a smaller dose for those inured to Adele. I enjoyed most the poem’s performative aspect: its emphasis on the act of story-telling (“I say, ‘your coffee is getting cold’”), complete with distinctions between on truth and might-have-beens: “Pause. This is not a true story…The real story involves…”

Open Mic

  • Richard Purnell spoke of the N word in rap music as a white fan, addressing its contribution to the vilification of black people in society. He could have been more fluid and the beginning section (“what rhymes with…”) was horrifically awkward.
  • Lettie McKie performed three sonnets of which the third, about her elderly neighbours, was the most powerful, starting from a lovely first line “before the hospital, he always slept beside her”.
  • Edward Unique‘s Valentine’s Day poem, in the interests of balance, had a clearly defined three part structure, but alas lines like “she said I’m too nice for her” and “[it was left for] the nice guy to sweep up your stupidity”, left a bitter taste.
  • Joshua Seigal‘s AA Milne-esque Kid’s Poem about bullying was appropriately simplistic with a comic twist. His adult poems displayed an extensive vocabulary, with fast paced patter strewn with literary terminology. Camden Town was my favourite, conjuring peacefully stoned hipsters with “hours to shoot from the sky like ducks”. He is up in Edinburgh this year with We all love Llamas!.
  • Ben Newberry’s character pieces were nice enough: my favourite was “Royal Oak” a nod to the old guard of traditional pubs, less transient than their surroundings.
  • Sophie Cameron‘s modern fairytale of a Prince and his poor yet “ridiculously attractive” squeeze certainly uses some visceral imagery. Juxtaposing love that “transcends all bounds” with raucous sexuality (“and by swooned I mean he wanked his dick off”) Her second poem, “I am a posh cunt” set up a familiar straw man who likes oysters “because they’re expensive rather than their taste”.
  • Jethro performed three sombre poems, only one of which was his own. His delivery suited  Tennyson better than  Keats, but was best for his own, Time Passes, a lament for his lost brother who feels “just a moment ago”.
  • James Webster performed two poems: Fate (a little spoilt by phone scrolling), about unexpectedly meeting and bonding with someone not seen in years, (“not inevitability but an extra glass of wine”). The second was nicely done, filled with entreaties to “listen” to poetry “beneath the skin”, in its beats of “iambs and trochees”.
  • Keith Jarrett, finished the evening with two poems: an uplifting old favourite that with, fluid plays on words, takes on political slogans, making them his own for people who “believe in change but [are] still short changed”. The main argument of I do not believe in casual sex was that there’s “no such thing” because “casual suggests ease”. Its playful conclusion, “however…I do believe in a damn good time…”, lightened what could have been interpreted as overt moralising.

To conclude: Fantastic night. More soon, please.

There will indeed be more, coming up soon on the 28th of March! – Ed

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Poetry Jam @ The Tea Box 13/01/2012

In Performance Poetry on February 26, 2012 at 12:26 am

- reviewed by Claudia Haberberg -

By the time I arrive at the Poetry Jam, the Tea Box is already full to bursting. Had my friend not arrived some time before me, I wouldn’t be able to sit down. The organisers – Anna Le and Amy Acre, of the equally popular Sage & Time – seem surprised and delighted in equal measure by the event’s evident success. With the mix-and-match antique aesthetic of the venue, the breathless excitement of the hosts, and the occasional delays as poets clamber over each other in order to reach the microphone, the atmosphere of the event can be best described as adorably shambolic.

The Poetry Jam plays host to a rich variety of poets, from the completely uninitiated (such as John, who has never read at an event before and brings us a collection of lunch hour limericks), to spoken word veterans such as Peter Hayhoe and tonight’s featured poet, Niall O’Sullivan, who runs Poetry Unplugged at the world famous Poetry Café.

  • O’Sullivan brings us excerpts from his most recent endeavour, The Mundane Comedy, written in terza rima and modelled on Dante’s Divine Comedy. The title says it all. O’Sullivan covers racism, class prejudice, open mic night culture and the Star Wars franchise with his characteristic brand of world-weary sardonicism that can, when mustered, pack a powerful punch. The Star Wars poem may have been ill-judged for a middle class, largely middle aged audience of poets, but the geekier, pop-culturally aware among us certainly enjoyed its forays into meme. He maintains that the greatest weapon against prejudice is humour. This might be subject to debate, but it certainly makes for an entertaining set.
  • The evening had an unofficial theme of specular poems, a form which Amy Acre uses to great effect in The Ends of the Earth. The first stanza paints a portrait of an ordinary Nepalese woman – whom Acre met whilst travelling – and the second turns it, both literally and figuratively, on its head. Acre’s flawless delivery, the rich colours and deep brush-strokes with which she paints, and her thorough grasp of form make this poem deeply compelling and a joy to hear.
  • Vanessa, we’re told, has come up from Bristol to be with us tonight, and I hope her journey was as worthwhile for her as it is for the audience. Her poem, Strawberries, is an achingly beautiful, sweetly nostalgic, charmingly awkward and very funny vignette of first love, centring around the taste of strawberries, the heat of the summer, and the differences between Bob Dylan and Aretha Franklin. [I believe this is Bristol-based poet Vanessa Kisuule, ed.]

The evening also brings us a promising young poet in the form of Ameen Outspoken, who reads I Know Nothing, a thoughtful elegy on learning, reading and politics. His smooth delivery, pulsing rhythm, and engaging subject matter make him one to watch for future events.

We are also treated to a promising older poet, Terry, to whom age has brought cynicism and wit in equal measure. He is great fun, with subject matter ranging from doctors humouring their older patients to a workaday romance.

Peter Hayhoe is the final poet of the evening. Sabotage has not been recalcitrant in his praise in the past, and this review is no exception. He presented us with a poem, freshly written that day, about a festival romance. He juxtaposes the mundane (the morning after the night before) and the magical (emotions soaring as new love begins), the joyous (the experience of live music) and the grotesque (festival toilets), to form a funny, charming and engrossing whole. It gave the night its perfect cadence.

An open mic night is always hit-and-miss, and Poetry Jam is no exception. We hear the clumsily rhymed, curmudgeonly first world problems of Julia and Jan, and MC Little Mo and Edward Unique have little more than misogyny to offer. But the best poets of the evening are more than capable of eclipsing them, and I leave with a smile on my face and tea in my belly.

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Last Sage & Time of 2011

In End of year round-up, Performance Poetry on January 5, 2012 at 1:59 am

@ the Charterhouse Bar, 16/11/2011

- reviewed by Koel Mukherjee -

Review of the last Sage and Time of 2011

This was my third time at Sage and Time, and the last event of the year, and that sense of community, supportiveness and general good humour that makes this event so special was very much in evidence, with poets referencing each other and the event itself in their pieces, and plenty of laughs throughout the night.

Hosting:

  • Hosting duties were split between accomplished poets Richard Marsh and Anna Le (both members of the Dirty Hands poetry collective), and the obvious friendship and sense of fun between these two set the tone for a relaxed and welcoming night.
  • Richard Marsh kicked the night off with a sweet, whimsical tale of two misfits who find love at the gym. His characters were touchingly relatable and vividly rendered by a fluid, engaging delivery. As a host, he’s charming, always taking the time to compliment and engage with each performance, picking out a line he likes, or making a friendly joke.

  • Anna Le hosted the second half, and as always I was struck by the obvious passion with which she introduces performers. Her introductions are both a rousing welcome, and a great anticipation-builder.
  • She performed a piece of her own called “Spine”, which I loved, an exploration of courage, fear and determination animated by a mesmerising delivery that used dynamics and careful pacing to great effect.

Open mic highlights:

  • Stephanie Dogfoot’s ‘Equus’ was a wonderful expression of sisterly love and support. It had its share of serious, grown-up emotional content, but masterfully set against the surreal backdrop of childhood –the bizarre worlds that people who have grown up together create, complete with burnt teddybears and clown phobias. Through this lens of shared imaginings she made the serious, adult crisis at the heart of the poem achingly poignant: A surreal exploration of the intense, enduring, and weird nature of sibling love.
  • Donall Dempsey’s ‘A Bridge Is Only A Bridge When…’ imagined a woman’s parting words at the end of an unpleasant marriage. The elegantly phrased poem compared the failed relationship to the striking image of a “half-built bridge, silhouetted by sunset” but “startlingly surreal in its unfinishedness”. He also performed an intimate tribute to his partner Janice’s philtrum (the little cleft between your nose and lip, non-anatomists!), re-imagining it beautifully as “the indent left by the finger of God.”
  • The Janice in question was Janice Windle, whose own pieces were imbued with an elegant, conversational delivery.  One of them was a companion piece to Donall’s, which declared, “I’m in love with your mandible, darling” which concluded an affectionate exchange.
  • Among James Webster’s pieces was an unexpectedly touching musing on his ideal superpower. He would choose to be “quietly super”, with the power to find lost things, especially people. Acknowledging that he wouldn’t be able to take them home, he’d be glad, at least, to “give them someone to talk to”.
  •  Amy Acre’s gorgeously life-affirming “love poem to the sea” was one of my favourites.  “As old men talk to their dogs”, she talks to the sea, and the sea both sets her free and inspires her to love of all the messy wonder of life; from dandelions and dragonflies to the delight of Sage and Time itself. It was intensely sensual and personal; proclaiming the “red earth” as her church, she let us glimpse her relationship with the world. And did so with a graceful, inspiring passion that made me want to run to the nearest beach, take my clothes off and dance around naked in the sea.
  • During Keith Jarrett’s inspiring performance of ‘Parting Words’ I had to work to keep my tearducts from boiling over into undignified spillage. Masterful use of repetition and assonance gave the piece a mesmerising, mantra-like quality, while his quietly determined delivery complemented his perfectly measured pacing. A resolutely optimistic self-reminder to not be defined or limited by one’s postcode, by one’s past, or one’s fear of the future – something I’m sure most of us need from time to time. Keith Jarrett is awesome.

Featured Performers:

  • The first featured poet of the night was Sh’maya, an engaging performer whose first piece was a meditation on ancestry, history and loneliness developed from the image of a tap-dancing boy on city streets, rendered with a passionate, electrifying delivery and skilfully imbued with a sense of urgency and movement.
  • Sh’maya’s second poem was about a quest to find the most beautiful word in the world. His protagonist imagined travelling around the world, meeting different people who suggested different words with special meaning to them and their lives. Full of potential, but the poem was seriously hobbled by the cliché-riddled depictions of some of the characters, which often verged on patronising stereotype. The worst offender was a depiction which verged on romanticising suffering: a childless woman standing on a Kenyan beach looking yearningly out to sea, clinging to the hope of a child, proclaiming the most beautiful word to be ‘yearn’. As if she (and therefore, the poet) were revelling in her misery. The problem was not the attempt to give a voice to diverse characters, but that they did not sound like real people with real ugly and beautiful life experiences, rather, magical props placed where they were for the sole purpose of providing Sh’maya’s protagonist with a story (and in the woman’s case, a means of transport). This was intensely problematic.
  • The second featured act, Anthony Joseph, was new to me. And he blew me away.
  • Joseph read pieces from his collection Bird Head Son, “an autobiography in verse”, and a few more from his latest, Rubber Orchestras. His poems ranged from touching character portraits, memories of childhood and experimental jazz-poetry, to musings on family heritage and history against the backdrop of colonialism. A prose excerpt about a future colony of Afro-Caribbean people on an alien planet, from his novel The African Origins of UFO, was infused with vivid detail that brought to life the Caribbean cultural roots of the community while retaining the extra-terrestrial, futuristic strangeness of the setting (where exist such wonders as “surrealist butter”).
  • His startling, inventive use of language, vibrant musical delivery and persistently brilliant animation of memory, place and history were a constant delight.

Sum-up:

Anthony Joseph (the crowning moment of the night for me) talked about the need for poetry to be more than flat words on a page, to be alive and affecting, and like all good poetry events, this night of Sage and Timey goodness was full of that. Brisk-moving waves of poets inviting the room into their worlds. While not every performer was as compelling as Anthony, the night was still packed with strong, inventive voices (not all of whom I could mention here sadly) and by the end of it I was filled up with poetry – with language, ideas and glimpses into people’s personal universes, their senses of humour, their stories, the inside of their brains and hearts and marrow. A fitting finale to Sage and Time’s 2011.

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Sage and Time’s First Birthday @ The Charterhouse Bar 27/07/11

In Performance Poetry, End of year round-up on August 23, 2011 at 12:11 am

-Reviewed by James Webster and Dana Bubulj-

I haven’t exactly been reticent on my love of Sage and Time. It’s a fantastic night run by Anna Le and the consistently jaw-dropping Dirty Hands collective.

And it was a charming celebration. Poets were welcomed individually, always with a smile and often with a hug, reminding me what makes S&T such a nurturing environment. Included in the ticket price was a glass of wine and a slice of cake, so we could all toast S&T’s first year in style, and the evening featured a smorgasboard of poetic talent with 29 poets performing in total. It was an extravaganza of poetry; a night filled with verse, love and the supportive atmosphere that makes Sage and Time so special.

The Host

  • Kat Francois was, um, wow. She brought this brazen energy and engaging off-the-cuff comedy to the evening. Some of her quips could’ve been horrendous if done by someone with less charisma, but, boy, does she make it work.
  • And her poem where she asserted ‘I’m a poetry whore’ was an insightful take on performing, with great rhythm to her sing-song delivery. She summed up how the microphone is a portal into you, but also a shield between you and the audience; how performing makes you the centre of attention, but also so nakedly vulnerable. In her capable voice, simply repetitions became repeated gasps leading up to the final ‘just so I can breath.’ Like many poets, she dedicated her poem to Anna Le. ‘Cos Anna’s lovely.

Odes to Sage and Time

A goodly number of poets performed pieces inspired by S&T itself. With excellent result.

  • Will Stopha: A former host of S&T, his beautiful phrasing was a loving and clever look back, referencing so many of the poets who helped make S&T the success it is. He’s giving up hosting duties for now and it was a touching goodbye.
  • Anna Le: Anna’s poem ‘Beautiful People’ again referenced a lot of the S&T regulars, and it summed itself up sumptuously. Anna, like the people she referenced, made ‘verbs do things verbs don’t usually do’. I was tempted to just ask her for a copy of the poem and post that instead of this review.
  • Richard Marsh: His repeated rhyme on Anna Le’s name was an amazing embrace of a poem for Anna, the S&T poets and poetry itself. Joy.

Assorted Poets

  • Mr G’s poem on the Olympics, on Jesse Owen ‘the Running Man’ was flowing, strong, and used the Olympics as an effective metaphor for political unrest.
  • The Wizard of Skill’s my radio was typical of his style. Loudly and confidently performed, lots of repetition, and I’m sure there’s a point hidden there somewhere.
  • James Webster’s ‘That’s Why the Lady is a Cunt’ was delivered with passion and earnestness, but his delivery was stilted and would’ve been better if he’d learnt the poem.
  • Kai Kamikaze’s ‘Heroin Diaries’ was very evocative of his time ‘living on bastard street’, but I feel there could’ve been more to it.
  • Did I mention that I love Donall Dempsey and Janice Windle? Because I do. They’re fast building a reputation as the first couple ofLondonpoetry. And their combined set really showed off their interplaying verse and personalities. From Donall’s ‘Kiss Kiss and Cuddles Man’ (as all the good superheroes are taken) to Janice’s joyously near-explicit poem on the sex you shouldn’t have above the age of 40, they are riotously lovable.
  • Vanessa’s emotive ‘lunchtime playground romance’ was a thought-provoking poem on childhood serenity and bullying; it had a great flow and fiery delivery.
  • Richard Marsh’s second poem (see above) made one thing clear: he likes fools. It was an empowering and charmingly clever rallying call for the fools of this world. ‘Rejoice, you mucky-faced adventurers’ indeed.
  • JazzMan John is part of the S&T fixtures. His ‘July Poem’ was spat out with driving momentum, an ode to anyone in need of an ode. Frankly I was disappointed that we didn’t all run out and commit immediate acts of civil disobedience.
  • Jethro’s piece about an audition from the POV of a pretentious director deftly combined a plethora of meaningless theatrical jargon, but didn’t quite come alive for me.
  • Peter Hayhoe was one of many to spank, sorry, thank Anna Le for putting S&T together. ‘Pinch’ was a poem for fighting for your place and finding it. It did make me want to ‘grab [my] pen and paper and go to war’.
  • Mark Thompson’s ‘Dance for Dancing’s Sake’ was at once both beautifully awkward and at one with its own rhythm. He hosts Bang Said the Gun, by the way.
  • Katy Bonna’s ‘Organs’ was a highlight, on the idea of two peoples’ hearts and minds sneaking off together. Its irregular beat beats in compliment to the theme, backed up by some choice words.
  • Lionheart was odd. Some truly original imagery was coupled with hyperbolic bitterness and it seemed his poem could be summed up as ‘other guys don’t respect you, but I respect you, so why aren’t you sleeping with me?’ Also see: Nice Guy TM.
  • Anna Le claimed not to be very good with words. She lied. She performed “I am Many Rivers’, the first poem I ever heard her perform and the reason I came to Sage & Time in the first place. I loved it then and I love it now. Her language, her delivery, it’s delectable, personal and personable. You can feel the rivers of culture and history that she speaks of flowing through her voice.
  • Lisa Handy managed to fake an orgasm onstage and have it not be embarrassing. Her poem was sexual and explicit, without being sleazy, her words were loaded, dripping with tension, and felt like she was caressing you with poetry (and I don’t think I know her well enough to be comfortable with that).
  • While Amy Acre was performing, a bottle of champagne spontaneously erupted. I’m not even exaggerating, that happened. Her first poem where she affirmed ‘this, poetry, this is mine’ was a poem ingrained in the bone, a shout of joy for having a voice. I’m surprised all the champagne didn’t pop.
  • Will Stopha was armed only with his own beat-boxing and a ‘key-chordian’ and performed some layered poetry/music/audience interaction hybrid, recording the audience and playing them back as his own chorus. Amazing rhythm, wording and content; he made me believe London is indeed a city that’s ‘got more ideas than pigeons’. Top drawer.

In the end

I wish I could fit all the poets into this review. Sadly, I can’t, so what you’ve read is a brief summary of the highlights of S&T’s first birthday. It was a magically inclusive night. While I can’t say all of the poets wowed me, most of them did.

And that’s all I really hope for. Plus a little bit more.

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