Reviews of the Ephemeral

Posts Tagged ‘Paul Askew’

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Poetry in the Parlour – Oxford International Women’s Festival

In Performance Poetry on March 13, 2012 at 4:14 pm

@ Blackwell’s

07/03/2012

- reviewed by James Webster -

So last week it was International Women’s Day, a wonderful day where many celebrate the women who have impacted positively upon their lives and the world in general, and to take a look at womanhood and the ongoing struggle for true equality. I decided to celebrate it a day early by heading over to Poetry in the Parlour, an event featuring several of my favourite feminist poets, at the Oxford International Women’s Festival. Featuring some wonderful poets, book readings and folk music, it was a thought-provoking and entertaining look at feminism, sexuality and equality.

  • Lucy Ayrton, co-host of Oxford Hammer & Tongue (next event tonight in the Old Fire Station), hosted and opened the show.
  • Sabotage have seen Ayrton a few times before, and it’s a credit to her intricate poetry and her engaging style that every time I see her perform I find something new to like about her poems. ‘Fuck You Corporate Land’ remains funny as ever, but in a more contemplative setting the crushing daily depression of having to chisel and change yourself to conform to expectations was much more poignant.
  • ‘Bonfire Juice’ is always good for its sense of fun and nostalgia, but it’s also a complex piece where fond remembrances are tinged by sadness and relationships are difficult and varied. The way it invokes taste and smell (in this case of Lapsang tea) is also very powerful and cleverly done.
  • ‘I Want Never Gets’ has long been one of my favourite of Ayrton’s poems, a smoothly performed piece that uses lightning quick rhymes and ongoing repetition to decry social injustice. Lucy’s blend of comedy, tongue-twisting linguistic acrobatics, complexities and powerful social messages all come across wonderfully here.
  • Dan Holloway’s poetry makes me sad in a good way. ‘Monsters’ was a bereft feeling journey through streets filled with society’s detritus, drawing parallels between different groups society deems monstrous or undesirable, from street violence to men in suits who ‘took the arteries of hope and opened them and let a generation bleed out’. A powerful and pulsing piece on how ‘the only monsters on these streets are the ones we choose to see’.
  • ‘Her Body’ is more heart-breaking each time I hear it. A startlingly gorgeous piece on a person’s death being appropriated as a ‘theme park for ideologues’ and their body being turned into a metaphor. As Holloway points out the real truth is ‘far higher’ and her body is just that.
  • ‘Mentalist’ was probably the poem of Dan’s with the strongest voice, on the people who will be ‘choked beneath society’s conceptual thumb’ by the government’s ‘workfare’ and NHS reforms. It used a great rat-tat-tat machinegun of violent rhyme, pointing out the catch-22 faced by those with mental health conditions: if you’re happy you can work, but if you’re not then you’re dangerous. A chilling and potent treatise on how people will try to go along with the Con-Dem reforms even when it takes ‘an act of heroism to get out of bed’, how even when people are deprived of life-saving support they will still cling to peaceful protest. A poem everyone in this country should hear.
  • He’s also organising Not the Oxford Literary Festival from 27th to the 30th of March.
  • Reading from her dystopian novel ‘The Miracle Inspector’ Helen Smith span us a tale of an underground rebel poet called Jesmond, a kind of ‘informal poet laureate’ bringing social messages to secret poetry events. The way she wove tiny differences between modern society and her dystopia was very effective in crafting a world that’s terrifying by increments.
  • She also successfully evokes the image of a poetry scene that captures the spirit of the scene today, but stresses its importance as a tool of expression and resistance. I think every poet recognises the moment she described when you see another poet’s work that’s ‘like picking up a snow globe only to see there was a real city’ inside.
  • And the ending where she pitched harsh violence against a disconnected internal thought process was chillingly good.
  • Verity Heir’s ‘Sweet Pea’ had a strong rhythm, but it faltered slightly as she stumbled and rushed a little over the page, making me think she’d be a stronger performer if she performed from memory. The poem used a natural metaphor of a garden to represent self and fluid/pansexuality. It also gave a great description of co-dependency in a relationship.
  • A perceptive piece on asexuality, ‘Imaginary Friend’ created a really good description of relationships as a sharing of minds, quirks and of co-habiting the same intellectual, rather than physical, space. Ace stuff. But presenting asexual relationships as ‘imaginary friends’ is possibly unintentionally problematic?
  • And ‘I Dance from My Hips’ entertainingly discussed the ways we learn gender while young, how its taught from an early age and people can be pressured into conforming to gender stereotypes. It ends with a phenomenal description of androgyny and how we can ‘annex ourselves, our quirks, onto our genders’.
  • Paul Askew started with the amusing line ‘I’m actually a bit disappointed, I thought I’d been booked for an International Ladies’ Night, and this isn’t what I’d been expecting.
  • Lacking any ‘right on’ poems, Paul had decided to created one for the night and so treated us to a set-piece of poems constructed entirely from words out of Vogue magazine. He claimed that he hadn’t succeeded in crafting a message, but in his own absurdist way, he succeeded marvellously and hilariously.
  • What he ended up with was a love story between Snow White and a pinup with a ‘feather-light’ volume of hair, all crafted using the pretentiously skin-deep language of Vogue. A love story of commercialised and vacuous words that commented on the consumer culture of girls’ mags.
  • While his comic aside ‘To Do List’ was taken largely from the credits page, that randomly crossed with absurd sexy-talk and then a bizarre aside on why you shouldn’t ‘wipe your arse with a £50 note’ as it’ll set off a chain of events leading to an inevitable break-up, but it’s ok to use a £20 as you’ve ‘earned a little glamour’. Very amusing and surprisingly critical of advertising as a means of happiness/freedom.
  • If you see Tina Sederholm perform she will ‘probably do poems about knickers’, Lucy tells us in Tina’s intro.
  • She doesn’t start with knickers, but instead goes straight into sex with a poem on how sex education doesn’t prepare you for the reality. The poem is a professionally performed tirade of filth, listing positions and worrying about ‘residue’. Pleasingly foul, but ending on a quietly lovely note.
  • ‘Masterclass’ blended humour with chocolate sweetness, while ‘Rules of the Game’ is another really sweet poem on how you must accept and love a loved one’s flaws such as ‘early morning flatulence’ or ‘CSI: Miami’ (though she’s moved up to Law & Order now, she promises us) and love them ‘over and over and over’. A lovely concept on accepting flaws.
  • Mrs Price’s Parlour finished the night with a charmingly jangly and upbeat set of folk songs focussing on stories about or told by women. From drunken maidens ringing up bar tabs, to sweet love stories and women holding up men at gunpoint to see if they’ve been faithful, they gave a mix of lovely, raucous and insightful snatches of folk from a woman’s perspective.

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N.O.N.C.E. – Steve Larkin

In Performance Poetry on February 27, 2012 at 5:45 pm

@ The North Wall Arts Centre, Oxford

- reviewed by Paul Askew -

The Performer: Steve Larkin is a bit of a legend of the Oxford poetry scene.

In fact, some would say he’s the reason Oxford has a poetry scene.

He set up and ran the infamous Hammer & Tongue night, which has now spread to other cities too, for eight years before backing down to concentrate on his own thing. His own thing being his new one man show, N.O.N.C.E.

If the title seems a little confrontational that’s because it’s meant to be. Steve’s never been one to shy away from politics in his poetry, so a show about the year he spent as poet in residence at a prison was certainly going to be no exception.

The Concept: a one-man show?

Now, I know what some of you might be thinking. Yes, we’ve all seen the art of the one man/modern theatre show parodied so well on Spaced, The Big Lebowski, Family Guy, etc etc. Small theatre shows are generally treated with the same sense of general disdain as self published poetry pamphlets, possibly even more so, so it’s difficult not to approach this without some sense of caution. I’ve seen Steve Larkin perform poetry before, I know how good he is, but a one man theatre show? Really? Yes. Really.

The Show: Spoiler alert:  This show isn’t just good, it’s really bloody good.

The basic storyline is that Steve and a Doctor (whose name I’m afraid I forgot to note) regularly go to HM Grendon to run a poetry workshop for the inmates. At first it appears to be met with a lack of enthusiasm, but as the prisoners who sign up get more into the course, the more the worth of what they’re doing seems. This rise in professional success is offset by a deterioration of Steve’s personal life, creating an interesting dynamic. I’m reluctant to go into much more detail, as the show’s reveals deserve to be kept as such.

The Performance: Steve Larkin is a warm and very engaging performer

It’s what made him such a good Hammer & Tongue host, so as he (and I’m loathe to use this phrase, but it really does describe it best) takes you on a journey through his year long placement, you go right along with him. It feels like he is talking to you, rather than at you (which in a full theatre is no easy feat). This presentation style is one of the main reasons why N.O.N.C.E. works as well as it does. It is never preachy, hectoring, judgmental or manipulative. Steve Larkin has the faith to just present his events and let the power of what’s happening be what affects us.

One of the other main reasons that N.O.N.C.E. succeeds as it does is by repeatedly taking you through Steve’s daily routine. This repetition is a clever trick, setting a framework for us to become quickly familiar with. It puts us in his place. He gets up, goes to work, certain same things happen, he leaves, stays in a B&B, calls his girlfriend, sleeps and dreams. By following this repeated routine, the changes are more highlighted and affecting. We are shown how Steve’s progress with the prisoners was slow to start, and each ‘Eureka’ moment makes us take more notice of it, because it’s outside of the framework. It’s unexpected.

The Prisoners: These people are people

A large part of the show deals with the interactions between the prisoners and a group of students that Steve is teaching in another job. The bringing together of these groups highlights a slight paradox in the way that the prisoners are taught and treated. These people are people, and when treated as such respond in positive ways and progress is made. Because they are people who’ve committed awful crimes though, they are never to be fully trusted. The interactions with the students highlight this conflict well, and it is a conflict that is never fully resolved.

There are a couple of uneasy moments in the Steve’s personal life side of the show, which serve to highlight how easy it could be for any of us to make an error of judgement and end up in the prisoners’ situation ourselves. It’s an uncomfortable feeling to think that you could, in one simple, unthinking moment, end up in the same position as someone in HM Grendon.

This is something we haven’t been given a chance to think about before. All the inmates who take part in the workshop are given the names of their heroes. This is said to be to enable them to loosen up and engage in the program, but I suspect it was also done in order to separate each person from their crime, so that by detaching them from what they’ve done they’ve done, they could see them as people rather than monsters. It works for the show too, as that’s the effect it has on the audience. It’s a lot easier for us to root for someone called David Bowie, say, than someone we know as a convicted murderer. It’s another little trick that really works in getting us involved in and sympathetic to the events of the show.

Conclusion: Moving, thought-provoking, superb theatre.

The ending of the show is superb. Again, I am reluctant to give too much away, but a couple of points are raised which confront us with our general perceptions and habits (both of which, I have to admit, I was guilty of), and this highlights another message of the show. We all have preconceptions, and these can often do a disservice to the people we have them of.

For all the uncomfortable moments and uneasy feelings we are given though, N.O.N.C.E. is in the end an affirming and uplifting show. Its messages are positive ones, and they are delivered in a way that makes you think about them long after the show is over.

Steve Larkin has created a moving, thought provoking, and, most importantly, a fantastic piece of theatre. I would highly recommend this show to anyone who has a chance to see it.

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An Evening of Poetry and Music Visuals – by London Poetry Systems and Ferment

In Magazine, Performance Poetry on February 24, 2012 at 12:56 pm

@ The Albion Beatnik 28/01/2012

-reviewed by James Webster-

So I’m in the chaotically colourful, bustling and amazing bookshop that is the Albion Beatnik in Oxford and it’s very crowded and I am terrified of spilling my beer on a book. Here, London Poetry System have teamed up with Ferment ‘zine to deliver an evening of ‘cross media poetry’ which can apparently be translated as ‘poetry with technical hitches’, and aside from my fears of beer/book-related accidents, I’m having a whale of a time.

  • It’s hosted by George Topping, who has a flustered energy and likability, kind of channeling a Matt Smith vibe. He kept things moving smoothly, and was entertainingly cheeky towards latecomers.
  • He warms us up with ‘Love-Knot’ about warmth on a boat. It’s filled with amusingly dreadful puns (he’s ‘not a monogamist’, but a ‘mahoganist’) and funnily clunky rhymes.
  • The first feature is Lucy Ayrton, whose ‘Tarquin’ is the first multi-media poem of the night. And it sparkled, its twinkly and ominous backing music providing the perfect pitch to Ayrton’s cautionary tale of why you shouldn’t talk to strangers (especially if they’re demons). Tarquin makes an effective mixture smart-Alec and helpfulness, while the demon is coldly spiky in both description and dialogue. Combined with the music it makes for chilling listening.
  • Her other poems are full of slickly intricate rhymes, with a very natural delivery that belies her language’s complexity. She’s also very funny. ‘Fuck You Corporate-Land’ is an amazing performance of disappointment at the monotony of corporate environment (‘you’re disappointed? I was going to be the first ever brain surgeon/rock star’). And ‘I Don’t Hate Men, I Just Hate You’ is a highly amusing and perceptive piece on feminism and a certain kind of misogyny.
  • Then Paul Askew, the co-founder of Ferment (available on the night for the reduced price of £3) steps up to the plate.
  • He starts with this gem of an exchange with the audience:

Paul: “Can you hear me at the back?”

Audience Member: “No.”

Paul: “I suspect that was my mum, she likes to fuck with me.”

Audience Member: “Not literally …”

*Paul leaves, like, literally walks out the front door in a faux huff. The audience piss themselves laughing. Not literally.*

  • He does come back, treating us to some of his delectably surreal poetry.
  • He starts with some joke-poems about death, but he really gets going with a spectacularly meta acrostic about Oxford, that is about, um, trying to write an acrostic about Oxford with helpful hints (and eventually criticisms) from the city itself (‘I’VE GOT DREAMY SPIRES, LOOK AT ME!’). It’s also his poem from this issue of Ferment.
  • ‘The Time I Tried to Work in a Café’ is a showcase in using his absurdist tendencies to illustrate bizarre profundity. Describing the Chaos Café, a trendy student hangout, designed by the owner to be as anarchic as possible as she ‘loves chaos … want[s] to kiss its lips’. Balancing chaos against the shadow of perfection which is ‘hollow and so fragile you’re afraid to move’ Askew meditates on how lives court chaos, how they can embrace or control their own lack of control.
  • And he finishes with ‘The Crow’, a bit of a crowd favourite, with a nicely drawn character of the comic curmudgeonly crow and a funny situation that gives rise to an unlikely connection.
  • Next were two more multimedia poems, from LPS poets Jennie Cole and Jericho. Now, multimedia performance is a really exciting genre, and I’ve seen some really strong performances utilising video and sound, but both these poems came across as pretentious and inaccessible.
  • Jennie Cole’s ‘Cockaigne, A Pastoral’ shows us some interesting themes and phrases, but way too many of the lyrics were only vague poetical aphorisms and ultimately it’s too disconnected and oblique for me to connect with.
  • While Jericho’s ‘Vertigo’ feels like an über-pretentious fan video to Hitchcock’s Vertigo. It’s even more inaccessible and self-indulgent than ‘Cockaigne’.
  • Caroline Bird is next on, another poet who examines life through the lens of funny surrealism.
  • She treats us to a big mess of scare-stories, feelings and amusing randomness as she explains to us what’s happening ‘in every city of the world’. It’s all different aspects of city lives thrown onto the wall and somehow it all sticks.
  • ‘Our Lollypop Lady’ is not only a splendidly bizarre poem, but an excellent piece of common sense. Suggesting that relationships need an umpire she brings to life an ultra-fair character who ‘lives in the middle of the kitchen in a yellow tent’. It’s intelligently conceived and humorously realised.
  • While ‘Let the People Starve’ is on how love can make you stop caring about other things, taken to a ridiculous extreme (‘let’s … sink knives into everyone who said it wouldn’t last’).
  • ‘Pity the Female Casanova’ is very insightful on the falseness of adoration, while remaining impressively witty and ‘Facts’ gives us the facts around the edge of an experience; a poem coquettishly hinting and suggesting at a just perceived something.
  • Ross Sutherland, the final performer, gives us some more multimedia poetry with superb results.
  • Starting with an hilarious retelling of Little Red Riding Hood (that almost makes me snort beer out of my nose onto a nearby copy of The Forsythe Saga) with certain words replaced with the words 23 places below them in the dictionary, thus making the title ‘Liverish Red-Blooded Riff-Raff Hoo-ha’. It turned into a bizarrely coherent and political poem (‘Great Britain is illiberal and weaponless’ was a favourite) that was delivered with considerable verbal dexterity, while the accomplished video kept it grounded in the source material.
  • His ‘Experiment to Determine the Existence of Love’ is superbly sweet, with a perfectly pitched video. It recounts a date as a scientific experiment from hypothesis to conclusion. It mixes the science into the poetry seamlessly.
  • ‘Symphony’ is an amazing interactive poetry project: Ross wrote a poem, it was translated into different languages and various people playing the Hide and Seek weekender had to find people to translate it back. And Sutherland reads both his original poem and the resulting translated poem, both to the same elegant music and affecting video. Both poems are wonderful, steeped in the sounds and feelings of London, but the best bits are definitely where the translations differ massively and comically.
  • But by far Sutherland’s strongest poem in my eyes (and the strongest of the night) was an uproarious and poignant poem that worked as a meditation on death and the ‘trappings of grief’ while also perfectly describing the action of the opening credits of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air that played behind him. Flawlessly imagined and performed, it was equal parts heart-rending and heart-warming.

Summary

A very entertaining night that reflected very favourably on LPS, Ferment and the growing genre of multimedia spoken word, with only some inaccessible videos letting the side down. I recommend you check out LPS’s events and buy Ferment. Go do that now.

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Tongue Fu @ Rich Mix 12/01/2012

In Performance Poetry on January 28, 2012 at 5:12 pm

-reviewed by Paul Askew-

Tongue Fu‘s concept: Invite writers to perform with a live band improvising along.

I’ll admit I was somewhat dubious, as my only previous encounter of such a thing was on a late night BBC2 live jazz series in the mid 1990′s, when the presenter performed some “jazz poetry” while improvising with his piano trio. It was cringeworthy, and this is when I was a teenager, writing and enjoying cringeworthy poetry myself (come on, you all did that too, don’t pretend you didn’t), so for me to not like it then, it must’ve been REALLY bad.

And that was the image I had in my head when I tried to imagine what this gig was going to be like.

The noticeable and crucial thing though, the music worked.

(Here’s how they do it. Before each piece the performer has a brief chat with the band to tell them the themes, or what kind of thing they’d like the band to play. The musicians, clearly very competent improvisers, almost always end up playing something that fits what’s being performed.)

Tongue Fu is hosted by Chris Redmond, who started the night off with a “Prayer” poem that started in outer space and ended in the room we were in, hoping for the best from the night’s performers.

The First Half:

  •   Tim Clare. His first poem was about being drunk and trying to make people like you. It was a witty account of the kind of things we’ve all done when that boozed up little voice in your head says things like “Hey, you know what would be a great idea? Get your knob out and dip it in that guy’s pint. Yeah, that’ll impress them!” It was “Aren’t we all ridiculous,” rather than “Oh, woe is me,” which kept it funny.
  • He followed it with a poem about how we should all be kinder to ourselves that started off sounding like the Baz Luhrmann song “Everybody’s Free To Wear Sunscreen,” but became more unhinged as it went on. This was cleverly mirrored by the music becoming looser and less structured, which shows how good Tongue Fu’s concept is when it gets it right.
  • Tongue Fu’s poet in residence, Shane Solanki was next. He did a fairly long retelling of the nativity that reminded me of John Lennon’s poetry, he took a familiar tale and replaced words for comic or political effect (the three wise men became women, Thursday became “Parklife by Blur-day,” etc.). It switched between being an amusing, modernised version of the familiar story, and an anti-war political commentary.
  • I have to say, if it hadn’t been for the accompanying music, I would’ve probably found it a tad annoying and a bit too long, but as Solanki wrote it specifically for this night, with the intention of it being set to music, it worked well. Another point scored for the Tongue Fu concept.
  • Malika Booker finished off the first half: her first, described as a “Homage to Brixton”, was a straightforward depiction of everyday city life with dub backing from the band. It sounded like a Linton Kwesi Johnson track, in a good way.
  • The next poems were tributes to her family. The first, a dream in which she performs with some dead relatives in the audience before they all have dinner together, was a tad clichéd for my liking (a flower is used as a metaphor for love, a knife as a metaphor for pain). The second, about trying to restore the faith an aunt has lost while in hospital, was far more original and interesting.

The Second Half:

  • Began with Chris Redmond doing a poem about the time he got his own poo in his eye. No, really. It was like a formal poetry version of a Judd Apatow film. It went down a storm.
  • Malika Booker returned with a poem about the strength of women through the generations of her family, and was the first rare instance of the music not working.
  • This was followed by a poem constructed of quotes from her mother. It did an old trick well: starting humorous before a well judged switch in tone, which led to a poignant ending.
  • Tim Clare came back with a poem/rant against teenagers, both now and when he was a teen.
  • Then the highlight of the night: a series of hip-hop verses as various famous women from history. It was very cleverly done and hilarious.
  • Last act of the night was Martin Shaw. A storyteller, rather than a poet, he finished the night off with an extended myth-like tale, which starts as a deal-with-the-devil story before following the daughter of said deal maker in some sort of I’ve-gone-mad-because-my-Dad-cut-my-hands-off-and-I’ve-lived-in-a-forrest-for-years-and-oh-look-a-king’s-going-to-fall-in-love-with-me. Then the king goes off to war, she has a baby, Devil comes back to shake things up, they separately end going to the same pub (years apart form each other, of course). Then they get married. Then her hands grow back.
  • (Then I bit my own hands off out of sheer boredom. Seriously. I’m typing this review with bleeding stumps, but it’s okay. I’ll just find a pub full of people from all the stories ever told in the world and then somehow they’ll just grow back. No biggie.)
  • This story should be rewritten as a novel. Or even a novella. Then there would be enough space to properly deal with everything that comes up. As it is, Martin tries to fit too much into too short a time and it comes across as scrappy and half baked. This wasn’t helped by him stopping the band every minute or so, which just served to highlight the lack of narrative flow.
  • It split opinion in the audience though. Some seemed to really enjoy it, some left while he’d been performing.

Overview

  • As Chris Redmond said at the beginning, the night itself is an experiment. And sadly, that means it won’t always work. On the whole, the night really won me over: the central idea of spoken word with live improv backing gave it a unique feel, and the charisma of the other performers had made it really fun. I would definitely say that this is a night worth going to.

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Hammer and Tongue Camden vs Oxford: Part 2, Oxford

In Performance Poetry on December 10, 2011 at 5:13 pm

11/10/11

@ Oxford Hub above Turl Street Kitchen

- by James Webster -

I have a fondness for Hammer and Tongue, their events were my first taste of performance poetry. Their slams running in 6 different locations provide a lot of people with similarly excellent introductions to poetry slams. So in October I was very happy to attend two H&T slams in two days in two different cities.

They were quite different, but drawn together by H&T`s core values: poetry, politics and an open and supportive atmosphere. It’s poetry opened up for (and often involving) the audience.

I thought it fitting given I saw them on successive days to compare the two. Second: Oxford.

Venue: Turl Street Kitchen vs. Green Note Cafe

  • The Turl Street Kitchen was a lovely place. The upstairs events space doubles as the firstUKcentre dedicated to volunteering and activism: it features a notice board updating you to all the activism and collective projects they’re working on, and a lovely bar/restaurant downstairs. The performance space could’ve used more tables, but was a very intimate little room with good atmosphere.

Comparison: Good atmosphere in a seat of genuine activism. Just gets the nod over Camden’s hipster haven, the Green Note.

Hosts: Steve and Lucy vs Sam and Michelle

  • The hosting was just a bit special at this month’s Hammer and Tongue, as H&T founder and Oxford host Steve Larkin handed over the torch to new hosts Lucy Ayrton and Tina Sederholm. Giving a brief history of H&T from its beginnings (originally inspired by the B52 Two) rooted in politics, activism and the belief poetry can be a medium for change, it was a rousing reminder of where H&T came from and the reason we perform poetry.
  • He followed up by later taking a turn as the ‘Sacrifical Poet’ (used to calibrate judges’ scores for the slam) with a raucous poem ‘Fat Sex in D Minor’ ripping into the content of women’s magazines obsessed with body size and how to have better sex. Consummate delivery, matched with expert use of repetition, it build his aggravation to a frantic peak as he savaged magazines’ cynical recycling of sex, fat and the appropriated idea of the ‘new woman’. 24.2.
  • Lucy Ayrton took over hosting duties (Tina was sadly absent) and she made for a charming host. Friendly, funny and with a bit of a twinkle in her eye, she and Steve combined to keep the evening ticking nicely.
  • Like Steve her first foray into performance poetry was political and her poem ‘I Don’t Hate Men, I Just Hate You’ was overflowing with fluid rhythm and quick-footed rhymes. She packs a lot into the poem, rattling it out in righteous fashion as she dismantles the fiction that, as a feminist, she hates men. Her faux-patronising was especially entertaining.

The comparison: Tough. Sam and Michelle of Camden are excellent, butOxford’s touching handover of hosting from Steve Larkin to Lucy Ayrton distilled the essence of H&T and sneaked a victory.

Slam: Oxford vs Camden

  • Peter Whitton. His poem on Savonarola (complete with audience call and response) was full of amusing rhyme and benefited from an enthused audience. A rollicking rhythm buoys the poem of monks, papal decadence and doom along. Gerald Manley Hopkins meets Tom Lehrer. 23.2
  • James Webster. I had a lot of fun, it was a lovely crowd, they seemed to like my poem ‘What Are You Thinking’ (on a woman asking her partner for his thoughts, late at night and his reluctance to share) and gave me a very kind 25.7.
  • Joe Hughes had a couple of nicely nostalgic poems. One on walking in on his parents en flagrante that’s very funny, becomes kind of idyllic and ends with him in hospital, and another ‘Dolly Mixture’ on the different ways he and his sister used to eat sweets. Appropriately sweet. 25.2
  • Darrell Moore’s ‘Bankers Wrath’ was very funny and impressively full of jargon that kept the poem rolling, his banker character is appropriately awful and creepy (threatens the narrator with being ‘processed like a chicken nugget’). 25.7
  • Paul Askew’s three short poems were fabulous. The first on an Oxford Tube journey that was a well-expressed example of public transport imaginings on seeing a pretty girl. ‘Sex in the City’ used the title as the central refrain about his ex-girlfriend, changing the words slightly each time that created a superbly embarrassed humour. And ‘Potatoes’ was on a poor family for whom potatoes are not only their sustenance, but their toys and in extreme (-ly embarrassing) cases their pornography. All very funny and exceptionally performed. 27.1

Winner: Paul Askew and rightfully so.

Comparison: Some very good poets at both events, butOxford were just a little more consistently excellent (and the score seem to reflect this).

Feature

  • Anna McCrory is utterly charming. The president of Oxford University Poetry Society (pronounced ‘oops’) her poems were erudite, funny and charismatically performed.
  • Her first ‘To Man who Splashed in Puddle’, inspired by a puddle inManchester, was a good character piece with some light parody of herself, it was self aware and very amusing.
  • ‘Geeks United’ was by far my favourite. An incredibly sweet, geek-hip take on the socially awkward adapting to university life (“I’m going to listen to some of that ‘emu’ music …”). Her performance, complete with actions, was very accomplished and the whole things was endearingly loser-ish. When she said “We’re geeks who high-five … high-five?” I wanted to get up and high-five her.
  • Her next ‘The Von Ratts’ was a reimagining of the singing family from The Sound of Music; Anna outlined her plan to get her singing and rapping family on Britain’s Got Talent/X-Factor. Hilarity ensued, and it was quite a nice commentary on the inherent problems on grooming children for stardom.
  • Finally ‘The Wizard of Argos’ gave us some incredible lyricism onArgos, all dressed up as film and fairytale. Very nice satire.

Comparison: As charming and funny and erudite as Anna is, Paula and Richard over at Camden just edged it with the double team.

The final feature (both here and in Camden) was Henry Bowers, Swedish poet extraordinaire, who will soon receive his own Spotlight feature, as he is just that good.

Overall comparison: In the end there was not much between the two fantastic nights, I think I enjoyed Oxford a touch more thanks to Steve Larkin’s potted history of H&T and his moving handover to the new team. But both nights gave a great account of what makes Hammer & Tongue nights so fun and makes their brand so unique.

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