Reviews of the Ephemeral

Posts Tagged ‘performance poetry’

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Review: Forget what you heard (about spoken word)

In Performance Poetry on May 22, 2013 at 9:30 am

- reviewed by Lettie McKie -

forget

9th May Ryan’s Bar, Stoke Newington

Poetry in London is a bit like flat-pack …

One of the most inspiring things about performance poetry in London is that it is very DIY. New events are constantly springing up in every borough because groups of poets, in love with the scene and the diversity of talent on offer, decide they want a slice of the action.

Of course the inevitable downside of this is that there is a fair amount of competition between event organisers to attract audiences. With so many performers trying to get their name heard you often need to have some sort of unique selling point to draw a crowd. A lot of the most popular long standing events seem to have an edge, for example: Bang Said the Gun is quirky and raucous, whereas Chill Pill is, well, chilled;  poetry served up to a mellow sound track and laid back hosting style.

And Forget What You Heard‘s edge is …

Started in January 2013 by Stephanie Dogfoot and Matt Cummins monthly Forget What you Heard (about spoken word)’s USP is its friendliness. Whilst hosting, Matt grins ear to ear and hugs each performer warmly on their leaving the stage! Unless you live in the area, then making the trek to Stoke Newington’s Ryans Bar for this event could seem like too much effort for a midweek poetry night, but the welcoming atmosphere more than makes up for any stress encountered on the journey.

While, like the vast majority of open mic evenings, it inevitably started late, once the event got going it stood out for its warmth and a consistently high quality of poetry. Stephanie and Matt’s openness soon infected the audience who laughed easily and fell silent in all the right places. This meant that the first few poets to take to the open mic were greeted with enthusiasm and this enabled them to relax into their performances.

A broad spectrum of high quality poetry, starting with Rik Livermore …

Stephanie and Matt showed they understand the art of a good line up with three feature poets whose work was contrasting but complementary.  Rik Livermore, Talia Randall and Lucy Gellman are all from very different poetic backgrounds but brought together their diverse performance styles made for a varied evening, consistent and compelling.

Rik was first up with an impassioned set of largely new poems written whilst he’s been living in Switzerland for the last six months. His poetry was thought provoking and drawn from some painful experiences.  His best poem of the night was probably also the hardest to listen to, as it was an achingly honest, but ultimately positive, account of overcoming panic attacks. Some more poems with a lighter subject matter could have benefited this intense set, but with his deeply personal poetry Rik made a heartfelt connection to the audience.

Moving on to an enthusiastic and bright-eyed open mic …

The open mic was interspersed throughout the evening and dominated by a table of student regulars about to leave London for home in the States. They were a bright eyed group all with different levels of energy and confidence; sharing a buoyant enthusiasm for all the performances they made the open mic experience for everyone much less intimidating. One open mic poet who was particularly exciting to watch was Jason, a regular on the London circuit. His performance style is somewhat alarming, he shouts and leaps around, wielding the microphone like a weapon, but he’s completely unforgettable. His poetry mixes unsettling imagery with euphoric rhetoric delivered at break neck speed, he is a very unique performer.

Talia Randall: natural and evocative storyteller …

Rubix Collective member Talia Randall’s feature was the highlight of the evening. She performed several pieces from her recent EP 3 mile radius which explore themes of childhood memories, lost innocence and growing up. Talia is a natural storyteller who commands the stage with an understated delivery style, her poetry is colourful and evocative of events drawn from her own life.

And ending on a high note …

With almost three and a half hours of performances this night was slightly too long for an audience to sustain high levels of concentration  and by the start of the final third it had dwindled to a handful of stalwarts. In her late night set therefore Lucy Gellman’s had to keep the audience engaged. She was very funny and her poetry, rich in descriptive detail, with sensitive and surprising imagery did the work for her. Errol McGlashan was notable as one of the last open mic’ers of the evening, his delivery of the brilliant When Love Beckons by Kahil Gibran was affecting and he is very skilful at getting an audience to listen attentively, but it is always slightly disappointing when a poet doesn’t perform their own work.

Overall … an incredibly friendly and wide-ranging night, with consistently high quality, if a bit too long.

As Stephanie is off to travel the world on a shoe string the future of Forget What You Heard (about spoken word) is as yet undecided, but watch this space!

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Interview: The Inky Fingers Open Mic

In Interview, Performance Poetry, Saboteur Awards on April 27, 2013 at 4:45 pm

- interviewed by James Webster -

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The Inky Fingers Open Mic has been nominated for the Best Regular Spoken Word Night category in this year’s Saboteur Awards. Here, I chat with the Inky Fingers collective about what makes their event unique.

Let’s start with the basics: how long has Inky Fingers Open Mic been running and when/where does it take place?

 We kicked off in October 2010, and we’ve run an open mic on the last Tuesday of every month ever since. Our much-loved home, the Forest Café, has had to move in that time, so the open mic’s moved three times since, but we’re now ensconced at the Forest on 141 Lauriston Place. Keep track of us at http://inkyfingersedinburgh.wordpress.com/!

HG

Who are the Inky Fingers collective and how did the group come into being?

The core collective currently comprises a shifting, non hierarchical, boundlessly energetic group of the following people, found in varying combinations in time and space at any one time: Freddie Alexander (Soapbox), Alec Beattie (Blind Poetics), Mairi Campbell-Jack, Harry Giles (Anatomy), Ioannis Kalkounnis (Fledgling Press), Rachel McCrum (Rally & Broad, Stewed Rhubarb Press), Katherine McMahon (Outspoken), Rose Ritchie (Craigmillar Writers Group), Tracey S. Rosenberg and Agnes Török (Soapbox). And of the group are also involved organising various spoken word and performance events in Edinburgh (specifics in the brackets).

RM

I set up the open mic back in 2010 with another writer named Alice Tarbuck, and when we realised we were onto a good thing we decided to open up the organisation to whoever had the energy and inclination! So it keeps changing and growing with whoever wants to make things happen.

We’ve answered this interview collectively as well, so you can track us by our initials.

HG

The way you describe your open mic seems to make a point of being inclusive, inviting all different kinds of work, genres and types of performance. Why did you decide on that particular focus/ethos?

Open mics grow us, not just through giving us places to practise, but also because they feed us a wonderful diversity of words. We can find out not what one editor or host thinks we want to hear, but what a scrappy, diverse collective wants to say. Open mics are also the fertiliser of a scene, because they create new performers, and that creates new organisers and events. Without them, we wouldn’t have everything else.

When I have new work in new forms I want to try out, open mics are the first place I go to. A well-hosted open mic is warm and welcoming, and the audience is there not to judge you but to enjoy being with you. An open mic gives me the license to not be that good, to get it wrong, to make a mistake and for that to be OK. Without open mics, I’d just perform the same style of thing over and over, because I’d feel too scared to try something I didn’t know worked. And every open mic I go to – literally every one – has at least one person doing something new with words I never expected.

More than that, people do words, do art, for all sorts of different reasons. Some of them want a career. Some of them find it therapeutic. Some of them want to get their anger out. Some of them want you to fall in love with them. Some of them are desperate for a place to speak out in a world that prevents them from speaking. Some of them are in love with beauty, with many different kinds of beauty. Some of them find that only doing art makes them feel good. Some of them don’t even know why they’re doing this. All of this needs a space. All of this should have a space. That’s what an open mic is. Open, and free, always.

HG

And what have the highlights of this inclusivity been? What kinds of really surprising or different performances have emerged from the open mic?

OK, so for me the best moments aren’t always the most surprising or outré. What I really live for is when a writer performs their words into a microphone for the first time. There’s this look they get, this total joy of connection with the audience, that I’m just so grateful for. That makes me keep hosting open mics more than anything else! Supporting people in finding a voice.

That said. Someone once read the instructions on a loudhailer box, that was good. Someone once performed the poems of Marilyn Monroe. There was a great flash-fiction about toothless zombies last month that made me smile. You know, words!

HG

And what do you look for when you book your feature performers and what have some of the highlights been of their sets?

Availability, variety, experimentation. We want to be a stopping point for international poets on tour, as well as a platform for up and coming local talent. Kristiana Rae Colon was a recent pleasure and privilege to put on; last year a big set from Jon Sands and Ken Arkind was joyous.

RM

What have the challenges been in running Inky Fingers in general and the Open Mic in particular?

As we’re all volunteers, sometimes we get tired…the advantage of working as a collective means that there are (usually) just enough of us to cover everything, should one or two people take a(n entirely reasonable) sabbatical.

We run an open platform and you really never know what you’re going to get. We have had, on occasion, difficult performers – drunk, offensive or over running – and it’s the host-of-the-evening’s job to manage that, and the audience… it can get interesting.

RM

What’s the spoken word scene like in Edinburgh in general?

 It’s as dynamic as a circus held inside a dance club within range of an exploding supernova.

Scheduling spoken word events in Edinburgh is notoriously difficult because no matter what night you choose, something else is always happening. A classic example of this was one Tuesday night when Ian Rankin was speaking at the Central Library, Janice Galloway was talking across the street at the National Library of Scotland, and the City of Literature folks were having their monthly salon about five minutes away. But here’s the beauty of it – all three had a good audience.

TSR

You also have a focus on open mic performances being entertaining and engaging, encouraging people to ‘bring their words to life’. Has this been a challenge for some open mic performers?

 It just takes practise and passion, really. As long as you feel it, the more you practise, and the more different kinds of audience you practise with, the better you get. Some people are more nervous, or more over-confident, or have frailer voices, or aren’t used to speaking, but everyone can live their words in time.

HG

If you’re trying to convince someone who’s never heard of the Inky Fingers Open Mic to come to your events then what do you say?

 When I first performed, I remember thinking I would need a whisky or two to get up and do this if I was prepared to be criticised for my offerings. It was not like that at all, in fact the audience couldn’t have been more encouraging. When I finally got to run away from the scene of my first ever slam poetry event my heart still beating fast with nerves and excitement. At one time I still preferred the 5 minute spots. My nerves couldn’t stand it! I stuck with it because I didn’t want to be unstuck from this amazing feeling of performing your own words.

I have been inspired so much over the last two years by so many people. The person that I nervously was changed and became more dramatic. That is because the words that I am expressing are mine. I edit them in my head, I own them. I listen and believe people when they tell me that they enjoy my poetry.

RF

Try it. What do you have to lose? Also, you look lovely today.

RM

And finally, have you heard of Sabotage before and are you pleased to be nominated for a Saboteur award?

 Sabotage provides a platform for some of the most insightful, original reviews out there. Long live Sabotage. And Yes! We’ve been squealing with delight!

RM

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Top Spoken Word Moments of 2012

In End of year round-up, Festival, Performance Poetry 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: Hammer & Tongue Oxford 13/11/12

In Performance Poetry on February 2, 2013 at 10:00 am

- reviewed by James Webster -

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Hammer & Tongue’s new season continues …

Have I mentioned that I really like Hammer & Tongue? I’m sure I have. I must’ve done. Anyway, if I haven’t (or you haven’t seen my previous effusive reviews of Hammer & Tongue events) then I really do. One of the things I like most about H&T’s events is the quality of feature poets they tour round the country; indeed, I’ve found some of my favourite Spoken Word performers at their events, such as Kate Tempest, Disraeli and November’s feature Bohdan Piasecki.

Bohdan Piasecki – a man of poetical magnetism

The room hushes into silence. You can feel a tension in the air as every ear strains to hear and every eye is riveted to the stage. Bohdan has just taken the mic and immediately wrapped the entire room around his little finger with his heart-rendingly beautiful ‘Almost Certainly Impossible’. The poem was both chilling and hopeful: trying to see the beauty in a bomb’s explosion by describing the dance of atoms or calling it a ‘fiery flower you only see bloom once’; or imagining that someone somewhere was chronicling those lost as more than just a statistic, instead monitoring the minutiae of their life.  His imagery and metaphors mixed with and matched his meaning with perfect poignancy.

If the power of his words weren’t enough, his easy manner with the audience drew us into the world of his poetry, while his anecdotes (‘have you ever kicked down a door? I have and it’s the best thing I’ve done. BOOM, fuck you door!’, witticisms and wordplay elicited plenty of laughs. To put it simply, he held the audience rapt from the very first until the very breath of his performance.

He demonstrates a nice variety of styles and tones, too, flexing acrobatically between whimsical and slightly melancholic stories like ‘George and the Fog’, nostalgic and insightful pieces like ‘Of Kings and Wasps and Flowers’ and the sumptuous love poem ‘The Gift’ that wraps the city of Warsaw up in words and presents it to his partner.

I honestly felt a little bit in love with his words after that performance, but I’m fairly sure the rest of the audience were right there with me, so that’s ok.

Of course, Bohdan wasn’t the only feature of the evening, Vanessa Kisuule also gave a stellar set …

Vanessa Kisuule – offensively talented for someone still quite young …

Sabotage have actually reviewed Vanessa before (at the H&T National Finals and also a gig at The Tea Box) and our reviewers have always had lovely things to say, but this is the first time I’d heard her perform.

And … wow.

She’s got a charming way with words, spinning stories with feeling, poignancy and humour.

For example her poem ‘Strawberries’ wove together strands of naive sweetness (‘bizarre novelty of the word boyfriend tingling on my lips’), wistful regrets and amusing anecdote to tell a story of young love. All the while remaining self-aware enough to tease and poke fun of herself and how society teaches us to love.

Or there’s how she delves into her relationship with the work of Michael Jackson (it seems she’s an unrepentant fan) that ranges from teen awkwardness (‘Yeah, but he’s better than McFly, so shut up!’) to social criticism (‘you taught me we were all vultures, all of us’) and always bringing the piece back to a powerful emotional resonance. Particularly clever was how she used the language of his music to build up a poetry of kinship and then loss, while the image of he losing a glove and imagining that she’s channeling MJ is one that’s stuck with me.

While ‘Sex Education Class’ is an encapsulation of all the sexual pressure put on women in modern times and how potentially damaging it is, when you still feel like a ‘tourist in your own body’ because society doesn’t let you feel like you own it. It’s very stirring stuff and a very important message (though at points the piece seem to imply that anyone who does sexualise themselves is giving in, that it can never be their choice).

She mixes the personal and the social-political with equal emotion, intelligence, and equally good jokes.

The Slam

The H&T open slam is always something of an adventure: ably hosted by Tina Sederholm and Lucy Ayrton, it pits all comers against each other in a poetic deathmatch (without the death), and we get all different styles and subjects spilling out of the chaos. At this event, however, it was even more so for me as I was asked to be one of the five judges …

Oh the power, the sweet, corrupting power. Just thinking back to it is enough to illicit a small and evil giggle. Ahem, but seriously it’s a strange task, having to judge someone’s creative endeavours, while the audience try to sway you with cheers and boos, alternately casting you as their heroic spokesperson or as panto villain (depending on how much they agree with your score).

  • I first tried out this new found power on the sacrificial poet (like a sacrificial lamb, but with poetry) whose name sounded like ‘Del Boy‘. Apparently, he’s ‘met a lot of special women in [his] life’, but you wouldn’t guess it from the poem, a prosaic piece that managed to be both overly saccharine and overly objectifying.
  • Kicking off the slam proper was Rob, whose political spitfire rap-rhyming style was impressive, with some nice dirty and violent imagery, but he lost a lot of the words by not varying his delivery and it didn’t fit together as a poem.
  • Bill Frizzell‘s ‘Tip of My Tongue’ was a fun and comic poem in honour of Movember and cancer awareness. It elicited  a bunch of laughs, but could’ve done with some more original expression. 
  • Alex‘s ‘Totem’ was another political piece with a strong central metaphor, railing against show-democracy and social injustice, but it mixed too many metaphors and didn’t fit together coherently.
  • Reigning H&T champ Davey Mac was next with a piece that utilised conspiratorially quiet delivery and subtle rhyme; intelligent and painful in all the right ways.
  • Another H&T regular, Gulliver, was next and his piece on the ‘elephants under our bed’ had a strong surreal comedy running through it, and the elephants were possibly a metaphor for either an abusive relationship or yob culture … maybe? It was hard to tell and I seriously struggled to see any point.
  • Nick Short gave two pieces, first a concise and angry piece about the lies of food marketing. The second … was effective satire, but the over-exaggerated violence got really uncomfortable.
  • Sabotage Editor Claire Trévien was next; her ‘Introduction to My Love’ used academic language well to comically express love. But her performance was stilted and some of the jokes were more clever than funny.
  • Anne Domoney (who we know as part of Lashings of Ginger Beer) piece was a smart and quietly powerful dissection of feminism and the importance of speaking up when something bothers you. The faux-cheerfulness as she debunked the idea of ‘yes, I choose to get upset’ was a joy. But she could have developed the language more creatively.
  • Enrico Petrusso gave a breathily nightmarish poem that was freakily visceral and creepily well-phrased. He over-used the archaic language a bit though …
  • Micah rounded off the slam with a multi-part poem full of clever (if abstract) wordplay. He won over the audience with his warmth, light touch with comedy, and a thoughtful theme that just about came together from several disparate images.

Winner: Micah.

On judging: it’s truly an odd gig. And I’m fairly sure most of the audience and poets hated me for my harsh scores by the end; I found the key was to boo myself louder than the audience did, then it was all ok.

Overall

A fun slam that was outshone by two truly marvelous features. A really good night. Oh, and the next one’s coming up next Tuesday at the Old Fire Station. If you’re in Oxford then I definitely recommend it.

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Review: Content by Mixy @ The Albion Beatnik 04/09/12

In Performance Poetry on December 5, 2012 at 10:50 pm

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- reviewed by James Webster -

Who is Mixy?

Why, MC Mixy is one half of The Dead Poets (the rap and poetry duo that Sabotage have reviewed before)! He is also a talented solo performer, indeed his one-man show, Content, was one of the Spoken Word successes of this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, given four stars by the Scotsman who said his show made “Mike Skinner of The Streets look decidedly average”. Having missed the show in Edinburgh, I was really happy to get to see it in a performance in Oxford back in September (massive ap0logies for the delay).

He sounds awesome, anyone else cool there?

Well, he was supported ably by Lucy Ayrton’s intricately rhymed rebelliousness and Claire Trévien’s lyrical turns of phrase, so it was a very enjoyable evening. But the main attraction was Mixy rattling through his spit-fire mix of rap and poetry, linked together with engaging and amusing anecdotes.

Amusing? So he’s funny too?

Yup. Of particular amusement was his ongoing conceit that he was dating the audience, even giving us an endearing nickname ‘Chinchilla-hips’, which elicited plenty of chortles throughout the evening (even if in the end he did leave us for another audience, the bastard).

So he pretended to be in a relationship with the audience?

Yeah, he did, it was both funny and appropriate, as a great deal of the show dealt with Mixy’s relationships, in particular one relationship that was especially momentous for him in how it interplayed with his ongoing happiness. He set the tone for this with his first piece, ‘Upbeat’, a nice avowal of taking life lightly, with inspired rhyme punching out like the click-clack of a typewriter.

But it’s not all upbeat, right?

Indeed not. Another aspect of his life that informs the show is his anecdote of having been ‘born stillborn’ and having to be resuscitated at birth, which is a superbly gripping story, out of which comes some excellent poetry. One such piece is a hugely entertaining conversational rap-battle between himself and Dr Stix, the doctor who saved his life when he was born, and is really the crux of the show. Mixy indulges his pessimistic streak and the depression of having messed up the relationship he cared about to confront the doctor, essentially asking ‘how dare you bring me into this unjust world’ and the doctor’s response is fun, clever and life-affirming. From the entertaining put-down ‘the first thing you did was shit on me’ to the simple ‘are you telling me you never made anyone happy?’ the doctor’s no-nonsense approach is an effective foil to Mixy’s self-loathing.

And he does do the self-loathing thing very well, capturing the romantic self-pity evocatively and insightfully, eloquently wallowing in his misery (‘words cut through my side like a blunt knife’) while remaining just self-aware enough to wonder if maybe he should take responsibility for his own unhappiness.

So the show’s about him being, y’know, a bit unhappy?

No, it’s far more poignant than that. Ultimately, Mixy’s meditations on what it means to be happy and on the consequences of your own behaviour is what the show’s all about, and his trance number towards the end ‘For Granted’ in which his words floated between the music, hitting each beat like a featherweight boxer, did a good job of summing this up. Saying we should ‘thank those who break our heart’ and that ‘we all come at a cost’, it was a powerful celebration of all the experiences, good and bad, that made him who he is.

So it’s all good in the hood?

All good in the what? Ahem, well the show’s not exactly flawless. Where the show possibly suffers is in the details of the relationship. The story of how they met and got together does come with some fun poems about working in a call centre (‘I rock that telephone headset with elegance’) and messing up a job interview by being too candid about your flaws (a dirtily self-denigrating rap, the opposite of gangster-rap arrogance, that’s a bit like Radiohead’s ‘Creep’ but for a hip-hop audience). But at points it feels like he’s dwelling on the details too much and you lose the sense of how it fits into his overarching narrative, becoming just a story about a relationship that ends badly because of his ubiquitously dick-ish behaviour. As such, the show sags a little in the middle and his messy story of a night out with a colleague that goes too far, while amusing, lacks the insight and weight of his other pieces. Plus, now and again there were a couple of off-colour jokes at the expense of women that I found off-putting, but that might just be me.

But overall it’s a good show?

Absolutely. One might even say very good. His winning nature keeps the audience with him and the wordplay, rhythms and emotional resonance of his stronger pieces more than make up for the occasional filler.

In the end he leaves it on a bittersweet note that is very appropriate for the show. ‘Wet Summer’ lets the words spill over a forlorn backing track to great effect, showing nostalgia for a relationship that ‘swerved and it crashed’ but bearing in mind that some clashing is inevitable in relationships and even though ‘we remember pain so well’ he stresses the way love can be rewarding as anyone will ‘know if you’ve ever been a half of a whole’.

Whether self-indulgently sad, aggressively self-deprecating or powerfully life-affirming, this is a show that hits highs and lows of emotion that are skilfully expressed and eminently relatable.

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Review: Brand New Ancients – Kate Tempest

In Uncategorized on October 11, 2012 at 9:00 am

19/09/12 @ The BAC

- Reviewed by Dana Bubulj -

What is Brand New Ancients?

It is a modern poetic epic, written and performed by Kate Tempest (performed with backing musicians),  that follows the lives of several young people as they grow up, their paths crossing occasionally within a tight and heart-breakingly human narrative.

The band, whose music is similar to The Cinematic Orchestra, is illuminated on their stepped stage by light streaming in through small windows. They work well both as support for Tempest’s words and in their instrumentals. Only in the show’s refrains did they become a bit too loud for the vocal. Distress, frustration and hope were all straining through the instruments, with each character given their own clear musical voice that enhanced the storytelling.

Who are the Brand New Ancients?

“We are all still mythical”, Tempest starts, with the theme of the show. This is conveyed well, through her “epic narratives” of several, regular people whose characters are so familiar that they almost become archetypes. Perhaps, in less skilled hands, characters like Clive (whose abusive childhood taught him that violence was a way to get your point across) would have been undeveloped stereotypes, but in Tempest’s hands they are shaped into the modern, almost mythic, and oh so real characters that burst out of this piece. Periodically, Tempest weaves in Classical references (a Diana here, Pandora there), that help add to a sense of shared patterns of behaviour. “Your fears, your hopes are old”, she says, a comfort, perhaps, that the gods who “walked among us” (as well as, she acknowledges, periodically turning into animals and raping us), “fought for us” and were full of “imperfect”, human traits (“the gods can’t stop checking Facebook on their phone”).

It is the vividly drawn characters that makes this show so powerful. Tempest has a way with creating such believable people with humour and empathy (for example, Kevin, a “testament to the cavalry of men”), crafting conversations that sound authentic and paint the scenes as vividly as her narration (“prayers were not spoken in a silence like this”). Indeed, her words paint the awkwardness of youth with knowing brush-strokes, just as she also captures the flaws of their youthful reasoning (such as testing someone’s fireman skills with arson).

The “two man nation” of Clive and Spider, who “might have been warriors” in the olden days but now have nothing but each other to fight for, resigned to their fate as “the bad guys” and act accordingly, driving forward the plot’s violent climax with Gloria at her pub after last call. In a nice change from conventional narrative, Tommy, Gloria’s boyfriend, returns from his own crisis of faith (“by my love I am saved”) to see her rescue herself from Clive’s assault, buoyed by anger at a life of  past abuses.

What’s behind the Brand New Ancients?

Another facet to the narrative is that of the dangers of fame. Not a new concern, by any means, but Tempest takes it on well, panning out and tying the Cowell-led hunger for fame and fortune to her theme: “the gods are on their knees in front of false idols”. In almost a plea to return to the gods “among” rather than those “distant”, Tommy follows the convention of getting what he wishes (a job in the city as a graphic artist), to finally realise the unpleasant nature of his colleagues, all “overblown gestures like mime artists” and regret his decisions.

The conclusion seems to fit the themes of the narrative: the possibility to dip into a plethora of individual stories. Moving to years later, in the skin-crawlingly awful voice of Clive’s father, an alcoholic, abusive man now emigrated to Thailand (“out here, pension is riches”) where he’s surrounded by “men like [him]“, left wondering about what had happened to the central characters, we are distant once more to these ‘gods’, and encouraged to find our own.

Brand New Ancients ran from 4-22nd September at the BAC. 

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Review: Hammer & Tongue Brighton, 04/10/12

In Performance Poetry on October 8, 2012 at 9:42 pm

- reviewed by Michaela Ridgway -

@ Brighton’s Komedia

“Poets are liars” – Plato (via James Burt)

Standing in the lengthening queue outside Brighton’s Komedia, I’m asked by the couple behind me if this is the right place for hammer & tong. Australian slang for putting your all into something, ‘to go at it hammer and tong’ comes from the world of blacksmiths, who hold flaming metal with tongs and bash it into shape. Hammer & Tongue is a kind of workshop for aspiring poets to bash their poems into shape, so I tell the couple that they are in the right place. I also tell them that it is tongue not tong.

The Komedia’s newly refurbished studio bar is packed as the lights go down and local short story writer, James Burt, takes the stage. Reminding the assembled crowd of Plato’s warning that all poets are liars, he implores us not to be fooled by the fraudulent words of those that are to follow him. His story, on the other hand – about a clown that kicks someone to death on a street corner somewhere in Brighton with outsized, soft-toed boots – is completely true. “The clown’s girlfriend gets bored and wonders off,” we’re told – an example of the drollery that characterizes James’ piece, and which makes up for the just-a-bit-less-than-fizzing delivery.

“The colour of lemons, marigolds, rubber ducks” - Rob Auton

The success of Rob Auton‘s 20-minute elegy to yellow – an abridged version of his Yellow Show – hinges on its boldly limited palette (nearly everything is yellow) and an endearingly gauche stage presence.  Standing up there in a bright yellow coat (if I were a country, my coat would be a flag, flapping at the top of a giant biro), he makes a cocktail out of Berocca and lemons, then stuffs the drink with lots of yellow straws pulled from his back pocket. The finishing touch, a yellow cocktail umbrella, transcribes an arc through the air and descends – in slow motion – to the melodramatic 2001 Space Odyssey soundtrack, provided through a mobile phone held by H&T co-host Rosy Carrick, close-up to the microphone. The whole thing is utterly nutty and yellow and mesmerizing.

N.B. It should be said that the Yellow Show owes a debt to the colour maroon, which brings with it some joyously obvious rhymes – noon/room, my room/maroon – and the way it has of defining yellow’s yellowness by its own marooning otherness.

(And Rob Auton will continue the new H&T season at the Oxford slam on Tuesday 09/10/12 at The Old Fire Station Crisis Cafe)

The Slam “No sooner does one door shut, than another closes” - Misquote of an old saying

Next comes the ‘competitive’ bit of the evening that had made my companion, Neil, so reluctant to come. It’s a slam, ergo, some egos will get bruised. And once everyone has ‘passed the clap’ (a difficult thing to get rid of, but it does get the audience warmed up), the ‘sacrificial lamb’ poet is asked to take the stage. The sacrificial lamb poet is not in the actual slam; this is as an opportunity for judging teams in the audience to save the poets’ egos by practicing their judging skills (reliably dreadful, in my view, however much practice they get). Tonight it’s frequent slam winner, Robin Lawley, who runs the Brighton Poetry Society.

The open mic part of H&T is (by nature) very mixed ability; this is what makes it so good. And tonight we have a poem about begetting that began with a horse by Chris Parkinson (Chris is always good value for money); several beige, hip-hop/rap style poems strapped to their rhymes and dragged across three minutes; and a pretty good hip-hop/rap poem from Spliff Richard – delivered at break-neck speed – which wins the slam.

“Folk-rap, you Mother-flippers” - Clayton Blizzard

Guitar slung round his neck, peaked cap worn rapper-style (apparently),  Clayton Blizzard sings us a song (he has a nice voice) called Sad Music is Uplifting, stopping abruptly between verses to whisper disturbing nothings in people’s ears, as he makes his way through the audience to the stage. It has a curiously disturbing effect on the atmosphere in the room. What an entrance.

In the pub afterwards, when I tell Clayton that I will be writing this (my first) review, he says that write-ups of acts at evening’s end can tend to get a bit scanty on detail. In this case, though, it is not too many pints, but too few words left to do justice to the fabulous and sometimes poignant middle section of Clayton’s performance.

Here’s how it ends, though: a group of lads that had traveled all the way from Hastings begin to leave in cartoon haste to catch their last train home. Clayton hops off the stage after them, and proceeds to sing them all the way out into the hallway, and maybe even out into the street. We gleefully applaud an empty stage. What an exit.

The Hosts

And so it is that the acts at Hammer & Tongue come and go; but the main reason I keep coming back – as, I suspect, others do – is co-hosts Michael Parker and Rosy Carrick, because they are clever, funny, quarrelsome, querulous, astonishing, sometimes a bit telling-offish (but only when absolutely necessary), and because between them they always, somehow, manage to keep the whole thing together.

(Michaela runs the monthly ‘Pighog Thursday’ poetry night at the Redroaster Coffee House in Brighton. For information on next month’s line-up, visit http://www.pighog.co.uk/events/index.html)

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Carmina’s Poetry Tease – 22/08/12

In Performance Poetry on October 4, 2012 at 8:30 am

- reviewed by Koel Mukherjee -

Carmina’s Poetry Tease was the launch event for London poet Carmina Masoliver’s poetry pamphlet (also titled Carmina’s Poetry Tease) and a celebration of the end of her MA in Creative Entrepreneurship. It was both performance event and exhibition; the performance element featured Carmina, fellow UEA graduate Catherine Woodward, and acclaimed Brighton poet Rosy Carrick; while the exhibition explored Carmina’s personal relationship with poetry, her incorporation of poetry and visual art, the fluid boundaries between performance poetry and poetry for the page, and her aim to be defined by neither.

Things I loved about this event (there are many):

  • Carmina’s hosting. She clearly explained the night’s themes, charmingly introduced each poet, and gave fascinating insights into her own poetry and upcoming projects (plus exhortations to enjoy the cake and wine provided, always a plus).
  • The Setup. The venue was set up to reflect the themes of the event;  glass cabinets in the entrance displayed poems in the process of forming, while along the walls of the performance space were paintings inspired by or relating to the themes of Carmina’s poetry.  It was like being immersed in Carmina’s writing process.
  • “Carmina Stores” –the shop area in the corner selling Carmina’s pamphlet, but also badges, bookmarks and t-shirts printed with fragments and snippets of her poetry. Her paintings along the walls were also for sale. An enterprising, clever and lovely way to promote and share poetry (while completely confounding the stereotype that artists aren’t good at marketing themselves).
  • The Atmosphere Everything about the space was immaculate, intimate and beautiful. The poetry and painting displays were gently offset by fairy lights, little balloons, colour-co-ordinated furnishings, and even little cakes and wafers in pretty bowls. It was an attractive, warm and inviting space to immerse one’s self in poetry.

Speaking of poetry…

Carmina Masoliver

Carmina performed varied pieces: thoughtful musings on poetry itself (the striving to write something meaningful, the self-doubt engendered by the thought of performing), a quirky tribute to a cup of tea, and a Twitter-inspired poem composed of tweets a fridge might write about its contents. And among several pieces incorporating visual elements was the evocative and fragmented “The Hourglass”, inspired by abstract artist Louise Bourgeois, and full of fittingly odd imagery (“My body ticking like a heart, my love straining like tea”).

For me, the standout piece of her set was “Roots”, a lovely affirmation of how roots are more than bloodline and ancestry, but constantly reflected in the little details of one’s life. The piece flowed beautifully, using assonance and the repetition of “my roots are…” to frame images of nature, emotion, and everyday life. The poet’s roots are “in the curl of the sea, the curl of my hair”, in the “red fabric of sex”, and “gravy over everything”.

Carmina has quite a gentle voice, though in her delivery she also projects passion and self-assuredness, a combination that worked well for both the lighter and more serious pieces of the night. At times she was too fast, swallowing up some of the words and feeling of pieces as a result. Overall though, this was a brilliant set of poetry, full of humour, passion, variety and skill.

Catherine Woodward

Catherine Woodward’s poetry was particularly enjoyable for its whimsical characters – such as Phil, star of a hilarious univocalism that used ‘i’ as the only vowel, fending off the wrath of a gin-sipping Big Bird for “living in sin with Big Bird’s sister”. Spot the Dog, laconically attempting a dialogue with the internet (“I am Spot. I know my meme”) was another keeper.

But my favourite of her pieces was completely different: a confessional first-person address to a terminally ill friend, written to express the guilt of feeling unable to visit, and candidly expressing all the things the poet feels unable to say (“I’m sorry that I’ve written a poem instead of coming to see you”).  The piece’s conversational bluntness was so very relatable, simply evoking the full gamut of complex emotions we run when faced with death and loss. Incomprehension, impotence, unbearable sadness and the instinct to recoil from it, callous curiosity about the mechanics of illness and death, loneliness, an inability to know what to say, sudden moments of emotional clarity, all animated by a delivery that was carefully measured and matter-of-fact, but barely concealing the grief, fear and shame just beyond.

This wasn’t an easy poem to hear, being so relatable and raw, and it can’t have been easy to perform. But it was both beautifully written and superbly rendered, and I am glad I got to hear it.

Rosy Carrick

I was really excited when I found out that Rosy Carrick was performing, and I was right to be. She was an instantly engaging performer, telling us she writes poetry about things like “pigs, Twixes, trains, wanking and dismembered body parts” – I adore that combination of the funny and unashamedly strange.  Her irreverent, deadpan humour was an interesting contrast to the preoccupations of her poetry, which was dark, meaty, urgent and visceral, exploring moments in life, childhood, and relationships through the imagery of bodily flesh and fluids.

The extraordinarily vivid “The Film” explored sexual fixations through their roots in childhood, “that inflammable age”, and a memorable train journey, recounting “the feeling of being slightly soiled” after masturbating in the train bathroom. This piece was wonderful in evoking the kind of personal and intimate weirdness that is unique to each individual’s brain, and is rarely expressed this well. In “Holding Hands”, a scar was strikingly described as “a screaming mouth” – an image I could not get out of my head – while “Heart” was a poignant snapshot of a familiar-yet-twisted relationship.

With its intimate and startling imagery packed into long, exhilarating lines of free-verse, this poetry made me feel like I was tumbling headlong into the thought-soup of the poet’s brain – but a tumbling that was paced smartly, and had a well-constructed end point every time. Extraordinary words from a poet with a unique and fascinating perspective.

Conclusion

A good poetry night can leave you tingling – with enjoyment, but also with inspiration, ideas and an appetite for more poetry. And Carmina’s Poetry Tease left me feeling this way in spades (ask the editor – I sent him an excited text as soon as I got home). The entire night that Carmina conjured for us was beautifully put together, completely professional, and yet still intimate and warm. Masolivier is someone who not only has a lot to say in her poetry, but is passionate about different ways of sharing and exploring it and building a career as an artist. She also has an exceptional feel for the visual, and knows how to put on a great event.

Run a regular night, please!

Editor – a full video of the event is available here on Carmina’s website if you wish to catch this unique event.

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Poetry Olympics: Word Games 17/07/12

In Performance Poetry on September 21, 2012 at 1:59 pm

- Reviewed by Dana Bubulj -

@ Theatre Delicatessen

It was rather difficult to miss the looming [Redacted] over London this season. What better way to respond to this is by appropriating it for poetry? In a pop up Theatre Delicatessen, housed innocuously in an old BBC building, Cat Brogan hosted an alternate [Redacted], with poets hailing (or having grandparents) from all across the globe. The venue itself was gorgeous, a very red Twin Peaks-esque draped basement with cushioned benches and low lamps. As an official slam, the poets had three minutes, but in the absence of score cards, audience judges (and increasingly their entire rows) called out scores. With only three judges, there were no discarded scores, so the standard biases (humour, acquaintances etc) were a visible and embraced part of the event. The prizes suited the ‘grandeur’ of the corporate-free occasion: homemade medals, fruit shoots, vegan cheese & toilet roll.

Cat Brogan was an effusive host, full of energy despite the sheer number of poets involved, many of whom were slam champions in their own right. She performed two pieces: first, a fantastically scathing comment on the rigmaroles of the [Redacted] and its shadier practices where “wetland marshes become marchés”; second, an abridged epic history of the Irish (accompanied by a bodhran) that was suitably mesmerising.

Sacrificial Poet was the “Usain Bolt of poetry” Harry Baker, whose tale of proper-pop-up-paper people (after which his Edinburgh show was titled) was sickeningly slick. His political alliteration was astounding, in his pop-up metropolis of paper people hurt by all the “paper cuts” of “paper thin policies”. The last third, about people as inspiration, was almost less powerful for giving us time to breathe. (25.5)

First Round Highlights

Esther Poyer (Guyana)’s ‘Fruitcake’ was a nicely paced story about moving to a Victorian-terraced-England of fine china and English tea carrying an awkward box of Caribbean fruitcake steeped in demerara sugar. “We in England now, we must leave behind silly things”, her characters say, reluctant to put it down. It was her first slam, and I hope to hear more. 22.75

Mark ‘Mr T’ Thompson (Jamaica) is a familiar face, and his Cultural Chameleon was fabulously performed, discussing the possible concept of a cultural “mean, mode or median” between roots in Jamaica and London. 27.5

David Lee Morgan (USA) Another Sabotage regular, Morgan performed an impressive ode to giving in to primal natures (“when the tiger hunts me I become the tiger”) and the disassociation/coming to terms with thoughts (“outside tiger, inside tiger, outside me”). 22.3

Michael Wilson (Northern Ireland) ECT poem was powerful, and the use of BSL added an interesting element to the relearning of communication (“my mind struggles into the clothing of thought”). 24.7

Stephanie Dogfoot (Singapore)’s ‘Asian people eat a lot of weird crap’ was great, both comic (“we look into its eye and dig eye out”) and mouthwatering in its conjured smoke and blistering chilli. 24.5

Ingrid Andrew (Australia) created a quiet personification of trees after bushfires, a “charcoal woman” with a “broken back where light comes through”. The extended womb analogy, while not novel, was very atmospheric. 21

Rose Drew (USA) had two particularly cutting political poems, one on the Olympics as distracting pomp (“leap like Superman over trash they can’t afford to collect”) and the particularly prescient ‘Dead Republican Girls’, a comment on the current erosion of Roe vs Wade in contemporary America. 23

Also ran (First Round):

Young Dawkins performed ‘Streets’, a nicely ponderous take on having done their time protesting as a younger man, now supporting from the “window seat” rather than frontlines. (21)

Oskar Hanska (Sweden) gave an exhilarating sensory explosion, but might have done better without the screaming. 24.25

Trudy Howson (England), whose poem is being used by the BBC for the [redacted] themselves offered up ‘English’, a succession of hat-tips that certainly hit all the traditional jingoistic name-checks. 22

Dareka Daremo (France)’s ‘Nouveau Globe’ alternated languages throughout in a fluent rhythm, with talk of the “chaos of endless night” and “les yeux d’un fou”. The times in which he committed content to one language rather than repeating multi-lingually was much more effective. 24.5

Ian (Canada), while published, has never performed, and it was evident; Hs ‘Rhapsody for Minimum Standard’ was dry and while he stated it was “no pedantic tirade”, it was monotonous and lecture-like (despite good intentions to “emancipate” the mind and dethrone corporations). 20.5

Matt Cummins (Canada) performed ‘I was a teacher’s pet’, an ‘it gets better‘ poem on being “kicked out of the closet” but lucky in having his friends’ support, urging people to turn the cross your bear into “wooden wings”. 26.5

Sophia Walker (Malaysia) performed a satirical take on ‘desirable’ laddish stereotypes. The seductive tone of “oh baby, I will separate your whites” made it, though the reveal that she is bereft of bad examples of men in her life could have been more incorporated. 29

José Anjos (Portugal) performed ‘I’m Walking’, a somewhat scattered succession of images of “one million worlds in one glance”, trapped in a search for both meaning and a place share or call his own. 22.9

Mel Jones (Wales) performed ‘Mmm’, an alliterative poem on bestiality (a pub challenge, apparently) with a relish suited to riotous filth. Like the acts described between Mandy and her mog, the poem was “magnetic, messy, moreish”, though often mildly disconcerting. 25.

Ant Smith (Rep. Ireland) was asked for raucous, and certainly delivered with a kinky rhythmic song that might have done better with less repetition of its chorus. As such, it dragged a little despite its sexual energy. 19.7

Chuquai Billy (First Nations: Lakota/Choctaw) spoke of gatherings and the ceremony of family and traditions to a rising soundtrack, but he also kept the piece rooted in the modern and quietly scathing of the outsiders with binoculars “convinced sage is a narcotic”. Unprepared for a second round, he later performed stand-up. 25.4

Alain English (Scotland) asked us about the “losers” of history, during this time of podiums, whose “endurance should inspire”. It was a rallying cry to the “survivors” of “overworked mothers”, the “lonely” or “caught-in-between” left “without a future”. 24.4

Final Round: Matt Cummins, Mel Jones, Mark Thompson, Chuquai Billy, Michael Wilson, Sophia Walker

Sophia Walker‘s ‘To the Man Who Punched Me’ was a fantastic piece: taking the “dyke” thrown at her, and reclaiming it with its original meaning (“please accuse me of holding back the sea”). 28.1

Matt Cummins‘ Valentines poem was a sweet stand against the overblown theatrics of the movies, with fireworks and orchestra-soundtracked declarations in favour of quieter affections. 25

Mark ‘Mr T’ Thompson had a nice poem on respecting people and learning the “true value” of love and those around you. While it did advocate a particular type of relationship, it boiled down to “don’t be a superficial arse”, which we can get behind. 23.8

Mel Jones performed ‘Family’, a lovely domestic scene in a child’s memory, with a “wall full of eggs, tipping tapping shells” to the adventures of “invincible youth” and feeling the “Welshness in bones”. 25.3

Michael Wilson‘s poem to an old friend who committed suicide (an endemic problem in NI) definitely marked him as my favourite poet of the night. The quiet grief of looking through his room, seeing a “half pack of gum – he collects them, sorry, collected” was palpable, as was tying it to the greater context: “they say it’s the Troubles, but we always had troubles”. 27.5

1st Place: Sophia Walker
2nd Place: Michael Wilson
3rd Place: Matt Cummins (after Mel Jones’ disappearance disqualified her)

Verdict: Chaotic but enjoyable night. The sheer amount of poets dragged on a little, but it was a friendly atmosphere that made it fun, with some real gems to make it shine.

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The Long and the Short of It – Richard Purnell and Gary from Leeds

In Festival, Performance Poetry on September 5, 2012 at 3:53 pm

- reviewed by Anna Hobson -

Anna Hobson kindly reviews one of the Spoken Word shows from the Edinburgh Fringe that James Webster and his winsome sidekick Dana Bubulj didn’t manage to catch.

There was a good crowd in the slope-ceilinged, chilled yet moist underbelly of the Banshee Labyrinth that afternoon (no mean feat when the weather outside was delectable). Chairs scraped on the flag stones, and the wet air clung to our skin as The Long and the Short of It prepared to deliver a poetry consultation to a willing and eager audience.

The pair’s asymmetrical dynamic set the scene at first glance, and as soon as the accents were thrown in this became a comedy duo to anticipate with relish. They introduced each other (affectionately, melodramatically) and began with a couple of poems, delivered with a tragi-pathetic whinge, with their subtle acting skills highlighting the humour in the poetry.

The entire performance was riddled with dichotomy: their significant height difference, the North/South divide, the subject matter and length of poems; and yet they worked seamlessly brilliantly together.

We were taken on a linguistic journey, a lyrical adventure; subject matters such as allergies, maladies, justice, death and public transport slapped us in the face immediately, and we were taught that these themes underpin all decent poetry. Richard Purnell began with a theatrical lament about celebrities, and hinted at the hypocrisy of grieving for these false idols. This was swiftly followed by a poetic burst from Gary from Leeds, making me laugh out loud with Freud’s Knock Knock joke. This was one example of the tumultuous ricochet between solemnity and brevity from our Consultants, who consistently delivered a satisfying mix with their comedic rapport.

There was a lightness of touch and a deft dexterity woven into a sharp script that sustained the verbal tour upon which we had embarked. I did appreciate the social and political commentary that rumbled beneath; it added a bit of meaty flesh to the proceedings.

I felt that although the tongue-in-cheek seminar structure of the show could have been emphasised more, the experience was thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable. Happiness Graphs, Poetic Sweet Spots and creative audience participation were sure-fire ways of ensuring I left with a smile on my face.

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