Reviews of the Ephemeral

Posts Tagged ‘Spoken Word’

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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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Review: Glasshouse by Kate Tempest 28/02/13

In Interactive Literature, Performance Poetry on March 13, 2013 at 2:23 pm

- reviewed by Karl Niklas -

glasshouse

Glasshouse, written by Kate Tempest, is a piece of forum theatre produced by Cardboard Citizens. It is currently touring hostels and various other venues and their next public showcase is at Rich Mix this coming Saturday 16th of March.

The worlds of performance poetry and forum theatre seldom meet, which is, to me at the very least, a little surprising. Both styles and art forms look to ask the questions that one often dares not ask, empowering both the audience and a performer with truths in the most unique of ways, and both certainly seek to challenge.

Those unfamiliar with Forum should know that once the main action of the play has finished, the designated ‘Joker’ or facilitator encourages the audience to make comments on the action, find moments where the action could be altered by characters making a different choice, and then bringing that audience member out to replace the actor and improvise the scene in this different direction.

This permission to voice truthful concerns plays neatly into the company’s choice to employ a performance poet as a playwright. Kate Tempest, the current ‘what’s hot’ in acceptable urban street culture, perhaps best known for her viral poem ‘My Shakespeare’, has penned a script that neatly combines and reconciles these art forms. Her style and voice come through most clearly during the impromptu monologues, though it must be said that on occasions her authorial voice cuts in too clearly, leaving the audience well aware that they are quite literally hearing someone else’s words in the characters’ mouths. The pointed ‘two fingers rap gesture’ even made a mild appearance.

The poems on their own paint a picture of nights unwanted, disorientated figures struggling the streets with nowhere to turn. Her style is classic performance poetry, dropped word endings, half rhymes and off beat rhythms, very much in the style of the New York scene, but bringing her English twists and idioms to the fold.

These aside, the actors handle Tempest’s script with aplomb, shifting roles with ease, making a whirlwind of the characters (please excuse) tempestuous lives. The play runs at a breakneck pace, perhaps a little conscious of the time limit needed for the full forum experience, and the need to fit in the three viewpoints that ultimately inform the scene that descends our heroine into homelessness.

Though the styles are neatly combined on the whole, whether the story itself is open enough for Forum is a different matter entirely. While there are obvious and fairly succinct moments that should be altered to make Jess’ life better, Tempest’s plot line is so neatly wrapped up that it feels like there is little room to move for those willing participants that come up from the audience.

This said, it is indeed an interesting experience to have the audience so involved in affecting the action. Ultimately the show works towards providing those audience members from the hostel with an experience that may have elements that reflect their own story, and the chance to help inform the characters will reinforce the knowledge of the real world services that work with the homeless.

Cardboard Citizens have created a wonderful show, filled with engrossing, chameleonic performances, most notably the fragile mother portrayed with a sublime and subtle frailty by Jo Allitt. In spite of the brilliant and charismatic Joker Terry O’Leary making her facilitating presence well known, the play itself falls short of the mark as a life changing piece of forum, but succeeds as a tightly knit drama that is performed with skill. It just never felt like we as the audience could change enough to make a real difference.

a picture of nights unwanted, disorientated figures struggling the streets

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Review: Penning Perfumes – Oxford 21/02/13

In Pamphlets, Performance Poetry on March 12, 2013 at 9:00 am

- reviewed by Paul Fitchett -

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I had heard Good Things and exciting rumours about Penning Perfumes – the poetry and perfume mash up organised by Sabotage’s own Claire Trévien and perfume aficionado Odette Toilette – so it’s fair to say that I was looking forward to the event. 

And, with one “cheesy” exception (more of which later), I was not disappointed.

The Oxford leg of Penning Perfumes was in the Albion Beatnik bookshop, a suitably literary venue for an event that was to make poets and writers of all the attendees, because almost from the start it became clear that this wasn’t just an ordinary spoken word event.  No, in fact the event turned out to be akin to a workshop, as perfume samples were passed around the audience and people were encouraged to describe the smells.

Odette gives us the background

Odette was on hosting duties first and set out the background to the night – samples of perfume had been sent out to various poets to create works based on that scent.  She explained that the poets had been given a pretty much free range on how to develop their poems, and that came through in the different forms that the poems on the night took.

The format for the night was first half, poems based on perfumes, second half, scents based on poetry and then a haiku competition to win a bottle of perfume.  Interactivity and feedback were also to be key with question and answer sessions with the poets after their performances.

First Half – Poetry from Perfume

Claire introduced the poets in the first half with some humorous introductions and good patter.

  • The first poet of the night was James Webster, with a poem called “Flatpack Lover” based on the perfume Reverie au Jardin by Andy Tauer. It was a tale of creating a wooden man with the “still pulsing root of a sandal wood tree” and eventually a sentient army that led itself to emancipation.  He made full use of the depths of the perfume, mint and wood and flowers, resulting in a poem with a good mix of humour, politics and philosophy and excellent delivery. James’ poem was also the only one of the evening (by someone present) not to use the perfume as a leaping off point for reminiscence and so as the night went on his piece became all the more unique.
  • Next up was Valerie Laws. Her perfume was Smell of Weather Turning and is by Gorilla perfumes, who  supply Lush. The scents in the perfume to her suggested the colours green, white and violet (which were the colours of the suffragette movement) and memories of her childhood and grandmother. This inspired her poem: “Scent for a Suffragette”.
  • It had a structure to it that accented synesthesia throughout with repeated accent on the three colours and was a good example of the nature of this evening with smells translated to word.

After the first two poets with their “classic” pieces, we had the three new poems created especially for the Oxford event and it was revealed that they had all been secretly sent the same perfume (Hasu no Hana by Grosssmith).

  • First up, Lucy Ayrton with an untitled piece about memories of childhood, her mother and feelings of ‘having to be a grown up’.  A very sweet poem, well delivered and with lovely phrasing “slicked lipstick” and her mother’s make up not being “war paint” but rather “watercolour”.
  • Next, Dan Holloway who added another stimulus to the night by passing around photos of a street in Gdansk lit by cabinets full of amber.  I particularly liked Dan’s performance here:  rhythmic and subdued, he excellently reflected the themes of the piece – time, our connection to the past and repetition.  I would like to read through this piece as it sounded like it had a lot of depth to it.
  • The final poet in this half was Eloise Stonborough who had also been inspired to think of her mother by this perfume….but in a very different light to Lucy’s piece.  Eloise’s “All things nice” was an exploration of gender and how we know ourselves (in a more formal poetic style than the previous poets). There were parts of the poem that were almost post-apocalyptic in their imagery and this sense of loss was maximised in the final line which shall stick in my mind for a while – how the inside of her mouth is “still as pink as the girl my mother mourns”.

Odette then asked the three poets what they thought of each others pieces, and  I thought this was a bit awkward for the poets as they didn’t really seem very comfortable trying to read into each others’ pieces.  However, they all seemed more comfortable when talking about their own pieces and it was good to get an insight into their thought processes, the development of the poems and how they’d used the perfume.

  • The final fragrance of the first half was one created by perfumer Kate Williams in collaboration with Lindsey Holland, and her poem based on the scent was well read by Claire Trévien.  It was with some trepidation that I took a sniff of this perfume after Odette said that it wasn’t for sale….for a reason!  Actually, it wasn’t that bad, I thought it was sweet and sherbety.  Lindsay’s poem “Plantation” was a verbal recreation of a fairground on the frozen river where “wine and cider make petals on the ice”.  As it turns out, the perfume was apparently created to smell like the indolence of pre-raphaelite women surrounded by sweets but never happy.

Second Half – Perfume from Poetry

  • After the break we were told we’d get some very unusual fragrances and the first one certainly split opinions – I thought it was quite pleasant, with a smell something like new shoes or an unused sponge but others visibly recoiled from it.  The perfume was created based on a poem by John Clegg, called “Mermaids”.  I enjoyed this poem and the way it explored the crossover between taste and smell with mermaids “singing to each other in pheremones”.
  • Valerie was called to the stage again to introduce a perfume based on her “Remembering Love”, which had some lovely images of summer rain and the earth drinking its full, but I was distracted by smelling the scent and trying to figure it out – at times on this night there was a bit of sensory overload. 
  • The perfume: imagine vicks rub mixed with rosemary.  Valerie told us that the scent was designed to invoke memories of love, but it mainly invoked memories of having a blocked nose for me, but I suppose perfumery isn’t an exact science. 
  • The penultimate fragrance, created in response to a poem by Claire Trévien by Shropshire based perfumer called Chris Bartlett.  Claire admitted to trying to manipulate the outcome by giving him a poem that mentioned her favourite smell -leather.   The poem itself, “Listening to Charles Ives” was a self-described breakup poem, which I thought was great.  With a nod to pathetic fallacy, the poem talked of a crowd gathering and storming and delicately dealt with a relationship that was going nowhere that had ‘the promise of a tomorrow’.
  • And now it was the time we’d all been waiting for – John the Perfumer was to create some kind of scent live tonight based on a poem by Lucy Ayrton, which he’d been sent in advance.
  • But first, the aforementioned “cheesy moment”.  John split us in two groups, gave us both the same scent (but with a different description) and instructed us to rate how pleasant it smelt. It was like someone had eaten a whole parmesan and vomited it back up.  Bleuch.  Sadly, this smell lingered throughout the rest of the night and I had to forage for discarded scent sticks from earlier in the night to rescue my poor nose.
  • He then passed round a much more pleasant scent and there was much discussion among the audience about what it was – nutella or caramel.  It turned out to be prunes.
  • After this perfuming interlude we were back to the poetry with Lucy Ayrton performing “Bonfire Juice” – a lovely rendering of a happy summer that has been discussed before on Sabotage.
  • John Stephens, the Perfumer, discussed his choice of scent based on the smell and I must admit being slightly disappointed. We had been told that John would create something live onstage for the poem, but he just chose an extract that he felt matched it.  Admittedly, the choice mate (used as a tea itself in South America) was excellent – the woodiness really evoked the images in Lucy’s poem and he also passed around a “phonolic odour” that really did smell like the lapsang souchong mentioned in Bonfire Juice.  I combined the two smells to make something I thought was very pleasant!

The Haiku Challenge

The audience was given one last perfume to smell and then 2 minutes to devise a haiku based on it.  Some of the haiku were excellent and came from such different places and with great stories.  While I couldn’t quite hear them all, I did hear the winning poem as…. it was by me!  Which was a nice surprise and definitely not a bribe.

Overall, it was a very interesting event, very different from your average poetry night.  I really did enjoy the interaction between the audience, poets and hosts.

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Saboteur Awards 2013

In All of the Above, anthology, Interactive Literature, Magazine, Novella, Object, online chapbook, online magazine, Pamphlets, Performance Poetry, Play of Voices, Saboteur Awards on March 1, 2013 at 9:35 am

Your Pick of this Year’s Best Indie Lit!

Nominations are now closed, you can view the shortlist and vote for the winners here. Buy your tickets here.

Once a year, to mark our birthday, we at Sabotage like to give out some awards to the publications we’ve most enjoyed during the year.

In the past this was restricted to magazines, and it was held solely online.

This year, however, we’ve decided to do things a little differently.

First we’ve BLOWN UP [geddit?] the categories to include spoken word shows, anthologies, pamphlets, innovative publishers, your favourite literary one-off, … And secondly, we want you to vote for the winners!

This is going to happen in two parts:

  1. First you’ve got to nominate your favourites, which is where the contact form below comes in handy. Nominations close on 31st March at midnight (UK time).
  2. The very next day, we’ll be posting a shortlist here made up of the top 5 nominees and we’ll open up a round of voting. Voting will close on 1st May at midnight (UK time).

Then, this is the fun part, we are going to have a PARTY on 29th May at the Book Club, London, where we’ll announce the winners. It’s going to be a big celebration of indie lit in all its glory and we’d love it if you could attend. There’ll also be performances, a mini-book fair, music from LiTTLe MACHINe and our very own critique booth. Ticket details will be here soon.

The small print: the works you vote for have to have been created between 30th April 2012 and now. If you’re voting for a publisher or a spoken word event then they have to have produced something during that time frame, ditto for the one-off literary project.

We’ll be showcasing the shortlisted works on Sabotage: if they haven’t been reviewed yet by us, we’ll make sure they are. Winners get to perform at our event, be interviewed for Sabotage (like these guys did), and feel warm and fuzzy inside.  If you’re looking for inspiration, why not plunge into our archives? Here are some reviews of anthologies, magazines, novellas, pamphlets, spoken word nights and poets, objects, … We strongly encourage you to vote for more than one category.

If anything’s unclear, read our FAQ and do ask!

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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: Wantage Poetry Slam – Wantage Betjeman Poetry Festival 28/10/12

In Festival, Performance Poetry on November 6, 2012 at 9:00 am

- reviewed by James Webster and special guest reviewer Lucy Ayrton -

@ Shush

The Event

Last Sunday, I attended the Wantage Slam was part of the wider Wantage (not just) Betjeman Poetry Festival, which featured a slew of interesting readings, performances and workshops (often Betjeman themed due to his long association with Wantage).

The Slam billed itself as ‘a fast and furious, X Factor- style, spoken word stand-off ‘ and for the most part lived up to that description admirably. Featuring 12 different poets, with a variety of different lyrical styles, we were served up some excellent rapid-fire rhyme and thoughtful storytelling as the poets battled it out for first place.

The Slam Style

Splitting the 12 performers into four heats of three (brackets selected randomly from a hat), with the winners going on to the final round, poets were judged on three categories: quality of writing, quality of performance, and audience reaction. It was my first experience of the ‘bracketed’ slam system, and I had to say I enjoyed it, and while scoring by three distinct categories is not always the most popular of judging styles, it does ensure poets are encouraged to give rounded performances.

Where it fell down is that, while billed as ‘X Factor-style’, it actually wasn’t enough like X-Factor … which is a statement I should probably qualify as soon as possible. Allow me to rephrase: where the show fell down, for me, was that while judging on the three different categories is not such a problem, the lack of transparency in scoring is. I found myself really wanting to know the breakdown in scores if only so I knew which judge to cheer/boo when I agreed/disagreed with a score. Plus, it’d be nice for the poets to know where their performance has potential room for improvement.

The Poets

Heat 1: Lucy Ayrton, James Dolton and Graham Eccles

Lucy Ayrton: a Sabotage favourite (we gave her Edinburgh show 5 stars twice), Lucy performed ‘Little China Figures’, a brittle and adorable piece, buoyed by waves of smooth rhyme, the poem told a powerfully realised and bittersweet story. But it suffered slightly from an unusually stilted performance. 17

James Dolton: his poem ‘Reading Too Fast’ was cleverly self-referential to his writing and delivery, with excellent use of performance and slick cadences. It did tend to repeat itself, which may have been the point, but made it somewhat dull towards the end. 24

Graham Eccles: also performed a piece on writing poetry, which had some pretty good gags (especially a cat setting his poem on fire) and amusingly clunky rhyme, but didn’t come to a head nearly soon enough. 20

Heat 2 (points not announced): Kieran King, Nick Short and Brenda Read Brown

Kieran King: performed two pieces, the first ‘Whatever Happened to the Heroes’ had quick-fire delivery and a relatable subject (all the heroes have sold out, let us down or died), but seemed simplistic and perhaps undercut itself (saying ‘I can think for myself’ while bemoaning the dearth of heroes to look up to). His poem on sticking out at metal gigs was a strong, rat-a-tat, one-note joke on metal being in your heart, not your clothes. 2nd

Nick Short: announcing his poem as ‘for anyone who works in an office’, he had decent timing, but it was ultimately comic grumpiness with little real insight and a hint of sexism (deriding colleagues for being excited about their children with a ‘congratulations, you spread your legs’ comment). 3rd

Brenda Read Brown: was ridiculously likeable. Her poem on creating a new ‘old-age’ political party was full of wit and wordplay (‘kids drunk on WKD-40’ and the idea of a ‘drive-by grumbling’) and just about transgressed into being genuinely political. The litany of fears and loss that it built to was also pretty powerful. 1st

Heat 3: Helen Harvey, Joel Denno and Tina Sederholm

Helen Harvey: the third poet to deliver a meta-writing poem, her personification of poetry was reasonably original, with some vivid imagery (‘I carved quills from my fingernails’) in her search for a muse. But some of her delivery was disjointed and her performance fell a bit flat.

Joel Denno: taking the form of a homework assignment for school-children, this poem was disjointed, with various sections that didn’t form a coherent whole, leaving a kind of bifurcated and pointless poem (with bonus gothic gore that, while decent, didn’t lend any more of a point). 22

Tina Sederholm: performed her piece on cupcakes (from her show Evie and the Perfect Cupcake, rated 4 stars by Sabotage) in all its voyeuristic and frosted glory. Her repeated cries of ‘lick me’ build very amusingly, while her sugar-sweet language of hunger and hollow fulfilment pulled the audience in admirably. 22

Heat 4: James Webster, Dan Holloway and Guy Williams.

(Special Guest Reviewer Lucy Ayrton taking over here, so Webster doesn’t have to review himself)

James Webster: came to the stage after a truly ridiculous intro, and his piece ‘MCWASPSM’ had a good tempo and rhythm and his flawed take on socialism was a great section. The piece had a coherent structure and clarity and the line ‘I don’t mean to complain, I don’t mean anything at all’ was a brilliant line that probably would have been a better ending than the unnecessary verses that followed. 22

(Thanks, Lucy, I’ll tag you out now)

Dan Holloway: Dan’s poem ‘Making Fairytales’ contained a plethora of verdant and gorgeous language (‘folded poems into paper planes’), full of magical and dirty imagery, with a thoughtful and assured delivery that was a breath of fresh air. 21

Guy Williams: of his two pieces the better was a dull poem on how he solved problems DIY style by chopping them in half. The worse was a creepy piece best summed up as ‘breasts are nice to look at, which isn’t really sexism is it? Oh, it is? Well don’t worry I’ve checked my sexism at the door after my daughter started growing boobs’. I’m sure it was intended as satire, which it kind of worked as, but it needed more thought and self-awareness to work.

Final: James Webster, James Dolton, Brenda Read Brown, Joel Denno and Tina Sederholm.

(I once again pass over to Lucy Ayrton for reviewing duties, Lucy?)

James Webster’s ‘What Are You Thinking’ had a strong voice, good opening and some amusing back and forth between its different voices. The shift into more resonant imagery was satisfying and Webster nimbly flitted between funny and touching lines, with a lovely lyrical voice. I’ve heard this poem before and it’s improved: very good.

(Thanks again, Lucy, your cheque’s in the post)

James Dolton’s poem was pleasantly abstract, seeming to use different strands/images to chart the course of a life/forming of a mind. The excellent use of on and off mic sections worked well to draw the audience in and delineate different ideas, mixing some cool word-association and plays with meaning together into an effective performance.

Brenda Read Brown cast herself as an appropriately fallible/human God in ‘In the Beginning’, a rollicking ride through Her attempts at creating life, going through some amusing missteps before finally creating evolution and leaving them to it. Funny, clever, and in the end a moving elegy to the excellence that is a God-like humanity.

Joel Denno continued his theme of ‘poems that seem entirely pointless’ with a piece about orchards going on strike. Not weird enough to work as surrealism, yet not biting enough to work as satire or allegory, I was left admiring some of his technique, but wondering ‘why’.

Tina Sederholm’s ‘Love Tokens’ is a heartfelt and humorous piece, with a consummate performance. Reimagining her husband’s messes as ‘love tokens, signs of your devotion’, she utilises a lovely refrain to subtly build a layered performance where her metaphor defeats her own frustrations. Simply excellent.

The Winners and Prizes

  1. Brenda Read Brown – £100 and slots at future festivals
  2. James Dolton – £70
  3. Tina Sederholm - £30
  4. Joel Denno – Wine
  5. James Webster – comedy tickets

Overall

A fun slam, which was well hosted by Anna Saunders with energy and good humour (poets who went overtime were threatened with nebulous punishments to be meted out in the back room). As with all slams there were some mixed performances, but the majority was entertaining, with special praise going to the top three of Tina, Dolton and Brenda who all wowed me.

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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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