Writers’ Bloc Presents: Inter-University Poetry Slam

Writers’ Bloc hosted a multi-team inter-university poetry slam against Pembroke College, Cambridge, and an array of poets from Birmingham (non-university affiliated), who were charmingly dubbed ‘COW’ (Coalition Of Wordsmiths) by Chazz Redhead, the compere for the evening. COW saved the day after Cardiff University pulled out of the competition.

For those who are not familiar with slam etiquette, the format of the evening was as follows: we began with the ‘Sacrificial Poet’ round, in which a poet from each team performed, in order to display how the voting system would work (audience members held up a red ‘C’ for COW, a blue ‘P’ for Pembroke or a yellow ‘B’ for Birmingham, depending on who they thought performed the best poem). The votes from the Sacrificial Poet round did not contribute to the final scores. This round was then followed by four rounds in which a poet from each team would perform one poem, with a strict time limit of three minutes; this process would be repeated in the second half. The audience voted after every round; the poet with the most votes would win a point for their team.

By pulling slips of paper from his shoe, Chazz announced the running order of the first half: COW, Pembroke, Birmingham.

COW’s Sacrificial Poet was Bohdan Piasecki, who is a renowned Birmingham-based poet from Poland, and also runs popular poetry night Hit the Ode. Bohdan quipped that he was going to perform something that was ‘really about the performance, rather than the meaning’ and launched into a fast-paced poem written entirely in Polish. While most of the audience had no idea what Bohdan was saying, his poem showed that slam poets need to concentrate on their performance, as well as their writing.

He was followed by Phoebe Power (for Pembroke), winner of a 2012 Eric Gregory Award and the 2009 Foyle Young Poet of the Year. She gave a very confident delivery of a poem in the voice of Dido (not the singer, the one from the Aeneid). The last Sacrificial Poet was Ben Jackson, who read a beautiful poem called Write Me in Your Diary. He took his performance to another level by interacting with the audience, which was evidently popular, as he was named winner of the round.

Now that the audience was clued in on how to vote, it was time for the main two rounds. James Walpole was up first for COW. It was quite evident that James was not used to slam poetry, as he read from the page (typically, slam poets are meant to have memorised their work) and also ran out of time. At times it was difficult to hear James, but considering the short notice he was given to be involved in the slam, he did well and the poem was very funny. A poet called Tristam was up next for Pembroke. He had a charming stage presence, and had the audience in stitches with his poem about not being able to ride a bike until the age of nineteen. Writers’ Bloc’s Lily Blacksell concluded (and won) the round with a poem about unrequited love. It’s a topic that is frequently written about, but Lily brought something new and personal to it. Her performance was also first-class, as she used her experience in acting to make her poem completely relatable and humorous. There were also moments of beautiful poignancy, however, especially created by a line about an ‘undeniably single bed’.

It would be impossible to give you a play-by-play of the evening, so instead I shall focus on the remaining highlights. Tiffany Kang from Pembroke College quite simply stole the show. Her soothing, hypnotic voice was used fantastically in her poems. As an American poet, she brought something completely different to the competition, showing that British and American styles of poetry are completely different, but equally entertaining.

Elisha Owen’s (UoB) poem about her relationship with her father was a personal favourite. It was touching without being too sentimental, and captured the difficulties of how growing up can affect such an important relationship.

Ben Norris (UoB) performed two great poems: Disaster Sex and Dismembered Voices. He had clearly focused on the delivery on his poems, which was infallible and energetic, but his poems were also great in their own right. All of this is even much more impressive when one remembers that Ben was also organising the entire evening, and was actually responsible for the formation of COW.

Lorna Meehan (COW) dealt with comic and serious subjects in her poems, but really shone with her poem about Michael Bublé. She was engaging, entertaining and truly likeable. All the women in the audience could relate to her, but her poetry was so well written that everyone was won over.

Finally, James Grady showed that you don’t need three minutes to impress an audience, you just need a little over one. His poem Crossword was full of hilarious innuendo and was undeniably catchy. It was a short but sweet way to win the support of the audience.

Mention must also be given to the wonderful compere, Chazz. He was funny, irreverent, sarcastic and very self-aware, which helped to move the already entertaining evening to new heights. Some poetry nights can be a little slow-moving, but this slam was filled with boundless energy, and left the audience wanting more.

At the end of the evening, the University of Birmingham was announced as the winner of the slam, with only one point between them
and the runners-up. However, as Chazz reminded us, the night wasn’t about winning; it was a celebration of poetry and talent.

By Jenna Clake

@jennaclake

Birmingham Visiting Writers Programme: Simon Armitage

On Tuesday 29th of January, renowned poet Simon Armitage appeared in the Bramall Music Building as part of the ‘Birmingham Visiting Writers Programme.’ It was the first event that the English Department had held in the new building and the turnout was remarkable. Every seat on the lower tiers was filled, and the balconies were even opened for surplus spectators. It was clear that this visitor was popular, and a huge number of people were eager to see him.

After a short introduction, Armitage took to the stage with welcoming applause. To many, this literary figure will be remembered as a favourite from GCSE English Literature, as a number of his poems featured in the Anthology course book. He has had 10 volumes of his poetry published, and has been awarded a CBE for his contribution to poetry. But he is a humble man in every attribute; from afar, with his faded jeans and a baggy suit-jacket, he looks like your best friend’s Dad. But peer a little closer and his brothel-creeper shoes and gold pirate earring give away his eccentricity.

From the start of his lecture, it was clear that Simon Armitage’s well-known stage presence and charm were still very much intact as he regaled us with amusing anecdotes from his childhood and his home-county of Yorkshire before getting to the serious stuff. His first poem ‘The Shout’ recalled a science project from his school days. After this, a reading of ‘Zoom’ – one of his first published poems about a cartoon show’s credits – left everyone in the room a little bemused but completely hooked. Following this, Armitage read some of his translated pieces, including ‘The Green Knight’ (which, incidentally, Disney approached him about to use for a new animation). Next, we were treated to one of his ‘Flash Fiction’ pieces titled ‘The Net’ – a slightly longer poem with a prose-like structure.

Forty-five minutes flew by, and soon it was time for some discussion. With some great questions from the audience, we were delighted with a number of quick-witted one-liners and amusing stories – in particular, a hilarious recollection of an embarrassing misunderstanding about ‘cashback’ in Huddersfield Sainsbury’s that left everyone laughing out loud.

Photo by William Fallows

However, Simon Armitage isn’t just an entertainer – he proved that beneath his showman exterior lays an extremely passionate and pensive mind, and his ponderings were both informative and thoughtful. Upon being asked whether his consideration of his readers affected his writing he profoundly responded: ‘There are only 26 letters in the English Language. But if you put them in the right order, you can explode something in someone’s mind, thousands of miles away, hundreds of years apart, in complete silence.’  And after just an hour in the same room as him, it would be safe to say that he had enthralled and impressed every member of his captivated audience.

By Megan Evans @mkevans92

Grizzly Pear @ The Bristol Pear

Grizzly Pear came into 2013 with a bang. This was the second instalment of the rebranded Writers’ Bloc open-mic night, and the demand for spoken word and storytelling was as high as ever. The theme for the evening was ‘eavesdrop’, which technically applied only to those performing in the second half, but the other writers were also very welcome to take part in the theme.

Ben Norris and Joe Sale kicked off the night with a feature that is quickly becoming the most anticipated performance of the evening: the parody rap. This time it was ‘The Fresh Prince of the Pear’, a hilarious take on a classic, which saw Joe play guitar and Ben play keyboard while rapping about the Aldi vs. Tesco debate – something that every student in Selly Oak understands. It was very clear that this Grizzly was going to be as bawdy as the last.

The first half saw fourteen writers take to the stage to show off their poems and prose pieces. Jess Hanson, the society’s Social Secretary, proved a brilliant opener. She read a ‘prequel’ to the piece she shared at the last Grizzly Pear, which was funny as always (especially in her imitation of her grandmother’s voice) and very well written. Some writers chose to stick to ‘eavesdrop’ theme, with amusing results: Meg Tapp read a series of limericks entitled ‘The Bitches: A Quartet’, which included women she overheard talking on a train, and Lorna Meehan performed a poem that was ‘Ophelia’s suicide note to Hamlet’ – a beautiful, haunting poem that was completely different to anything else performed during the night.

Celebrities also seemed to be a popular target of the readings. Joe Whitehead read ‘I Need Someone Better to Love Me’, a poem about being in love with Kim Kardashian. Joe clearly had the audience in the palm of his hand: he played between being endearing and absolutely entertaining, leading to very loud cheers from the crowd. Ed Corless, whose readings are always popular, read three short pieces of dialogue between Nicki Minaj and a stranger, entitled: ‘Superbass by Nicki Minaj’, ‘Nicki Minaj in Most Social Situations’ and ‘Nicki Minaj ruins everything’. The pieces played hilariously on Minaj’s most famous songs. With the ability to write such fantastic dialogue, it is easy to see why Ed is doing a Prose MA. 

Grizzly Pear also drew in many new faces and performers. As with most open-mic nights, the performers provided a mixed-bag of work, but their performances were generally confident and showed potential. The best newcomer of the night, however, was Sid. After being forced into reading by another performer, he showed that he definitely has the potential to become a great performance poet.

The second half of the evening saw six Writers’ Bloc members take to the stage to perform their ‘eavesdrop’ poems. Standout performances came from Lily Blacksell, whose poem about Bobby Womack (who has recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s) showed off her writing ability and acting prowess. Joe Sale returned to the stage with ‘Anti-poet’; this poem was a controversial choice, as Joe admitted that he had written it after hearing lots of terrible rhyming couplets from poets, many of whom, he said, were in the room. However, all was forgiven. The poem was well written, well performed and quite frankly, electric. James Dolton concluded the Writers’ Bloc slots with a rap, complete with its own backing track. The Writers’ Bloc members should be commended for bringing such a diverse selection of writing and performing to the evening; they are a testament to the society.

The final and main attraction of the evening was Slam Champion Vanessa Kisuule. She wowed the audience with a beautiful poem called ‘Strawberries’, in which she charted the tumultuous decline of a relationship in a completely relatable fashion. Another standout poem was ‘The Incidental Sister’, in which she wisely communicated her feelings of jealousy and love, which anyone with a sibling or two could definitely relate to. Vanessa also treated the audience to a poem that she had never performed before, ‘The F-bomb’, which discusses feminism. However, the poem was not simply a man-bashing tirade; Vanessa dealt with the subject in a personal way, so that her poem was relatable, enjoyable and did not alienate any member of the audience. Vanessa proved that she is a great writer and performer; she is able to fill a room with laughter, and achieve a sense of poignancy that many writers struggle to.

Jenna Clake

@jennaclake

The Gentlemen Press presents: Poetry Espionage

The event is held downstairs in the Six Eight Kafé, Temple Row, Birmingham. There are small tables with small chairs and small candles. Cosy and kooky; your perfect location for a gathering of new musicians and poets.

Joseph Sale is hosting. Humble as ever, he recites just two of his marvellous poems tonight and only picks up a guitar during the interval. His warmth and buoyancy creates an atmosphere of genuine intimacy and unity between performers and audience.

Max Merrick-Wren is my new favourite musician. He wields guitar and harmonica as if they’re extra limbs, for the most part with his eyes closed. His voice is soothing; his passion consistent throughout. I prefer his own songs to the Dylan cover, especially the gently powerful ‘High Horse’, with its climactic ending. The only constructive point I have is for him to inhale more quietly. I can’t wait to get hold of an album.

Joseph Sale performs ‘The Necromancer’, a haunting piece about raising the figures of history, listening to the ‘silence that became their voice’. Like the mysterious woman I am ‘wonder-morphed’, both by the ideas Joe evokes and the words with which he (appropriately) brings them to life.

Carl Sealeaf gives us two-and-a-half poems, due to an endearing bout of memory loss. The first half of ‘Growth’ is wonderful, expressing his fear of ‘acting out someone else’s definition of growing older, broader at the shoulders but still shrivelled at the heart’. His last piece about macaroni, festivities, ‘stale air’ and ‘oil-smeared hands’ culminates beautifully with a sad and simple point about family. I am left uplifted by his art but saddened by the things it says.

Next is the Italiano Duo, playing for the first time together in this country. Their covers include ‘New Shoes’ by Paolo Nutini, ‘Back to Black’ by Amy Winehouse, and ‘Warning Sign’ and ‘Clocks’ by Coldplay. Their nerves show a little but their gift is undeniable; Winehouse is obviously their favourite since their attitude and the volume are cranked right up. They shouldn’t be shy; their talent deserves confidence.

Elisha Owen offers us six poems in a voice perfectly suited to recital. She carries us with a quiet pensive joy through the vivid Spanish landscape of ‘Handprints’ where ‘the water creates a rhythm that foreigners dance to’. She reads ‘Prostrate Shadows’ where Muslim men are ‘sentinels beckoning the sunrise’, ‘Racing’, ‘Long Jump’, ‘Origami’, in which a seven year old boy  tries to sell her his art, and finally, ‘In the Days Before They Made Them Biodegradable’, where one plastic bag is transformed into a family treasure.

Sean Neil performs three songs; solemn, honest and touching. His strumming could flow better and he needs to use his diaphragm more, but bearing in mind that I can’t sing and play to save my life, that he wrote all of his own songs and that they’re very good ones, I hardly have a right to comment. His work is reminiscent of Damien Rice without the Irish accent, which suits me fine.

Next is Giles Longley-Cook. We flit through dreary rooms in ‘Reflections in Jordan’ and the joys of alcohol in ‘The Budweiser Gita’, while he drinks pointedly from a bottle. After a disturbing piece on the politics of the Holy Land, Giles pauses to let us listen to the whirring of a fan and the sounds of the café above before stating, hauntingly, that ‘I have never fully known silence’. This poem strikes me in a fresh and thought-provoking way before he thunders on into a mock Christmas carol for his finale.

Aliena and Peter follow up with a few covers as well as some of their own compositions (lyrics by Chris who sits bashfully in the audience). The guitar is a bit too loud but Aliena uses this to her advantage and blows us all away with her vocal power; Peter is both talented and utterly unassuming. My favourite song is ‘Avenue of Cosmonauts’, sullen and gripping and very bass-y.

Ben Norris reads a delightful poem derived from his lecture notes on the European Novel. It is sharp and witty, diving from humour to seriousness and back again. The wonderful twist is that although lecture notes in poetry is an innovative idea, the piece insists that nothing is ever truly original. ‘Meaning is contingent’, he claims, ‘his name is Echo’. Ben proceeds with a touching poem ‘Southern Hemisphere’, and then reads ‘After Babel, After Pisa’ concerning theories of the University Library’s reconstruction, and a lovely piece about keeping hold of somebody by collecting physical memories.

Joe rounds the night off with ‘Circles’, a farewell poem that reminds me of Bilbo’s ‘The Road Goes Ever On’. Profound and heart-warming, it weaves in circles of thought about this little gathering of artists and the common desires that brought us together.

‘We must not shake,’ he encourages us, ‘we must not fear, to seek the dream that brought us to this place’.

A special thanks to The Gentlemen Press for running this event. We hope to see more from you soon.

For more information, visit www.gentlemenpress.com

By Danielle Bentley

Speak Up @ The Hare and Hounds

As you walk into the upstairs room of the Hare & Hounds, you are captured by the ambience: the room is filled with beanbags and chairs (mostly taken already), there’s a table covered in homemade cupcakes and the room is lit with fairy lights. Sitting in the centre of the stage is a large leather chair, and in that chair sits compere and creator of ‘Speak Up’, Jodi Ann Bickley. She is renowned in the spoken-word scene and performed on the festival circuit this summer. Jodi Ann suffers from non-epileptic seizures, and she talks very bravely and candidly to the audience about her condition, trying to make them feel completely at ease; she even makes a game out of it, ‘Fits and Giggles’. Jodi Ann will sit in the chair for the entirety of the night (even during performances), unless she decides to take herself upstairs to another room, where she will Skype us and continue to host. The running-order of poets is chosen completely at random. On stage there is a screen (the one we’ll see Jodi-Ann appear on via Skype) and this is used to display a programme that selects the poet’s name at random.

There were a few highlights to the evening. The first poet of the evening was Ben Norris, a second-year English with Creative Writing student at the University of Birmingham, who has made a name for himself in the city’s poetry scene and is now receiving recognition for his work in other parts of the country, having recently represented the West Midlands in a national poetry slam. Ben performed ‘Disaster Sex’, a clever, humorous and heartfelt poem about the end of a relationship, complete with The Simpsons references and his recognisably energetic style. Ben set the bar for the evening, showing us all why his career is getting off to a fantastic start.

Carl Sealeaf followed shortly after. He nervously told that he was performing a new poem, and hetherefore was not sure if he had made the right decision. Carl’s choice of poem was exactly right: it revealed a sense of maturity that far exceeds his age. However, one must feel slightly sorry for Carl. Just before his performance, Jodi Ann decided to move upstairs and Skype. She was evidently in a playful mood and pulled faces and made jokes behind Carl as he performed, which made him lose his train of thought on two occasions, and also distracted the audience.

Lorna Meehan also gave a fantastic performance. She is popular in the Birmingham poetry scene, having supported Richard Tyrone Jones at his recent Hit The Ode special. She performed ‘Swing’, a self-affirming poem about the friendships that define us.

Joseph Sale, another second-year English with Creative Writing student, who has performed at Word Up and Hit The Ode, provided something completely different with a poem accompanied by the guitar. His inspiration was the picture of the falling man from 9/11. Joe’s ‘Thunderbolt 9/11’contains the religious and classical undertones we have come expect and enjoy from his work. His performance was chilling and hypnotic.

The first headliner of the evening was Toby de Angeli, a friend of the host and part of The Elephant Collective, which also contains the likes of Harry Baker. Toby is a storyteller. The audience listened, fascinated, as they were told about his friends and his favourite films (which were referenced frequently throughout his poems). In a touching story about the birth of his sister, Toby broke into a rap by his octopus alter-ego, which simply just added to the somewhat surreal quality of the night. The second headliner was Nichol Keene, also part of The Elephant Collective. She is Toby’s girlfriend, and it is quite evident that they have influenced each other’s style, although both are equally good in their own right. They finished the night with a poly-vocal piece in which Nichol also played the harmonica, which perfectly accompanied their storytelling prowess.

Despite the high calibre of talent, there were also some performances that required a little improvement. Frank Thomas performed a poem about an ex-girlfriend that was wrought with emotion, but clichéd at times. It was also in need of an edit, as it ran on for almost thirteen minutes. While it is evident that Frank was deeply passionate, thirteen minutes is over four-times the length of slam poetry. (However, he must receive credit for being able to remember all of it off-by-heart.)

Timing was also generally an issue for Speak Up as a whole. After nearly three hours, a poet called Archy took to the stage. The surreal atmosphere was amplified by his blatant improvisation, which at first was humorous, but then grew tiresome as he performed a third poem. Archy’s performance highlights Speak Up’s flaw: Jodi Ann doesn’t know when to say ‘no’. Throughout the night, people who had finally mustered up the courage had been asking to perform and Jodi Ann, admirably wanting to encourage them, said ‘yes’ to every single one. Speak Up is lacking the structure that other Birmingham-based spoken-word events have mastered, thus making the audience grow impatient and inattentive by the end. Jodi Ann, despite being quite welcoming in some circumstances, seemed far more comfortable when introducing her friends. Being at Speak Up was comparable to attending a typical American film house party (we literally could have been sitting in her lounge) in which Jodi Ann would have been the Queen Bee and her friends would have been the ‘popular’ group. This left others often out of the loop and feeling a little uncomfortable, especially as the host (ostensibly in good humour) attempted to pick on newcomers and people she had heard of, but never met. In this, Jodi Ann seemed to fulfil the role of a comedienne, not a compere of an open-mic evening. This, coupled with the duration of the night, left one feeling rather drained.

 If you have plenty of time to spare and a thick skin, then Speak Up will be perfect for you. It is definitely home to some extremely talented poets, especially as Jodi Ann is celebrated in the scene. However, if you have an early start or prefer your poetry to last a maximum of forty-five minutes, then there may be other Spoken Word events that will tend to your needs.

Look out for two more Birmingham-based spoken word events this week. ‘Grizzly Pear’ is at The Bristol Pear, Selly Oak at 7:30pm on Wednesday 24th October. Hit the Ode is at The Victoria at 7:30pm on Thursday 25th. 

Jenna Clake

@jennaclake

Liz Lochhead & Liz Berry with LiTTLe MACHiNe @ Birmingham Book Festival

It’s all over. The last event of Birmingham Book Festival 2012 took place last Saturday. There was no room to be sullen, however, as the ‘Closing Party’ celebrated the positivity of the festival.

The party took place in the Old Library – one of the many buildings which make up the eclectic mix of venues in the Custard Factory. Built in 1866, its Victorian gothic features prove its status as a precious piece of Birmingham’s history. The venue was also particularly appropriate having been one of Birmingham’s first free libraries. Although it has now been emptied of books, the evening brought back a literary atmosphere.

The two featured poets were, strangely, both called Liz. The first Liz was Liz Berry, a Black Country ‘lass’ who now lives in London. Her poetry was terrifically influenced by the West Midlands. One piece called ‘Birmingham Roller’ was written in a Black Country dialect and it felt like a perfect piece to emphasize an important purpose of the book festival, which is to celebrate and raise awareness for local talent. She also read a great piece called ‘The Fishwife’, which was inspired by the old tradition of inviting a fishwife to a wedding. She was a great performer, and definitely a poet to look out for.

The second Liz was Liz Lockhead, a renowned Scottish poet and playwright. She was appointed as a Makar (national poet of Scotland) in 2011 . When Liz took centre stage she commanded her environment. As several people walked in late, she ushered them to their seats asking them to sit down and enjoy the poetry. She read a selection of poems, including some from her latest collection A Choosing: The Selected Poetry of Liz Lochhead.

Later, Liz was joined by the very talented LiTTLe MACHiNe – a three man group who specialise in setting famous poetry to music. They collaborated by taking her poem ‘Trouble is not my middle name’ and putting to music. They had only prepared the piece a few hours prior to the performance, so it felt fresh and spontaneous.

LiTTLe MACHiNe then took the audience on a historical tour through British poetry. They interspersed personal and contextual tales amongst the music and poetry, giving the concert an intimate and cosy atmosphere. Their set included a vast range of poetry from Shakespeare to Carol Ann Duffy. Their renditions of ‘Ozymandias’ by Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron’s ‘We’ll Go No More a Roving’ were highlights of the set.

They certainly added a new dimension to well-known poetry. If the crowd had been slightly bigger, and a few more people had been willing to get on their feet and sing along, then the Old Library would have truly come alive on the final night of the book festival.

Lauren Carroll

@laurenxcarroll

Art and Writing – The City @ Birmingham Book Festival

In Birmingham, the second biggest city in the UK, defining the concept of ‘the city’ is understandably relevant. It is little wonder, therefore, that the Barber Institute has interpreted it also. The institute has been called ‘a haven of tranquility in a bustling metropolis’; procuring the status as a perfect island in which literary fans can gather and act the flâneur; observing the city through the eyes and mouths of storytellers.
‘Art and Writing: The City’ was presented on Thursday 11th October by Andrew Killeen, the resident writer at the Barber Institute; guiding listeners through the ‘concrete jungle’. This main event, he explained, was preceded by a series of creative writing workshops that aimed to provoke ideas about cities and our relationship to them. Yet, he emphasised writers did not simply sit in front of art and write. They met and discussed themes together, later reconvening to share and critique each other’s work. The finished products were then brought to the final workshop. Killeen was pleased to note that the experience had been ‘inspiring’, and that works had been chosen this evening to demonstrate the ‘breadth of ideas’ throughout the project.
Certainly, the stories brought some interesting interpretations to the fore. Cities were popularly situated alongside the countryside; most storytellers portrayed the country as backwards and boring, a ‘void’ where ‘a computer [became] a rare gift’. This rendered ‘the city’ a glamorous finale to a journey of escapism. This notion, however, was often dispelled by portrayals of multiple cities.

Jenefer Heap’s modern London was ‘rendered sterile from a safe distance’ for tourists. She superimposed this image upon a city so that the character of ‘Lu’ could walk with her younger self ‘Lulu’, confronting distasteful elements of her past.  Aaron Jackson portrayed a dark and bloody underworld to his initially attractive Tokyo and poet Jessica Holloway Swift held Oxford up against London, stating that ‘Oxford was the city of the king, London the city of the usurper.’
Set in the aftermath of the Civil War, Swift’s London smog was innovatively replaced with the presence of Puritans that apparently ‘polluted the soul’. In each, the ‘seductive’ city became sordid, the ‘nonchalant’ city became ‘violent’ and the ‘instinctively chic’ city became morally ambiguous. Death also permanently pervaded its horizon like ‘a weight of bloodied metal’. The word ‘survival’ echoed throughout; it seems that the workshops had stimulated an urban anxiety.
This was especially evident in Killeen’s short story, Hardcore, where a country dweller’s attempts to remove a traveller’s family from his local ‘green belt’ made evident fears about the spread of suburbia. Killeen claimed in his introduction that the city has ‘burst out of the walls’ that once defined it; rural/urban boundaries are being swallowed by a suburban landscape. Killeen asked, ‘How do we know who to include and exclude?’ His protagonist certainly does not want to include travellers, whom he sees as destroying his ‘way of life’. The implication, however, is that his bigoted views are influenced by his fear that ‘Eventually our green and pleasant land will become one big ugly dirty city’; his enemies are developing and changing a field into an (albeit basic) built-up area.
Combatting this aesthetic of unease were the readings that punctuated the workshop’s storytellers. Lecturers from the university brought a fresh and positive attitude to the project; a love for the city, that has been explored by English writers in times past. We heard the hustle and bustle of Virginia Woolf’s London that leads Mrs Dalloway to proclaim that this ‘was what she loved; life; London; this moment in June.’ Hugh Adlington performed a more serene London in William Wordsworth’s Composed Upon Westminster Bridge where ‘the very houses seem asleep/And all that mighty heart is lying still’. This poem seemed particularly appropriate as Wordsworth’s stolen moment of ‘calm, in the midst of Mrs Dalloway’s London, mirrored that of the audience’s in the Barber Institute’s intimate lecture theatre.
In the course of the evening, it became clear that the city has many faces, and that art has the capacity to capture each of them, including the people living within them. The relationship between urbanites and the metropolis is a complex one, and Killeen’s project displayed urban love and hate in a wonderfully widespread and indeed inspiring fashion.

Becca Inglis

‘Read. Write. Think.’ – Birmingham Book Festival Launch 2012

The fourteenth annual Birmingham Book Festival was launched on Thursday by a series of central figures in Birmingham’s literary and cultural development. Namely, the festival director, Sara Beadle, the chair of Writing West Midlands, Philip Monk and Birmingham’s director of culture and the exciting new library project, Brian Gamble. Sara Beadle told the audience that the festival is about ‘more than books (…) it is really about ideas.’ This seemed fitting, not only with the diverse content of the festival itself, but also in reflecting Birmingham’s vision for literature and culture in and around the city.

As always, the Custard Factory provided a comfortably sociable and airy setting; the launch was held in the appropriately named Yumm café and the adjacent indoor courtyard. As a regular attendee of spoken word events and writers’ meetings in Birmingham, such as Apples and Snakes ‘Hit the Ode’ and ‘Poets’ Place’, I recognised many of the faces at the launch party. However, due to the prestige of the long-standing annual festival, the event attracted a varied audience and by no means was it a ‘writers-only’ crowd.

Before the featured act, and after the speeches made by the organisers of the festival itself, the new Birmingham Poet Laureate was announced. This role has proved vital over the past seventeen years in reaching out to communities and schools.  We were also reminded that Birmingham was the very first city in England to have a laureate. Jan Watts, the now former poet laureate, read some of her poetry which reflected upon her experiences over the past year. She claimed that she would not be able to rest as a poet due to being ‘too busy with the vibes’ she is constantly surrounded by in Birmingham. I assumed this was a reference to the highly interactive and energetic literary scene driven by many of the city’s accomplished writers, readers, editors and general arts organisers. The new poet laureate, Stephen Morrison-Burke, introduced himself with an accomplished spoken word piece about what it is to be young, uncertain and to have embarrassing moments on the streets of Brum. It is exciting to consider what he will bring to the role. Jan Watts was very much a mother-figure to Birmingham’s poetry scene, whereas the young Stephen Morrison-Burke will perhaps stand as an innovative source for poetry in the city.

After all of the informative and surprisingly inspiring formalities, the featured poet and comedian, Elvis McGonagall, took to the make-shift stage. He informed the audience that he had ‘been suffering from his poetry’ and now it was our turn. In a booming Scottish accent, and a fetching tartan blazer, his politically mis/informed poetry certainly entertained the entire audience. He moved his head slowly and fixed his eyes in one place as he spoke about stygian gloom and Wallace and Gromit. A particular favourite, partly due to an unsettingly accurate impersonation, was a poem composed of a series of words and sayings too-often used by David Cameron.

The evening was a unique and captivating way to kick off the next eight days of the festival. The festival line-up this year looks fascinating (if I could go to everything, I would); for example, talks by various and extremely well established writers, such as Simon Armitage and Jackie Kay, an eclectic mix of writers workshops, a spoken word play and an evening of story telling. In addition, this year the literary festival seems to have embraced a political and digital edge. A talk to be given by a group of Libyan bloggers and the launch of a collection of poetry/essays set in Palestine are definitely one of a kind and therefore not to be missed.

For a full list of events: http://www.birminghambookfestival.org/events-2012/full-festival-programme/

Alana Tomlin                                                                                                            

@alanatomlin  

The Poets’ Place

As a creative writing student and writer of poetry, The Poet’s Place is an event I have been meaning to go to since it was first set up early this year. It happens twice a month on a Saturday between 2pm and4pm and is located on the lower-ground floor of Birmingham Central Library. It is hosted by West Midland’s Apples and Snakes, who also run the successful monthly spoken word event Hit the Ode and various other workshops and open-mic events around the city. You can sign up to the mailing list for more information by looking them up online.

Firstly, I will definitely be going back. The event is held in what feels like a mixture between the library’s basement and a conference room. The space is also shut off from the main library so you can get fully involved in the poetry and poets around you without feeling self-conscious. Most importantly there is plenty of tea and a fantastic selection of biscuits, which in itself is a good incentive.

There was wide a variety of people ranging from the poet laureate of Birmingham, Jan Watts, who this week was conducting interviews about people’s involvement within the Birmingham arts scene for the local radio. There was also a stand-up comedian who told the group that she had started writing poetry because her character wrote poetry. I also got chatting to the poet in residence of St. Martin’s Church (the church by the Bullring and markets) who told me about her workshops and the free art exhibitions the church regularly holds. However, most of the people there were aspiring poets and artists wishing to share work, talk about poetry and publishing routes or use the focused environment to sit quietly and write for an hour.

If you are thinking about starting to write poetry, read a lot of poetry or already write poetry this is a wonderful opportunity. Not only will you gain practical advice about writing from fellow poets, it is a place where any poetry related events around the West Midlands are advertised; I walked away with a list of four events which I would never have heard of otherwise. Birmingham has a thriving poetry scene, but it often remains unknown to people who are not a part of it already. Yet, meetings such as this contribute to the development and spreading of the genuine inspiration produced by everyone involved.

The next Poets’ Place will be held on Saturday 10th March.

Words by Alana Tomlin