Author: carminamasoliver

Carmina Masoliver is a poet from south London, and founder of She Grrrowls feminist arts nights. She has been sharing her poetry on both the page and the stage for over a decade, and her small chapbook was published by Nasty Little Press in 2014. Her latest book ‘Circles’ is published by Burning Eye Books (2019) and is an illustrated epic poem, andshe recently self-published ‘Selected Poems: 2007 – 2012’, a mixed media pamphlet of poems.. Carmina was long-listed for the Young Poet Laureate for London award in 2013, and the inaugural Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowships in 2017, the Out-Spoken Prize in Performance Poetry in 2018 and the Grindstone International Poetry Prize in 2020. Alumni of the Roundhouse Poetry Collective, she has featured at nights such as Bang Said the Gun, and festivals including Latitude, Bestival and Lovebox both as a collective and individually. She performed internationally whilst living abroad, in Singapore, and in Spain.

Freelance Reflections #64

Uncategorized

Okay, so I have had to put my music project to the side a fair bit, aside from organising my final podcast interview, in order to focus on She Grrrowls: The Festival. Tickets have been realised today, so please spread the word and buy tickets to come along if you can! You can buy a ‘membership’ which will enable you to select the events and activities from there, or alternatively, you can buy tickets for individual events.

With just over two week’s until the festival, it’s the last hurdle and I’m a bundle of nerves, soft and squishy and sensitive, but strong! There’s been some obstacles so far, and no doubt there’ll be more, but the show must go on!

19.03.22

Events

Saturday 19th March 2022 – R.A.P. Party at The Albany, Douglas Way, London SE8 4AG, 7:30-10:30pm

05.03.22

Events

Saturday 5th March 2022 – She Grrrowls: The Festival at The Albany, Douglas Way, London SE8 4AG, 10am-11pm

Carmina Masoliver Presents

She Grrrowls: The Festival

Saturday 5th March 2022

The Albany, Douglas Way, London SE8 4AG

All day: 10am – 11pm

A programme of performances, workshops and talks highlighting local artists as part of Lewisham’s Borough of Culture award in celebration of International Women’s Day.

Through the theme of ‘joy and healing’, you can expect to take part in relaxing sound baths, energetic dance and performance classes, dynamic writing workshops and discussions, creative visual activities, and performances of dance, music and spoken word poetry.

Featuring:

C.O.T.U. and

Lateisha Davine Lovelace-Hanson

Zoca Fitness

Bam Bam Boogie’s Twerk After Work™

Laila Sumpton’s SHEroes of Lewisham

Belén L.Yáñez’s Nora’s Project

The Class Work Project

Grounded Movement

BORN::FREE

Variety D

Demi Anter

Laurie Ogden

Red Medusa

Jamie Hale

Annie Hayter

Antonia Jade King

Marianella López Marrero

Access:

The venue is step-free. There will be BSL interpreters and audio description available. Captioned evening performances 7-11pm. For full details email: shegrrrowls@gmail.com

www.shegrrrowls.com

@shegrrrowls

Buy tickets from The Albany Box Office, online at http://www.thealbany.org.uk or call 020 7525 2931.

£17.50 for full day/ £12.50 concessions, individual events £7/5.

Logos:

She Grrrowls, Quiplash, ACE, CRIPtic, Lewisham Council: We Are Lewisham, Spread the Word, The Albany

Event photography and film by Ibizo Lami.

23.02.22

Events


Wednesday 23rd February – Canvas & Cream, 8 London Rd, London SE23 3HF, 7:30pm

Freelance Reflections #63

News

So, the start of February I’ve had very little tutoring and very little content writing, but my time has mostly been taken up by producing ‘She Grrrowls: The Festival’. There’s still a lot to do and I’m very nervous-excited, but things are slowly taking shape and so I’m now officially announcing the festival to save the date, and hopefully tickets will available from The Albany website soon! Meanwhile, I’m sharing the original and an accessible poster for the festival, which will be themed ‘joy and healing’, designed by Natalie Cooper. I’ve also got a solo gig coming at Canvas & Cream in my neighbourhood Forest Hill, on Wednesday 23rd February at 7:30pm, and I’ve got an exciting gig after the festival in March too!

Carmina Masoliver Presents

She Grrrowls: The Festival

Saturday 5th March 2022

The Albany, Douglas Way, London SE8 4AG

All day: 10am – 11pm

A programme of performances, workshops and talks highlighting local artists as part of Lewisham’s Borough of Culture award in celebration of International Women’s Day.

Through the theme of ‘joy and healing’, you can expect to take part in relaxing sound baths, energetic dance and performance classes, dynamic writing workshops and discussions, creative visual activities, and performances of dance, music and spoken word poetry.

Featuring:

C.O.T.U. and

Lateisha Davine Lovelace-Hanson

Zoca Fitness

Bam Bam Boogie’s Twerk After Work™

Laila Sumpton’s SHEroes of Lewisham

Belén L.Yáñez’s Nora’s Project

The Class Work Project

Grounded Movement

BORN::FREE

Variety D

Demi Anter

Laurie Ogden

Red Medusa

Jamie Hale

Annie Hayter

Antonia Jade King

Marianella López Marrero

Access:

The venue is step-free. There will be BSL interpreters and audio description available. Captioned evening performances 7-11pm. For full details email: shegrrrowls@gmail.com

www.shegrrrowls.com

@shegrrrowls

Buy tickets from The Albany Box Office, online at http://www.thealbany.org.uk or call 020 7525 2931.

£17.50 for full day/ £12.50 concessions, individual events £7/5.

Logos:

She Grrrowls, Quiplash, ACE, CRIPtic, Lewisham Council: We Are Lewisham, Spread the Word, The Albany

Carmina’s Cantata #12

Carmina's Cantata

Just one more podcast episode to record next month and then I can focus on actually putting it out there! I have another project I’ll update about soon that requires a lot of my time at the moment, and I’m still waiting on some elements of the first episode to come together, so it may be out a little later that I hoped. If I manage by February to put them out every fortnight, that’ll still be enough time until the project ends in August.

Meanwhile, I’m still making time for my little red uke. I’ve been tired, I’ve been happy, I’ve been cold. I spent a lot of time doing ‘Ring of Fire’, which was good for some chord changes, and I’ve even learnt a bit about sharps and flats… I don’t know if my bed is the best place to do it, but that’s clearly where I tend to be!

Freelance Reflections #62

News

Although there are some days where the schedule goes awry, I have been really pleased with how my day are going when I am able to do things the way I want to. I’m awaiting details of a new daytime student, and it looks like there will be some flexibility. So, generally, my days will start with a morning of Duo Lingo with breakfast, exercise, content writing, and lesson planning. I’ll do some language learning before lunch, then practise the ukulele. Then I’ll have time to work on funded creative projects (currently music and event production) and unfunded creative projects, before then tutoring most of my students. After dinner, and on Sundays, my aim is to only do relaxing, fun things! Although, I have also started learning Turkish on Thursdays! Last night, I ended up getting this takeaway that was basically just a ready meal you had to heat up yourself! It was good, but… strange!

I did also take part in an Arvon online workshop about Performance in Communities, which involved taking these close-up images in my kitchen. On Instagram, I recently shared some books from Burning Eye Books, who unbelievably didn’t get funding and so really need people to buy books and donate! At the last check, they had about 10 copies of each of the books below, so if lots of people bought those books that’s £100 a pop between the poet and publisher.

Last week, I was very thankful to find out that my ACE application for the She Grrrowls Festival on Saturday 5th March this year has been successful! So, each day I’m working on this project a little, as well as my music project. I’ve not announced it officially yet, so this is a bit of an exclusive! Now, I just need my application to do an MA in Art Psychotherapy to go through! I don’t know whether it’s a build up of anxiety, but my skin is super itchy again, like in October. So, it’s good to be busy in the day, but by night it can be more of a struggle to stay asleep with the constant urge to scratch, even with medication! Hopefully it’ll kick in soon.

Carmina’s Cantata #11

Carmina's Cantata

I’ve recorded my penultimate podcast episode! Soon all that will need doing is the editing, and then working out Spotify and putting it out there! This has been my favourite part of this project as I’ve got to have some really interesting conversations and also caught up with poet friends that I haven’t seen in a while!

I’ve been dedicating more focussed time to playing the uke, and doing some tricky stuff in terms of both chord transitions and trying to play along to a metronome. On days where I have been able to have balance and do this, I have been feeling much more fulfilled and happier in what has felt like and up-and-down time. And apparently, only now mercury’s in retrograde.

Freelance Reflections #61

News

I am trying to prioritise rest and creativity, but change doesn’t happen at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve. Like always, it’s about trial and error and finding balance between listening to yourself with your needs, and what just needs doing…

I’ve been fortunate enough to spend time with family, albeit difficult being the first year without my maternal grandad. I spent time with my mum on the anniversary, and also uncovered something funny thing my dad kept, including this letter to Father Christmas. I’ve tried to give myself some time to do relaxing activities over the bank holiday, minimising the amount of work, to the point where my FitBit thought I was napping when I was in bed looking at books.

I’m doing the first She Grrrowls of the year shortly, feeling tired and looking forward to a night in. I’m also trying to accept the uncertainty of the pandemic, the question-mark over funding, and what this will look like by March, when I hope to do the festival. I’m trying to be kind to myself when I have emotional storms, and when I don’t manage to get everything I plan to do.

Carmina’s Cantata #10

Carmina's Cantata

I did take my ukulele with my on my travels to see family, but alas, I still have not perfected ‘Jingle Bells’. I’m looking forward to starting my routines again, as I ease into the New Year. I’ll be booking a monthly in-person lesson to add to my Fender Play practice. With my goals being about rest, balance, healing and joy, I hope to dedicate more focussed time to playing, which will give me fulfilment as I learn more and more.

I’m also going to record the penultimate podcast episode and begin to edit all the episodes to start putting them out by the end of the month, on a fortnightly basis. I’ll also need to figure out how to get them on Spotify. After listening to lots of podcasts on dating and sex, and grief and mental health, I’ve now been enjoying more poetry podcasts, including those from Apples & Snakes, Faber, and Dead Darlings.