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HEADcrash Cabaret

Poetry Gigs

Last Wednesday was my first feature since being back in Norwich; HEADcrash Cabaret at The Birdcage.  After getting a glass of wine, some postcards and a ‘cocksucker’ badge from actor, poet and host, Russell J Turner, we found somewhere to sit – on the floor as it was rammed.

I suddenly remembered I forgot to spell check my last post.  There must be lots of errors.

Anyway, Chris Ogden, former president of the Creative Writing Society, was first up.  I knew what to expect as LitSoc showcased him at an event we held at the Hive at UEA.  I really liked his menstruation poem, and it reminded me of how I always forgot I was due on my period a number of times staying round a certain friend’s house, and what it means that he didn’t care and it didn’t feel awkward, which is basically what the poem was about – comfort.

Next was a girl called Greta, not sure of her surname, but I really liked her… that’s all I remember.  Robyn Comfort was next and I especially enjoyed her set, though I’ve seen her a few times, this time it was because she SANG! Well jealous, but of course, very happy for her as she was quite nervous about doing it! 

Then there was Andy Bennett, who a lot of people seemed to know, but I didn’t.  He was really good, and did something similar to Tim Clare in relation to Tom Cruise’s ‘Last Barman Poet’ performance in the film ‘Cocktail’.  It seems to have turned into some cult interest and I don’t know why but I really liked it.  I have been trying to write my version for this event that I won’t be able to make anyway, sadly.

After a break, I was next.  I really enjoyed performing and felt it went really well.  I think because I did so many new poems, although I was worried about the newness of them, it made it more enjoyable because there was a mix of poems I knew pretty much by heart, and those that just felt really fresh or something.  My housemate Kristy said how I had improved so much from last term, which was amazing to hear because it means all the open mic and feature gigs I’ve had over summer have been worth it!

Hannah Walker, who I mentioned in my set, was the last poet.  I’ve written about her before and really liked her set, naturally.  I was hoping to speak to her, but she disappeared or I was busy talking to other people or something like that.  Pay No Mind were the band at the end, I liked the songs but it felt like the singer was singing from the wrong part or something, so she was potentially good, but something was wrong that I couldn’t put my finger on and it kind of annoyed me.

I’ve also now got my heart set on an MA, so plan to take a year out to earn money so I can live back in Norwich.  Ideally I’d do it this coming year, but I won’t be able to afford it.  This probably means I won’t be able to afford to go inter-railing either but I can always do that after my MA… or any time in my life.  I don’t want a job that restricts me to not being able to do that.  I see myself doing lots of different jobs rather than one big one.  I read an article about work-life balance recently in the Sunday Times Style magazine that makes me think a merge rather than a separation is how people are more inclined to working these days.  I want to enjoy my work, and it be part of my life, not waiting for the work day to end so I can start my life each weekend or whatever.

Anyway, to save myself from rambling, I’m going to get reading and try to find someone who will come to see The Neutrinos with me and my housemate Kirstie, only asking for £2 compared to £8.50 on the door! 

xxx

Word of Mouth & After Hours

Inspiration, Poetry Gigs

So, I didn’t make it to any more poetry events the week before returning to Norwich, for three reasons:

1. Monday: kept up by snoring at a friend’s house, went home at 5am, took two hours, had three hours sleep.

2. Tuesday: went round to friend’s house, mum didn’t want anyone staying round, was home by 2am.

3. Wednesday: goodbye drinks, ended up going clubbing with one mate, everyone got chucked off the bus, got home at 5am and was hungover all day.

Anyway, back in Norwich, I went off to the NAC to see Tim Clare headline at Word of Mouth.  Andy Spragg was up first, who I know from previous Soapbox events and the Poetry Choir.  I really liked his poems and would have liked to read as well as hear them, which I got to do later on!  Although confident, he was a bit shaky – which is what I’ve been doing recently at events and know how annoying it is, like… why is my leg shaking.  A bit like Will’s arms on The Inbetweeners (which I watched the next day on 4od, very funny!) 

The Anti-Poet I had performed alongside at Speech Motion, at the Horse & Groom pub in London.  They were even better than the last time!  I really want my own music stand and one of those microphones; it’s the perfect solution to my bad memory, and well, the microphone just looks and sounds cool.

So, the headline act, Tim Clare, I had seen at Latitude but couldn’t hear that well, and was chatting to a uni mate I bumped into and was pretty pissed off that I couldn’t get back to where I was sat as it had gotten so crowded.  Also, it seemed to be more comedy and music than poetry… so I didn’t know what to expect this time.  It ended up being… AMAZING!  Tim’s act wasn’t so much comedy but just him being himself and rambling on about his night drinking Cocktails, and reciting Tom Cruise’s “poem”.   He was really quite endearing; what a charmer.  I loved his poem about loving crazy women and the epic “9-minute poem”.

The After Hours Club was a scary ‘Swap Shop Special’ which involved putting our poems in a bag and picking three different ones.  I knew some people had put in awkward poems, so I was lucky enough to avoid any of that, PLUS I got my very own ‘Cinderella’ poem.  I didn’t record the event as I just wanted to enjoy it for what it was… wasn’t really about me haha.  It was weird seeing Tim Clare in the audience.   I hoped he thought I was good.  It’s cool when the bigger names come to the open mic bit.  Though I would probably judge them badly if they didn’t to be honest! 

There was a bit of drama with the LitSoc Vs. CWS.  It turned out to be an issue of improving communications and never using the term ‘open mic’ for LitSoc events to avoid confusion for the Student’s Union in terms of the distinctions between the societies.  Anyway, after some passionate and persuasive arguing from me (I did get an A in that at GCSE) it seemed to be all sorted, and we should be able to work together the way I had intended, rather than against each other.  And I avoided crying – yay!

 So, everything ended up being okay, and in a few hours shall be seeing a lot of the same faces for HEADcrash Cabaret at The Birdcage with some friends coming along.

xxx

I have been to hell and back. And let me tell you, it was wonderful.

Inspiration

Well, I’ve decided to just do an update on what I’ve been up to, along with a few recommendations.

The first is Thorpe Park.  I bought a bounce-back voucher and went for the second time this summer.  I travelled with a couple of my close friends, yet I was physically shaking when I greeted everyone else.  Not because of the rides, but because of the presence of a girl who I do not like, a girl who has wronged me in the past and, more importantly, ignored my offering of an olive branch a couple of years ago.  I got used to my life without having to worry about her, and now, she has returned to cause me more misery.  Now, with my wonderful friends, plus the excitement of all the rides, I managed to have a good time!  So, if a theme park can still be fun in the face of all this drama, then it must be pretty damn good!

Best Ride: between Saw and Stealth

Worst Ride: between Rumba Rapids and Colossus

Anyway, that evening I met up with my Gran who is moving to live in France with her boyfriend.   We had a meal at an Italian restaurant in Barbican, before seeing “Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, The Mistress and The Tangerine”.  After seeing the film, I wanted to watch it again and so I know I HAVE to get the DVD!  It was so inspirational and beautiful, and I think I’d love to have it to watch whenever I feel low.  Louise is such an amazing person, I love her work and this film made me want to find out more about her, as it is filled with mystery and is extremely interesting.  She is shown as a pillar of strength, striking and funny, with a mass of quotable comments.  It is easily the best film I’ve seen all year and, having recently died at age 98, it is a fitting tribute to her life as an artist… and although she doesn’t define herself as one… a feminist role model.

After seeing my family on Saturday for a last goodbye for my Gran with my family, and taking some things each that she wanted to give away to us, I have been relaxing the rest of the time, and trying to not get too emotional about going back to Norwich – I always get a bit weird with change.  My room is now exploding with books, and I have hung an abstract painting my dad did of me as a baby, which is possibly slightly less egocentric than having my own paintings on every wall.  I watched a film called ‘U Be Dead’ which was a drama based on a true story and was quite entertaining.

painting by my dad

I read in the garden most of the day.  I think it’s the first time all summer I’ve had a day doing that.  I’ve been thinking about sexuality recently and found a quote that intrigued me in a book I’m reading for university, “Granta: Music”.  It was in a piece called “Brandy” by Philip Hensher:

‘I sat in the kitchen of a sympathetic girl called Miriam and told her that I was a homosexual, and faked an anguish I didn’t really feel.  Several times, too, I hopefully said, late at night to a handsome boy, when we were alone, what everyone like me says and never really believes, that of course, everyone is basically bisexual, until one of them crossed the room and kissed me, and after that I never said anything so foolish ever again.’

It was strange because I had said recently to a friend that I believed sexuality was not a black and white subject matter.  I thought, and still do think, that it is not a case of homosexual, heterosexual and bisexual.  Rather, I do think that everyone is bisexual to some degree.  I see sexuality as a spectrum and everyone falls somewhere on the continuous line from A to B.  I don’t personally feel I could label myself bisexual, as I am unsure whether I would be willing to engage in the same level of relationship with the same-sex as I do with the opposite sex.  This kind of connected with something I read in a children’s book by Sherman Alexie about not just belonging to Spokane Indian tribe but there being many ways of defining yourself.  So, in that sense, sexuality is just one of many ways in which we define ourselves; it’s all the little things that make us who we are.  Although, saying that, I’m remembering in psychology we learnt that we are not just the “sum of our parts” so this train of thought could be carried on a lot further.  But, I won’t.  I think I’ve written enough for one day.

xxx

So She Said

Poetry Gigs

I enjoyed the last fundraiser for LadyFest Ten so much I decided to go again to this one.  I was worried the tube strike would force me to take buses and get lost as I have a habit of travelling in the wrong direction.  Since I came all the way from South West London to Mile End, there was really no excuse for anyone not attending!  I think it’s more the idea that there will be problems travelling that stopped them coming, rather than any real obstacles.

I was with my friend Elliot again as he lives walking distance, and we sat in the same place as before; I’m a creature of habit.  We were given Poetry Bingo cards and edible DIY-poetry biscuits which we made with icing sugar glue.  I thought that was really fun!  The other acts this time weren’t as impressive and it wasn’t really as good as the time before, if I’m honest.  The performers that stood out for me were Sophia Blackwell, of course, and Elliot’s friend Aurélie Jestin who played guitar and sang – I didn’t understand what she was saying as it was in French but I loved everything else you can like about music with lyrics you don’t understand.

My own performance, I wasn’t that happy with… I don’t know, I just wasn’t feeling it.  I had to bend to the mic a bit as it wasn’t positioned right, which is wierd as I’m quite short… and I messed up a few lines.  Aurélie and Elliot liked it and the audience did make some ‘woo’ noises so I suppose I should stop being so miserable and just be pleased haha.  However…there was this group of girls that wouldn’t stop talking throughout my set, and Sophia Blackwell… in fact, everyone!  They seemed like such posers, all like “we’re at a feminist event!  We’re lesbians/bisexual/friends with lesbians!  We’re at a poetry event! We’re so cool!”  It was just like, why are you here if you’re going to talk throughout the whole thing?  I get really annoyed at people like that, it’s just plain rude!  I wouldn’t make those statements about them normally, but that’s just the impression I got from their ignorance of attending something like this and not bloody paying attention!

Well, rant over, that’s pretty much all I have to say.  I’m deliberating whether to go to an open mic night next week… and if so, which to go to?  It’s between Farrago and Spoonful of Poison.  Farrago costs £5 which is a big factor really, since my main reason for wanting to go is out of obligation as I said I’d try to go to one before I go back to uni in Norwich.  Spoonful of Poison I said I’d go to a couple of weeks ago but forgot and double booked, so feel a pull to go to that as well, but this one is also FREE to go to, so that would be good.  I’m also hoping to see my friend Natalie on that date and she would probably prefer Spoonful as it’s free and she even did her first poetry reading there.

Dilemmasss!  Any advice about that would be welcome, but I’ll probably end up going to whatever Natalie wants to go to… hopefully she will actually be back from Greece by then.

xxx

Ink, Sweat & Tears

News

Charles Christian has published me on the online poetry and prose webzine, Ink, Sweat & Tears.  You can read the piece by clicking here.

xxx

The Queen’s Speech

Poetry Gigs

Last night I went to an open mic in Brixton’s Queen’s Head.  It was quite at first and I arrived an hour early so sat at a lamp with Proust and a glass of wine.  Rachel Pantechnicon was the featue who I’d seen a few times before at Farrago but had’nt spoken until this time, and I also recognised one of the open mic acts.

I felt a bit embarrassed when I got off the stage after performing ‘Cinderella’ to press record again on my camera, and the microphone kept swinging away from me.  Other than that, the audience were really supportive and seemed to like it.  I really enjoyed it anyway and smiled throughout it.  The video I recorded did cut off my head though.

xxx

Needle&Thread open mic

Poetry Gigs

This is just a quick update about the last open mic night I went to, last Tuesday at the Half Moon pub in Herne Hill.  I used to live in the area, but it was before I was five so I don’t remember much, it was my parent’s first place though so I have like one vague memory in a park as well as those confused with photographs and home videos.  So, the event was Needle&Thread and although I was there an hour before to sign up, after one glass of wine, my friend Amy came along, as she lives five minutes walk away.

It was good to see Amy, and although the other acts were all men with acoustic guitars, it was fun and relaxing.  It was weird at first because the lights were so bright I couldn’t see the audience – I used to like that when I was dancing but it felt like reading to an empty room, although the crowd were really nice with clapping and cheering.

It has to be said, the bar staff were really nice and friendly, and it seemed an all-round cool pub.  I was gutted I had to leave so early to get my last train.  If I didn’t have work the next day I would have bussed it back.  There was one guy that was going to do poetry that talked to me and my friend at the bar, and he interrupted our conversation and then said “don’t beat me up” so I would have loved to see what he did!

Next up, tonight, The Queen’s Speech and The Queen’s Head in Brixton.  So far, going it alone.  I’ve become soooo skint over the summer as well – thank God for my travel expenses from Penned in the Margins!

On another note, I had my last day at my internship and it’s easily the best bit of work I’ve ever had, such a great experience, and let me tell you, there’s some exciting stuff coming up in the next year!  I had a goodbye lunch at Juno  which was delish!  I pretty much could have eaten anything on the menu, except the fish… not a fan – very unEnglish of me!  I’ve no idea why there’s bad reviews online, I really liked it, my perfect menu and nice atmopshere, with a cool space invaders table.

Anyway, I’ll update soon about tonight, as I’ve got my own camera back… well, it says it’s repaired but I swear it’s a new camera! Not bad for £23!

xxx

JawDance: Apples & Snakes

Poetry Gigs

Last Wednesday I went to JawDance at Rich Mix in Shoreditch.  It was a few minutes away from where I go for my internship so I met my friend, Siobhan, at the station and we stolled around Brick Lane, and ate at Cafe 1001.  I arrived in good time and was about fifth on the open mic list.  The other performances were good, and there was a lot of variety of styles.

I enjoyed my set, and got a couple of compliments.  I got chatting to one girl, called Laila Sumpton, and I recognised her from my old dance class, Gemini Dancers and asked her name, and it was her.  She also knew fellow poet, Alain English – what a small world!  I also listened to the video again on the tube to see if you really could hear it, and you couldn’t really, apart from at the stops… so maybe not quite as embarrassing as I first thought.

On another note, I’ve finished Henry James, The Portait of a Lady.  It’s one of those books that is so beautifully written that it’s just a pleasure to read it.  It makes me feel like Henry James is reading to me as we sit by a fire in an old Victorian mansion.  The characters, especially Isabel, the lady in question, captured my interest entirely, and although due to my busy schedule I was unable to keep the pace of my reading, the story drew me in each time I picked up the book.  It’s wonderful when a book can truelly take you into another world and make you forget your own life for a while – that’s what this does.  At over 600 pages, I’m now ready to take on Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust for the second time.

I went to Thorpe Park yesterday and had so much fun that I implusively bought a “bounce back” ticket for a tenner so hopefully will get to go with a few of the friends that didn’t get to go this time.  I went to the gym for the first time in a while, maybe 2 weeks and it felt good to get some excercise done!  I’m going to go again tomorrow.  I weighed myself afterwards which was a mistake – 9 stone 11 pounds – which is basically my normal weight.  I know it sounds stupid, but sometimes I get it into my head that I’d like to get down toe 8 stone 7 pounds.  In reality, 9 stone 7 pounds would surfice, as I just want to sort out trouble areas like thighs, stomach and bingo wings, and a BMI of 22.8 would be fine (well, my current BMI is also fine) but 20.4 sounds so much better.  All this is silly to say anything about anyway, because the only reason I go to the gym is so I can stuff my face with things like yummy roast dinner and dark chocolate – which is what I’ll be doing later tonight 😀

And I think I’m going to have about 5 cans of Fosters tomorrow night (and that’s me trying to be sensible!) with a friend I haven’t seen since Hop Farm festival!  And I have Monday off work.  Looking forward to these next few days! Next open mic will be Needle & Thread in Herne Hill, at the Half Moon Pub.

xxx

Lady Fest Ten

Poetry Gigs

Last night I went to the Lady Fest poetry open mic event ‘So She Said’ at The Victoria in Mile End.  I went after work and grabbed a burger and wedges from Cafe 1001 (and a sneaky Carlsberg).  The features of the night were Chrissy Williams, Dzifa Benson and Liz Bentley.  Chrissy Williams I thought was okay but perhaps more of a “page” poet, given by her numerous publications of which I can only dream of being in currently.  If I remember correctly a lot of the poems involved dialogue, which I thought maybe was in order to fit in with the event title, which would have been a cool thing to do, if it was intentional.

My favourite feature was probably Dzifa Benson.  I usually find it more difficult to concentrate on the poet prior to going up myself, but I really liked her set, especially one she read about skin.  I was pleased with how my set went and the girl who went up after me (can’t remember her name, but she was good!) said she enjoyed my set.  She also told me she’d only started doing poetry readings a week or so ago!  Where have all these amazing poets come from that need like nooo practice to perform amazingly?  (Like Vanessa Kisuule, whose name I wanted to mention in my last Farrago post but am not sure if I did). I also was compared to Brigitte Aphrodite by, Nikki Shaill, one of the event organisers who approached me about contributing to the Lady Fest Zine.  I was really surprised by the comparison, but I don’t know maybe it’s the inflection in the voice when performing, expression of emotion or something.  I don’t have music in my act (yet!) but if I were to sum up Brigitte’s act, I would describe it as of the cockney music hall variety.  Maybe it was ’cause I was with my cockney-East-end-born&bred friend, Elliot Snook (soon to be happy-hardcore music producer, so he tells me).  I told my mum this and she said I sound “more cockney” when I read my poetry.  My own mother!  I was not impressed, I shall have to “get my posh on” in future, all these comparisons unnerve me; flattering as they are, as my friends are saying a lot these days ‘I love it, but it kinda makes me sick’.  I guess it’s because I like these people, but see myself as very different to them in so many ways… I guess I’ve always felt I can’t be put in a box (although I LOVE quizzes, you know the ones that try to put you in boxes).

OMG!  Two embarrassing things happened to me related to this night as well:

1.   I was on the tube and decided to watch the recording of my performance with my Ipod in, to see how long I was on for (which I found out after you can see without doing that).  My camera’s at the repair shop, so I was borrowing my mum’s, so I also didn’t know that you could hear SOUND when you play it back (mine doesn’t do that).  I even took my earphones out to check but didn’t seem to hear anything, but my mum told me you could after. So yeah, embarrassing!  Especially as there was someone who performed there on the tube near me probably thinking what a weirdo loser I was!

2.  My parents had their couple friends round for food and drinks, and I went to bed, leaving the camera with my mum as she wanted to take pictures.  She told me the next day how great their friends thought my performance was (and compared me to Kate Nash, grrr – see above).  I was soooo embarrassed!  Mainly the content of my poems.  I’ve performed in front of my parents before but carefully picked my poems!  Poems about body hair and ex-boyfriends would not be top of the list!  Argh! and I haven’t heard it myself yet, hopefully will be able to upload it tonight though!

Anyway, back to the event!  Liz Bentley was the last feature and I was enjoying her performance and laughed at her reference to Rachel Pantechnicon, feeling a bit pleased with myself that I got it.  So I enjoyed it, despite my personal aversion to people with her first name, UNTIL she did a poem about hating her sister and asked people in the audience to answer whether they hated their siblings.  Elliot said he loved his, and he exclaimed “she’s only two!”  Liz then engaged in banter, trying to amuse the audience by making out he was “weird” for loving his sister.  I felt a wave of embarrassment come over me, like that feeling when you forget lines and everyone is looking at you.  Aware it wasn’t me that should feel awkward, I told Elliot ‘I want the world to swallow you up’.  I just thought it was an underhand thing to say, as he wasn’t heckling and I found it inappropriate and basically rude.  *Sigh* Disappointing.

The next So She Said event is 7th September and I’ll hopefully be going along again.

xxx

Penned in the Margins

Inspiration

So, last Thursday I was selling books at the Penned in the Margins event at Aubin & Wills as part of my internship.  The poetry readings were from Glynn Maxwell, Clare Pollard, Simon Barraclough and Joe Dunthorne.  I arrived later than I planned as there were messed up trains… and then I got lost by walking in the wrong direction – typical!  So I was a bit anxious and flustered when I arrived, but settled down a bit once I knew what I was doing and made myself at home with a bottle of beer.

There were a couple of girls serving the drinks, so I had to help them a bit whilst selling the books as I was next to the drinks.  They were friendly but so different from me, quite posh and ALL blonde, which was a bit funny as their friends and co-workers appeared at times and they were all very similar.  I got the feeling they like a certain type of person at Jack Wills/Aubin & Wills, as the websites note they “represent the directional nature of the brand” and need to “embody the… aspirational, lifestyle brand”.  One of the girls did literature as part of her course, and the other was a singer, so that was cool, sadly can’t remember their names though!  I guess I felt a bit out of place with those girls, as one complained of the possibility of a 36 month phone contract I thought about joking about my Nokia 3330 or whatever it is.

I took advantage of the free drinks, listened to some good poetry and sold a few books, of which Joe’s pamphlet was the most popular.  A couple of people I’d invited over Facebook came – Paul Riggs, the ‘Australian guy’ I met at Farrago, and Amy Acre – both bought books as well which was cool.  I felt really inspired and even had lines running through my head for a couple of poems, but have inevitably forgotten what they were.

We then went to the pub and I chatted to a few of the poets/literary people, but I can only remember half their names.  I should have gotten a lemonade instead of that last half pint.  But I only drink lemonade with alcohol in it.

That reminds me of a poem I wrote, so, here it is:

Half Pints

You asked me what I liked to drink

What’s that all about?

As if it’s the first time we are going out

As if you have to really think

As if you don’t already know me inside out.

Said you normally drink cans or JD and coke,

Out with the lads,

I thought it was a joke.

‘Cause you used to buy me drinks

Even when you were broke,

Guess it’s been a while since I saw you last;

Been a while since we spoke .

And you’ve always been forgetful

And I’ve never been that cool.

And I’ve never been regretful,

Always been a love fool.

But I’ve had enough of half pints.

Fill me up

To the brim

My glass

Totally full.

xxx