She Grrrowls is settled into its new home at Apples & Pears – it’s crazy to think that half a year has gone, and 16th July will be the last event before the summer break (all being well, returning in September). Check out what you missed last week:
In other news, I’m currently working on an anthology of ten poets from the She Grrrowls alumni after receiving funding from Ideas Tap to commission some new poems. I just need a publisher now! I’m hoping to get it out for December to have a launch event.
I’ve also been listening to this radio documentary, with poetry by Kate Tempest after having listened to lots of clips shared by Falling Tree. Again, you can listen to it here:
Speaking of radio, I’ll be having some poems featured on Audio Book Radio. Tune in on Friday 26th June at 2pm, 10pm and Saturday 27th at 6am.
I’ve been working with the fantastic Vidisha Bansal, who’s not only a great radio producer and musician, but is comparably very young and just got into her first choice for university! She invited me to her eighteenth birthday party. I feel old. We were working with Falling Tree (Eleanor McDowall and Alan Hall) and Ross Sutherland to produce a poetry documentary of 3-5 minutes. You can check out her website here.
Listen to our final version of the 5 minute recording here:
Legendary spoken word promoters Apples and Snakes present an epic line-up of raising stars, and new voices from the Writing Room programme share the stage with the most dynamic wordsmiths the capital has to offer. Poetry with bite.
Spoken word, storytelling and live performance on the road…
The Roundhouse is a breeding ground of spoken word talent, producing some of the best poetry stars on the scene today. Join us for an afternoon of fresh emerging talent, featuring new voices and rising stars. Not to be missed!
My first festival will be on 4t July in Chelmsford at Fling Festival. It marks a summer that is sure to be just as busy as last year. I’ll be performing a 20 minute set and facilitating a workshop on poetry and activism. I’ll be at a few new festivals this year, including…
I’ll be performing on the Voicebox stage as a solo artist with Apples and Snakes on Friday 17th as part of The Writing Room. On the Saturday, I’ll be performing as part of Kid Glove for The Roundhouse’s Last Word section. Joining me will be Rose Swainston and Joel Auterson.
Larmer Tree: 18th-20th July
I last performed at Larmer Tree Festival in 2013 and am returning this year and hoping for the same beautiful sun! Sadly, I won’t be running a workshop this time, but I’m looking forward to bringing a mixture of old and new material to the festival.
Boom Town: 13th-17th August
I’m really excited to be performing at Boom Town this year, especially as the wonderful Sophie Fenella (also part of Kid Glove) will be there. I’ll be doing a couple of sets over the weekend.
BBC Fringe Festival Slam: 26th-29th August
I put my name in the hat for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival BBC Slam and I was the last name to be announced! I’m there for about five days and have just been planning all the shows I’m going to see and there’s about thirty shows in my calendar now, so it’s going to be pretty intense. It feels like a bit of an adventure as I’m going alone and staying in a dorm with seven other people.
I’ve had the honour of being part of Sammy Brough’s ‘Trauma Genes’ Home Cooking Podcast, which you can listen to here. I was interested in the topic as it made me think of Dr Joy Leary’s research on Post Traumatic Slave Disorder, below.
My poem was based on research that I amalgamated in poetic form, using first person, and a ‘telephone’ sound to give a sense of distance to reinforce the idea of trauma being passed through history.
On 1st June, I performed a piece I wrote for You Press on a project called ‘Voices of Redemption’, where artists were paired with ex-offenders to tell their story. My particular story questioned the line between victim and perpetrator, and although I didn’t realise this would be a common theme, it was surprising to see the amount of injustice within the justice system. Yet, I also wanted the poem to recognise the crime committed, to move on from that, and other than impacting the audience, I wanted the person I was paired with to get something positive from the experience. It was a challenging project, simply because it is quite daunting to have someone else’s life and write a poem about it. There’s a recording of the previous project ‘One Story: Our Voice’ I was involved with, and I hope this will also be recorded as it was such a unique and important event.
I have also performed at The Last Word Festival with Kid Glove at The Roundhouse. It has been a long and difficult few months building up to the show, and we’re yet to decided where we will take the show. Practically, it may be unrealistic to be able to perform it in the way we may have had in our mind at the start, but it has been a massive learning experience and I think we accomplished a great scratch show in the end, being such an ambitious project. I mean, one of us lives in Germany! I think everyone deserves a massive pat on the back for pulling it off and I’m sure we’ve all learnt a lot about ourselves from it.
I’m reading a few books at the moment – one that stands out is The Ice Cream Empire, by Kit Poulson, and it very much reminds me of the writing from ‘Dear Adventure’ and has made me think that we could do something with text, or even sound, as a way forward with the show idea. I’ve also been listening to a few things on the radio…
1. BBC Radio 1Xtra are doing special features on poetry/spoken word and some of my fellow poets have been involved so far. Hopefully more on this later!
My next performance is at The Chocolate Poetry Club. Thank you to the mystery person who recommended me. I’ve only had one other paid gig this year, so it really cheered me up to have this to look forward to!
Poet on page and stage. Creator of She Grrrowls. Facilitator. Writer. 