Poet on page and stage. Creator of She Grrrowls. Facilitator. Writer.
Burn After Reading / Kid Glove / Podium Poets. Writer for The Norwich Radical. Published by Nasty Little Press.
any news on poetry that’s been published or any exciting new things happening!
Burn After Reading Presents
The Seven Dials Club, 42 Earlham Street, Covent Garden
Tuesday 4th November
Doors 7.45pm
£5 on the door
Featuring BAR poets: Amaal Said, Belinda Zhawi, Cameron Brady-Turner, Carmina Masoliver, Rena Minegis, Safi Strand and Tyrone Lewis.
They’ll be performing alongside our talented feature guests in the form of Yomi ‘GREEdS’ Sode and Katie Bonna.
Having spent a year being taught and mentored by the poet Bohdan Piasecki as part of The Roundhouse Poetry Collective 2014, we have formed Kid Glove, a collective of poets united by a desire to tell stories, make poetry and perform our poetry around the UK. We write words for both the stage and the page and are interested in ways of developing new practices in spoken word poetry. We like stories that hold mirrors before the audience, words that make you laugh and cry, and images that leave you seeing stars. Four members of Kid Glove will be performing at Feminism in London this Saturday 25th October.
So, I don’t often share the text of my poems. I tend to put up videos instead, as I don’t want too much text online in terms of rules with publishing and competitions. However, I was invited by fellow Nasty Little Press writer, Hattie Grunewald, to take part in a project called ‘Muse Arcade’, where Scott Woods posted a list of titles as prompts for poems on Facebook. I’ve been wanting to stop writing so much for a while, so I can do more editing and work towards putting a larger collection of work together. That said, I found these titles too tempting to resist, and so I was inspired to write these poems wherever I happened to be… largely on trains. I’m looking for feedback, should anyone wish to give me any. To read it, simply click here.
I’ll write a proper update soon. Things are busy. I got ill for four weeks… that didn’t help. I feel like I have to sit down and write a big long post, like, settle down, let me tell you a story with a cup of tea.
Anyway, speaking of stories, while you wait for another long post (because our attention spans are so great, and you love me so much), have a listen to this podcast on Tell a Story. It features myself alongside two other members of the old (old!) Roundhouse Collective, Joel Auterson and Sophie Fenella – and we’re now called ‘Kid Glove’! I hope you like it, because it was a long process.
It also features Kate Tempest, Tim Clare and Scroobius Pip. I wasn’t very good at it; I’m an INFJ (which I just got a book on) and maybe that has something to do with it. I need to be briefed and have time to prepare… hence I’m not on it much! Oh my god, that was literally the only vaguely good thing I came out with.
Not quitting the day job just yet folks. At least I’m educating a few young people on the way.
I celebrated National Poetry Day by taking some of my intervention students to NPD Live at Southbank. Then I went to a slam with some recycled poems, plus one from my Nasty Little Intro that I learnt whilst waiting.
I came joint first place in the Genesis Slam (there were only three of us…) Sadly I will have to Skype/send videos in for the final in December as I’m on unpaid leave for an Arvon writing residency (exciting!). I also managed to forget my lines in a poem-song I did because there was a head-to-head to attempt to get a winner, but I took a RISK, and that happens.
I am also very happy about getting fancy cinema tickets for two, plus pie and mash!
Monday 11th August (18:00-20:00) at The Albany, Blue Room
POETRY AND ACTIVISM: WHAT’S THE ISSUE WITH “ISSUE” POETRY?
With Carmina Masoliver
Poetry can be a means to tackle different issues: areas where we feel there’s injustice, raising awareness about something that deserves more attention, or finding a way to produce activist art. However, a problem may emerge from writing about topics such as sexism, racism, homophobia, and so on, in that the poems become too obviously ‘issue poems’ and may appear to an audience too clichéd or didactic. How do we avoid this in our poetry? How do we make sure that what we produce is still a poem, and not just a rant? This workshop aims to explore the ‘issue poem’ and to understand how we make the ‘issue’ go away.
Poet, writer and performer, Carmina Masoliver also mentors, tutors, facilitates workshops and organises events. She runs ‘She Grrrowls’ arts nights and edits the ‘Poetry&Paint’ anthology.
If you’re interested in attending any of these, email Jacob (mail@jacobsamlarose.com). You’ll then receive confirmation. There are other great workshops running that week by other Burn After Reading members, all taking place at The Albany.
With the Roundhouse Poetry Collective
The Den Stage and The Guardian Literary Institute Stage.
A run down of my time at Secret Garden Party…
The Good
1. So, I guess number one has to be my performance… even if I do say so myself, haha! But seriously, after Latitude my nerves had calmed and I actually managed not to spend the three days leading up to my performance stressing. I really enjoyed my time there and could definitely have gone on longer!
2. The lake – the first thing we did was go boating in the lake, and on Saturday we picked the perfect time to brave the water and take a dip. There was a funny moment when a dog jumped in, but it got annoying pretty fast – luckily the owner got it back eventually. It felt so good to swim around as the morning sun shone down on us.
3. More than music – my favourite parts of the festival were the randoms little things that went on. As well as the lake, we hula-hooped, joined the community choir, held snakes and chameleons, painted with watercolours, did some shiatsu and meditation, and watched an impromptu acrobatic show. There was also the “Dave Off”, which was silly and hilarious. We also had a bit of a dance to some African beats as our campsite neighbours got chatting to us and got us to come down to the Feast of Fools where they were playing.
4. Favourite performances – fellow poets Emma Jones, Amy Acre and Amy Blakemore performed in Poetry Period on the same stage as me. I didn’t know they were going to be there until the day (let alone any other poets other than ‘Dead Poets’ Mark Grist and Mixy who we saw a couple of times). The last night we shared a second Roaming Rotisserie meal, plus some churros, and settled at The Amphitheatre where we saw a great range of acts including an open mic final with an incredible beatboxer and freestyle rapper (he managed to deal with the horrible audience-given topic of ‘Hitler’ perfectly), a hilarious comedy show from Le Pain (I think that was the name), and an energetic musical performance from Classy-Cool.
5. Music – I have to say a couple of my favourite music acts were ones I stumbled on – Swell on the first night, and Denai Moore who I hope to catch again at Camp Bestival. I also saw Kwabs, Kyla La Grange, Foxes and Public Enemy.
The Bad
1. The laid-back, chilled vibe of the festival meant that there was a slight issue with the organisation of everything. My set was cut in half, and it’s not that I would have minded having a half an hour set initially, but having prepared an hour of material, it resulted in me missing out all the more light-hearted poems and only realising the tone of my set afterwards. Still, two people who weren’t my boyfriend said they liked it. I had told someone earlier that there was a clash of the dance workshop and me on the board, which I’d also mentioned at the start of the festival as I wasn’t in the programme, and although the times on the board were changed, the fact of the matter wasn’t realised until just before I was due to go on, resulting in the cut of time. Although I thought they could have cut 5 minutes off everything and made up an hour of time, I didn’t want to appear The Diva – I was merely a competition winner after all.
2. Stage communication – in line with the organisation side of things, I felt like it would have been better to have poetry in one place. I didn’t realise there were a load of poets on the Forum Stage (I think) and that space would have probably been more better to host poetry, as it was very difficult to compete with the loud music from surrounding areas, children and drunk/drugged-up people running around and not knowing whether people further away would be able to hear. Those in the Poetry Period had a lot more to contend with in that respect.
3. I didn’t sell any books, therefore I don’t really know how much people liked me. I want to be liked. LIKE ME!!!
& The Ugly
1. The toilets. Having just come from Latitude, the SGP toilets were lacking in comparison. Mostly, there was a lack of toilet roll, but I also preferred Latitude’s type of port-a-loos with a lever-pull, but maybe they just needed to clean them up because they piled up way too high, and there were a couple of occasions where vomit and excrement were in places they shouldn’t be.
2. The drugs. I know that alcohol can be worse in many ways and I do drink a bit, but drugs still scare me a little; behind straw-bales and in the hidden sunflower field there were people lying on their own, near-dead to the world around them. This could also be to do with that the music went on until 6am and was really close to the campsite. I used to be pretty hardcore when it came to yearly trips to Reading Festival, but I just can’t hack that anymore.
Overall
Looks like the good is the winner here! As someone who usually goes to festivals for the music, the many adventures that were to be had at Secret Garden Party meant that I was more relaxed and happy to go-with-the-flow. The chilled out vibe must have had an effect on me as I was more calm about my performance and despite the distractions, I managed to get into my set and would have happily carried on and on and on…
Poet on page and stage. Creator of She Grrrowls. Facilitator. Writer. 