Turquoise Monster

At the weekend I took part in the Site Festival Slam in Stroud – it was held in a lovely little venue hidden down a side ally that I didn’t even know existed.

I was very very nervous – but Marcus Moore greeted me in a friendly way and soon familiar faces from poetry readings and festivals started turning up – like Crispin Thomas and Peter Wyton and the I found myself sitting with a fellow finalist for the Gloucestershire Poet place.

I read No Wage Slave out – without taking any paper up onto the stage! And I think it actually did go better than when I have my book with me. the speed of the poem has slowed some what since I recorded it as I am no longer scared I am going to forget so I can put more emphasis on bits of it.

I didn’t get past the first round but people came over afterwards to speak to me about it which was great 🙂 I am hoping to do more slams in future and am working on memorising more of my poems.

This means I have basically four types of poetry:

1. Generally non rhyming serious and/or science-tech poetry

2. Childrens’ poetry which is mostly rhyming though some visual poetry sneaks in there and is often humorous

3. Visual Poetry also known as concrete poetry and is often mixed up with my visual arts – I also include mixed media poems in this category

4. Performance Poetry – mostly rhyming but not always and includes some of my childrens stuff, political rants, the funny bits of my science/tech poetry and the rude stuff

One thing I found funny was listening to the other poets talking about being nervous over winning – I was just nervous about getting up on stage and had I memorised other poems well enough to go on to the next rounds if that happened!

It was a good evening 🙂

Posted: Thursday, May 31st, 2012 @ 8:57 am
Categories: Festivals and Events, Performance.
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