Turquoise Monster

Tomorrow night I’ll be performing at SCIENCE SHOWOFF buys the farm at the Grain Barge in Bristol – there will be puppets and poetry and space and hopefully no singing!

My “rant at the government” is mentioned in this write up of Swindon’s Slam though they did spell my name wrong!

Tonight Friday 13th I will be performing in the Cheltenham Poetry Festivals Slam – Slam Burger. I will be swearing on stage, in a poem, this is actually an incredibly hard thing for me to do… I can just see all the little old ladies from the church of my youth frowning at me in my head – none-the-less the poem needs to be said and so it shall be.

I will still come last 🙂 I always do! (Except the time I came second from last!). But I do tend to get myself mentioned in news papers with poems that are “rants against the government”, even if they can’t spell my name right (newspapers never get my name right! or if they do they spell my kids or husband’s name wrong!). The article is from last weekends Slam – a fantastic even of sparkling dark and joy.

It was the 20th annual slam and I think the longest consecutive poetry slam in the UK. I poddled down there with the lovely poet, actor and comedian Joy-Amy who unlike me came a fantastic and well deserved 2nd 🙂

In other news I am still uber busy with the colouring book visual poem A Stranger Dream: Love that a launched at the end of April. It is steadily selling and I have actually gotten around to sending out some review copies (yes I know it is supposed to happen before you release the book 🙂 ).

I sold out of the heart handled mugs with the art work Love on it – one of the pictures from the book. I have ordered more and they have now arrived 🙂 I am still sorting out the Normal Mugs with normal handles but will have them soon 🙂

Yesterday the first lot of artwork badges arrived and I have homed 3 of them already 🙂

There is a still quiet a bit of a to-do list to get everything I want to go with the book/be done with the art work 🙂

So far no bad reviews (that wont last but for now I am basking).

I am down to just two copies of the books I had to sell – there is another lot en-route, I will have them with me tonight at the poetry slam. Otherwise the next chance to buy the books and artwork stuff from me is going to be The Mini-Mall Con in June 🙂

(I may also be making Alaric dress as young spock once again which as those who came to my 30th know is a treat worth it’s weight in jelly beans!).

Of course you can order it on line from Amazon.

I hope to be doing more shows, stalls and things with it and I will be seeing if I can make the video of good enough quality to maybe show at an event but we are looking at next year for that sort of thing 🙂

Stories and poems are starting to go up on the various Monster Blogs once more which has been a long time coming thanks to head bang stuff. However slight change… they now tend to get pre-viewed on my Patreon account for those who are supporting me financially – to be honest though it paid for me to launch and create A Stranger Dream I still do not have quiet enough to be replacing the tech I need to replace and to make the blogs ad free etc… So if you find yourself with monies and you want to see stories and art from me… (yeah I hate asking for money but you know it has to happen or I actually can’t afford to be producing this stuff!).

Anyway…. my patreon.

Also – yes a lot of alsos 🙂 I will have art at Art in the Park Cheltenham this summer.

And lastly – I really liked working on A Stranger Dream colouring in book, about 2 weeks in I made a list of other colouring in books I would like to make both poetry and not poetry based. So last week I popped a poll up to narrow down which one to work on next. I only gave four options and the ability for people to suggest other things… the resounding favourite option was Myths and Legends so I have started work on that.

I have a couple of commissions at the moment so it has to fit in around them but it has begun!

…..

Opps I lied one more thing or maybe two!!!

I will be doing a set at Science Show Off in Bristol on Weds 25th of May at the Grain Barge – there will be stars and poems and possibly a puppet but hopefully no singing!

And there will be steam punk and science-craft workshops run by me at Wychwood Musical Festival 🙂

I do have a news letter…

I think that’s everything but probably isn’t!

Hope to see local peeps tonight!

Obviously I have only just launched A Stranger Dream: Love a non-linear visual poem as a colouring book but… well people have been asking about other books – now I have a long list of other potentials but thought I’d see what people want 🙂

Trying to decide what type of ink style colouring in book to draw next – so here's a poll! tweet me "other" too 🙂

— Sarah Snell-Pym (@Saffy) May 6, 2016

Yes it’s on twitter – I’m not quiet sure how this works but if you can’t click the options on there then just comment 🙂 Also I am happy to consider other suggestions 🙂

Thanks muchly 🙂

This weekend (22-24 April 2016) there will be a virtual launch party for my non-linear visual poetry colouring in book A Stranger Dream. It is a stark book, a book of hate and isolation, a book of hope and love. The images tackle the thorny issues of self-identity and the pain of isolation and ostracism, of critasism and the violence society often enacts on those who do not conform.

Of communities once inclusive, self cannibilising.

It is a narrative of my self, it is the story of SELF, of everyone, it is a cyclic jumbled mess, it is non-linear, the circles of society, family, culture and religion are intersection, concentric, exclusionary, overlapping, non-ecludian rings.

The colouring book is not The Form of the poem but it is a form of it. There is going to be a gallery where people can add their colouring in efforts – I hope that together we can turn stark hurt into rainbows.

Electronically I will spend this weekend pinging between various social media and blogs. Namely this one and Snell-Pym.

There is a Facebook Event, a Google+ Event, a twitter hashtag # astrangerdream and my patreon account (which will have hidden extras in it for patreons only).

I have a t-shirt – with Identity Clinging on it – I used the wrong image ie not the bordered one I’d used for the book so there are white lines where there should be none – but I have a fix for this! I also plan to turn it into a dress or at least make a matching skirt for performances.

There will be merch for sale, there are stickers to give away and there are beautiful mugs and poetry cards and so much more!

I did a blog post about the origin and work that went into the making of A Stranger Dream: Love on Snell-Pym.

And you can still download the individual images for free – yes I am selling a book with them in but I want my work as accessible as possible. With the book you are paying for the nice book, for the boarders and a bit of extra editing. It is currently showing as £10+ I meant it to be £7+ if you buy the £10 + version let me know as I have a goody bag to post to you!

I am a poet, I am an artist, I am many things some of which seem contradictory – after the head bang last year the question of identity reigned large in my vision of self – not just my identity but everybody’s and societies reactions to identity issues – so I started working on a series of images.

I was learning how to draw again and the ideas were appearing faster than I could create them, I spent 3 months working on the visuals for A Stranger Dream. And mainly I have had positive feedback though some people do hate the style and that is fine it is stark, it was meant to be.

But what is A Stranger Dream? Well for a start it is not A Stranger Dream it is A Stranger Dream: Love but it’s not it is

Love: A Stranger Dream…

or both or neither or something…

It is a non-linear visual poem on identity, gender, our place within family, our concentric non-ecludian intersecting and exclusionary circles of all the cultures of us – it is the distorting mirrors within our own heads – the fitting and the not fitting – the fires within.

I know it doesn’t look it but it was a hell of a lot of work.

Then someone said “it says colouring in book to me” and I thought… why not?! I thought people colour to relax, to sort thoughts, to just be themselves and that is fitting – plus colouring in book is on the list of to-dos and I have been producing colouring in sheets for my kids workshops for ages.

So I started by popping the images up as individual sheets for download and colouring – they are still there and they are free.

Then I made ring bound ones at home for shows and events… people far away started asking how they could get hold of them so I have created a colouring in book complete with purple spine and title box because… I am the Purple Poet!!!!

Here is a picture of the spiral bound ones at The True Believers Comic Book Festival earlier this year.

And this weekend (April 22-14 2016) I am having a launch party – sadly I am only running a virtual one but it is going to be epic!!!

I will be pinging around the internet – of course hoping people will buy the book but as I said don’t feel you have to because I put the individual sheets out there for free download and I know times are tight (having said that I need to buy more art supplies… to you know produce more art!).

There is a Facebook Event, a Google+ Event, a twitter hashtag # astrangerdream and my patreon account (which will have hidden extras in it for patreons only). There are also the blogs namely this one and Turquoise Monster which is my poetry blog 🙂 So I think that is pretty much everyone covered – I am hoping to do a little film thingy too but we will have to see how the laptop holds up!

The colouring book is already up on Amazon and Book Repository etc… it is appearing as £10 odd – I meant it to be roughly £7 if you’ve bought the £10 copy let me know as I have a little goody bag to post to you containing some lovely tie-in items 🙂 (yes I am trusting people to be honest here! Thankyou 🙂 )

Oh and there should be a gallery unveiling where people can post pictures of their colouring in – if they wish 🙂

There are going to be give aways but there will also be merch for sale and special offers etc… (sorry guys I would love to give you everything for free but I do need a new computer!).

I am actually stupidly excited about this and am even making myself an outfit out of the art work! The poetry cards have arrived and are beautiful in a way I was not expecting 🙂

Most of all though regardless of weather you buy or take for free or just look – mainly I hope everyone will be enriched by the work itself, it was very important to me whilst creating it. It’s kind of an imprint of the soul, maybe a darker one than people would like but it is… something – I’m not quiet sure what.

I hope you will join me for turning the starkness into a rainbow.

People have been asking about the comb bound booklets and zines – I am very lucky in that I have been given an old laser printer so I’ve scanned the pictures I drew and inked and cleaned them up digitally and printed them. I’ve also been given a comb binder so I went out and bought some plastic combs and some cover sheets plus the “greenest” paper I could find ie from sustainable forests etc… and I printed, assembled, punched and bound the books – or rather I printed and assembled and then my husband bound them whilst I was sorting out stickers and things!

I arranged the booklets in 2 formats as it is a non-linear poem but if I ever get a completely functional printer I may alter the arrangement as I’d wanted both combinations in one book but it is tricky to do double sided things!

I was asked if I felt it was pointless to have made these now I am getting proper books made and the answer is no – the paper I printed these on is thicker paper than the colouring in books and takes paint well so I am keeping these as an extra add on for those who want to do painting and also for poetry workshops and festivals – people love to colour in!

Having said that I am only ever going to be producing 100 copies of it in this way!

The Fear

Before you were born
The Fear began
Blood marked anxiety
Over your future
Later it grabbed me
By the Lungs
As they injected me
To develop yours
So if I died
You could be plucked
Not ready but surviable
Death was a shadow over us
Labour dawned
With complications
A room bristled
With activity
I could say nothing
Just scream
Silently – SAVE MY BABY
Intervention, blood, pain
You were there
And I could speak
Whispering softly
Too Daddy
‘Go with the Baby’
His worried eyes boring
Into me

The Fear did not go
They placed you on me
And I sang a grace
‘Thankyou’
Thankyou for my
Cone headed, alien-primate
My beautiful monkey
Ancient and New
In the crib with you
The Fear tingled
As it still does
I check you each night
Even now
As often as I could then
Holding my breath
Checking yours

And as you grow
The Fear
Punctuates my thoughts
The less likely to choke
The more you run off
Into the world
Of dangers
Fear constricts my mind
But I can not restrain you
Killing out of kindness
Out of Fear
Is still killing
Including the mind death
Stifling the life
I watch you run
Explore

This is what love
Has wrought me?
This Fear
Fear of loosing you
And yet I would not undo
Would not exchange
The Fear
I would suffer more
For you
My little one
You grow
Grow strong and free
Maybe my fear
Is your blanket
Of protection
Inoculation against
The bad places?
I hope so
What else are
Parents for?

So regular readers of the blogs will know that I love my writing challenges and creativity drives. March was a rest or editing/typing up month. I always start the year off with a lot of poetry writing it helps clear the brain out 🙂 A kind of spring clean!

Month of Poetry in January and WoPo in February but now it is April and the third poetry writing madness NaPo!

That’s short for National Poetry Writing Month and is styled on the novel writing drive that happens in November each year – Nanowrimo.

Basically I am going to be attempting to write 30 poems at least this month with the actual target being more like 100 and the other thing I like to do is say that I’ll spend in and around that poetry writing… 1 hr a day working on things to do with poetry so that is submitting, drafting, blogging, replying to emails about events etc…

Wish me luck and join me 🙂

Glass Bones

A glass pelvis
Loose at the seams
My own pain apocolypse
Drenched in crises
Drowning in agonies
Each step a razor blade
Cutting into the fabric of me
Misalined, broken, bent
A pelvic shard
Shatters in muffled screams
Crying in the night
Fragile
Walking burns
Dwindling the memory
Sensation a shade
Of grey nothing
Dampening thought
Punctured, pierced
By electric blue
Fizzing of the tail bone
A primate with glass bones
Can no longer climb trees
Nor hold onto the top branches
To which they once clung
The fruits of life
Are within those branches
Instead
Sitting Pain
Standing PaiN
Sleeping PAiN
Sensation PAIN
Separeted Pelvis
Pubis synthesises
Gurdle stretched and broke
Aches and daggers
Dragging down
ME
Whinning of the glass rim
I do not drink of this misery
Just listen
Pelvis sing
Glass siren lurring
Monsters of the Id
All nasty qualities
Are distorded within