He is a fantastic poet and as always his set was emotionally charged dealing with creative freedom and the intensity of life and death.
Lighting levels at the venue were a bit tricky so I apologise for the quality of the photographs.
Again I did some experiments with long exposures and this photo came out in a way that I just feel fits with Dan’s creative zest – to me it is a poet in a spiralling tunnel of thought and creativity.
The event also had two other poets performing – I unfortunately had to run away before the last performer but I did catch James Webster.
Who did a wonderfully funny piece on time travel and the self – it was philosophically deep but light in the presentation.
The event took place in a lovely bar called The Strand in Cheltenham which had some lovely wall art I will have to go back and photograph at some point.
Anna Saunders one of the Festival Directors was there in person to compare and I just love this shot of her I got – I think it shows her fantastically warm and bubbly personality.
Sound rippled around the room, building and echoing and fading away to almost nothingness, reminding me of the psychedelic of previous decades mixed with the fragments of poems building up to create a picture of the stretching endless existence.
Pictures of the cosmos played in the back ground and occasionally across on of the performers leaving a silhouette of them, stark in the nebula.
I could have closed my eyes and just listened creating pictures for stories and the like but then I would have missed the spectacles of how they produced some of the sounds – vibrating, glowing massage spider on a balloon for example.
I had great fun taking photos again hence the black and white – I also played around with long exposures to see if I could get an image that captured the essence of the music.
When I spoke to the poets afterwards it turned out they didn’t know who was going to read when – this was interesting as the poets seemed to pick up and continue with the style of the previous poet but adapted to them – as if their was an invisible creative string connecting them within the performance.
I really loved this event and could have easily spent all of last night writing – I took quiet a few arty shots:
Poets including Anna Saunders, Adam Horovitz, and Sara-Jane Arbury to name but a few.
This is the amazing knitted poem currently on display in Cheltenham Waterstones, it was knitted for the Cheltenham Poetry Festival by the local knitting groups as part of an initiative set up by Centre Arts. The poem is John Hegley’s The Price of Art in Luton as found in his collection Dog.
I believe the poem is being auctioned off at the end of the festival (28th Feb 2013).
I am taking part in NaPoWriMo again this year (and I even remembered to actually sign up for once!). This is of course my third poetry writing challenge this year!
So I am going to be making some more of my little visual poetry booklets – one a day 🙂
I will generally be doing the 1 hr min of poetry stuff a day instead of just going oh looky I’ve completed the challenge.
I may do some electronic type visual poems as well.
So I have been learning the guitar for the last couple of years and I am in love with the series Firefly and it’s theme tune The Ballad of Serenity. The series is basically a space western type thingy. I’ve made my own version of the song – it’s sort of come out sounding PJ Harvey-esk :/
Saturday 20th April 2013 will see me taking part in the Cheltenham Poetry Festival Slam! It takes place at Copa in Cheltenham and is £7 or £5 for concessions.
I am desperately trying to memorise some newer poems for this! If anybodies about came and see some fantastic poets (not me the other guys!).
We collect sticks
We are refugees
We walk miles to make charchole
We are employed to carry heavy sacks
We are hungry and care not what’s legal
We need fuel ourselves
We are hoping to feed our children
We are stopped
We fear
We are pushed to the ground
We know what comes next
We are not rapped this time
We just beg for mercy held at gun point
We taste the earth
We are told off
We cry, they fine us
We have no way to pay
We are released but now we can not cook our food
We are dying a slow death
We have no money, no future, no hope
We are the women of the Congo
I am currently in the middle of trying to make a booklet for a physical run of the Ballads of the Scientifica – a collection of poems about science, plus one story and a song. When I initially released it free last year it only had ten poems but that number has grown a bit so I feel there is enough to warent a physical CD.
I am also re-recording some of it as it was done in quiet a rush.
The reason for this was that I did it for Science and Engineering week which I didn’t find out about until it was almost upon us!
This event is coming up once again and I have put together an exhibition of Science-Art which will be up in Centre-Arts in Cheltenham from the 15-23 March.
It is obviously mostly visual but there is a sound panel with sounds from ESA and Bristol University and sundry others. There is a poem by Marcus Moore done for the Wetlands Trust and copies of my award winning Celestial Montage poem and picture mix. The sloan digital sky serve and Galaxy Zoo have provided the means to write in galaxies and so on!
It is all very exciting and you will no doubt be hearing more on it.
Another February gone and a note book full of poems it has wrought. I have a lot of editing a head of me as I always do after such writing challenges.
I want to let the poems I’ve not popped on here (of which there are alot from various workshops and writing meet-ups I went too/organised, mature. I like to leave poems to ‘cook’ for awhile – I mentioned this too another writer earlier in the month and she has been quoting me throughout the social networks 🙂
My poetry focus for March is going to be The Little Book of Easter Poetry which I made into an audio book last year – I might re-record some bits and turn it into a download as well as getting a physical copy for people to be able to buy etc… But more on that later (hopefully).
So my poetry pen is now down until April for NaPoWriMo – unless something amazing spikes my poetry gland 🙂
A gem, telling of treasures forgotten
A life of adventure and struggles
Gilded in dust of seasons past
Memories caress, loves and hates
Delicious swirl
Darkening to a none existant mist
A fading time in mouldering draps
Cobwebs obscure the light
