I’m taking part in the qualifier event for the All Star Slam at the Cheltenham Litrature Festival. This is my second actual slam though obviously I have done lots and lots of poetry readings.
I am quiet nervous and seeing who I am up against I doubt I will make it to the evening event to perform but it has been really for me to try as I now have more poems memorised so I can perform them with lots of hand waving.
There are still some tickets left for the events of which I will be the lowest denominator so if you are in the area why don’t you pop along and enjoy the poetic whiles – likely to be more comedic than the book reading variety (well mine are anyway!).
I do love my writing challenges and as such I am taking part for the third year in a novel writing challenge known as GothNoWriMo, Gothic Novel Writing Month over on Black Monster but as always I’ve added on a childrens litrature challenge as well. I started the year off doing a 12×12 picture book challenge which I have to confess to have fallen behind on – the idea was that I would do 12 picture book manuscripts for 2012 that is one a month.
So I have combined and the result is that I have decided to spend 30 hours a holloween picture book but then I thought hand on a mo The Little Book of Spoogy Poetry has been sitting in the pipe line for too long and I should focus on finishing it. I tend to cover the childrens books and illustrations over on Orange Monster](http://orange.monsters.wigglypets.co.uk/).
In the past I tried to make digital art for it from scratch but it looked naff – it looked like the sort of art you get in cheap books and that is not what I wanted. It is a children’s book so needs to be vibrant and I associate kids and childhood with felttip pens so… like the original little book I made for my little girl I have started making the pictures in felt pen (with some fine liner) and digitizing them. I did this for The Little Book of New Baby Poetry I made my little girl just before our baby was born last year (this is not yet for sale as I want to re-edit some of the poems as it was put together in the last month of pregnancy!).
Ages ago as part of a poetry writing challenge I had uped the number of poems to ten but they are still not typed up!
So here goes and hopefully I will have something to show for the work at the end of the month 🙂
Sometimes the word spill does not come
The page is blank and the pen still
The void aches, filled with tantalising edges
Glimpses of the worlds that would be
Sometimes they are un graspable
They are elusive things, ghosts of stories
Yet to be written.
Words tumble through the mind
Until the thought is obliterated
The void fills
Pens shifts, fingers clack
Via a compulsion of their own
First as gibberish until structure is imposed
Flowing sweetly onto the page
Barely aware, there is just the writing
To write, the written and be writing
Consumes all until that last word is down
I live near Cheltenham and that town has some very good poetry nights etc… so back in May madness saw me going along to Slak Bar to an open mic at Earshot (probably my favourite poetry night). But this time it was opened up so that the open mic included acoustic so I thought I’d take my guitar and play one of the songs I worked on last month.
But though I was fine if a little upset as Jean refused to talk to me as I said she couldn’t come in and watch, things got a little delayed and my anxiety and fretfullness mounted.
For a start I have a glittery nail vanish covered guitar, it is not one of those you can add pick ups too and I knew I wasn’t getting the vocal range to be heard well over it in any case. (not an excuess but my glands where up due to hay fever and because of breast feeding I couldn’t take anything for it – I find this heavily affects my singing)
Then one of the real acts got up (Horston Longsail) then one of my friends got up and using my guitar and his string clamp thing played a lovely haunting song.
Then I got up – for a start I hadn’t wanted to use the crutches but there was no way I was going to be able to get up onto the stage without them. So I was feeling a little flustered as well as nervous. I sat down and begain to play and stuffed it up! I was shaking which didn’t help and also I was so nervous my hands were sweating and my fingers slipped of the strings – I’d never encountered that before. Stressing out also makes my voice even tighter and smaller and I couldn’t check if I was in tune becuase of the ringing in my ears.
The neverous twitch I used to get where my lip curls up on the left hand side started. I was still attempting to play. I closed my eyes and sang the second verse of my song instead of the first but then managed to look up a bit and get more in the flow – though I changed to the wrong cord and had to alter the sequence slightly so that it would all still fit.
I got off the stage feeling I had really stuffed up – I was so annoyed at myself – how comes I can play the song through perfectly whilst Jean is doing things like licking the guitar to get my attention becuase its dinner time but I get infront of people and it all goes wrong?
It’s nerves.
People were very nice about it and I got given tips in the fact the microphone needed to be nearer my mouth and told that it started out a bit hesitant but once I got into it it was good. I even got told the song was like my poetry full of the sweet and dark and that it sounded very PJ Harvey.
I also know that I wasn’t really ready to ‘perform’ in public but that if I didn’t start trying I never will be. The issue I have is playing infront of other people and like getting rid of the stutter there is only one way to cure this and that is – if I mess up an open mic I simply need to play more open mics. Now I haven’t got a clue weather my songs are any good or even if I can still sing in tune I just have to hope that people aren’t going to be too mean!
I am still annoyed with myself over getting so flustered though – and with being annoyed – it meant I didn’t really click back into gear until latter in the evening so basically missed Avril Staples poetry as I was waiting for the ringing in my ears to stop!
On March 30th I headed to Oxford to read some of my up coming collection Political Converse. Earlier that day I died my hair what was supposed to be purple – it came out not but that didn’t matter. I had a weekend then week then month of readings and workshops, it was time to get rid of the four inch roots plus I was nervous and this sort of thing helps me cope and actually go and perform.
Then there was the issue that due to scare mongering there was no fuel to be had so we had which set up a panic but was quickly solved and we were on our way.
We arrived in plenty of time and then spent an hour trying to find somewhere to park – we didn’t use the park and ride as our experience with it have not been good and as I’m still struggling with walking we need to be somewhere relatively near the event.
But we arrived in time to catch the end of an interesting session on self publishing and small indie presses. Including a talk from Dennis Hamley who I remembered from my school days! Though this didn’t stop me saying that if he ever met my dad and drink was involved – they would never stop discussing the war (as in WWII).
We then had some fantastic music.
And no I don’t remember anyones names 🙁 And that goes for the poets too!
This guy had been involved in the UnCut protests and got himself arrested for being in a shop and reading poetry which is menacing behaviour – if I understood it correctly.
This guy is an ex-solider and has PTSD – his poetry was powerful and I also found out that Westminster is trying to make it illegal to help the homeless to get rid of the problem before the Olympics which makes me sick. I shall be looking into that one a bit more – the guy is involved with various charities.
And then sang my Shit Creek I was very nervous and struggled to get my voice out – Alaric said it was just quiet at the beginning but I still did it 🙂 I then read my poetry.
More Poets:
The whole thing was run in the loveliest book shop in the world (that I have found so far). The Albion Beatnik in Oxford – it is almost what me and Alaric wanted to ran our Salaric Emporium (books, gifts, tea, think), back in my uni days.
The night ended on a high with much laughter and deep thought. People left to put poetry to the public – stringing it on fences and what nots. We left to grab a veggie kebab and drive back to Gloucestershire.
I performed, I spoke to various Mayors, my husband managed to take a photo of me looking like I was in the glare of a nuclear explosion. Due to ethics I felt I had to mention Pussy Riots imprisonment for performing in a Cathedral – something we were ourselves doing!
I did not place, I did lots of other performances during the Art Tournaments festival and got free strawberries!
Saturday saw me once again in Waterstones Cheltenham at a poetry event – unfortunately I couldn’t stay much longer than my reading 🙁 Which was such a shame considering the line up!
Here are the photos
And here is a video of it
The first one Shy has been recorded with a hammond organ.
