Wow, what a day that was!

BEESTON POETRY DAY

We are just a tiny bit pleased with ourselves. Beeston Poetry Day, 29 September 2013, was fantastic. 22 poetry enthusiasts spent the day in Beeston Library in workshops about how to find inspiration, using form, where to send your poems once they’re ready for publication, how to perform/read your work to do it and yourself justice, one2one critiquing session.

We tickled our grey cells, stretched our pens and flexed our vocal cords. We also drank and ate lots to keep us going. (Tesco’s kindly donated some of the lunch, and there was cake in abundance baked by two members of the steering group. Nom, nom)

If you missed it, don’t be sad, we’re pretty confident we’ll be running a similar but different day next season. Watch this space, subscribe to this site, send us your email address, so as not to miss the next one.

A sample from ‘Whistle’

If you missed Martin Figura’s award-winning performance, here’s an excerpt.

and you can find out more about it on Martin’s own website.

It was a profound, moving and enjoyable event with a brilliant Q&A facilitated by Sheelagh Gallagher.

Jackie Kay reading ‘Fiere’

Just a quick reminder of our inaugural event last October…

Whistle is a winner for Martin Figura!

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We’re immensely pleased for Martin Figura, whose performance of Whistle has won the Saboteur 2013 Best Spoken Word Show Award. Among comments from the voters were the following:

• The most heartening true story of human resilience told in stunning poems I’ve ever seen in such an intense, understated show.
• Powerful, dark,moving, much said without the saying, great visuals and surprisingly fun also.
• Whistle transforms harrowing experiences into a moving and beautiful production.
• Shakespeare-like in its mixture of tragedy & humour
• Martin Figura’s poetry in “Whistle” is beautifully constructed and allows the reader a look into the events of Martin’s past whilst encouraging somewhat deeper reflection on one’s own circumstances, avoiding judgement and regret.
• An extraordinary story in poems and photos told with humour, subtlety and without self-pity. Invaded my dreams and will stay with me forever
• Whistle includes excellent poems and tells a compelling story. The multi-media elements add a great deal and the show has a wide reach. It’s been performed at many festivals and has everyone buzzing. Simply the best show I’ve ever seen.

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Our own Cathy Grindrod was very strong in her insistence that we brought Whistle to Beeston, and here she tells us why:

Martin Figura’s riveting sequence of poems about his childhood, his father killing his mother, and the consequences of that upon the whole family is remarkable for the story he doesn’t tell, as much as for the story he does. (Jackie Kay)

I saw Martin Figura’s Whistle at Wenlock Poetry Festival and subsequently bought the book. The poems work superbly both on and off the page, which makes Whistle an excellent example of how writing can successfully cross the boundaries between page poetry, spoken word and theatre and end up in a class of its own.

Being a believer in the power of poetry to deliver life-changing messages, I was intrigued to know how such brave and dark subject matter as a murder within a poet’s own family might be approached and explored. The impact of the performance has remained with me. Moving, sometimes heartbreaking, yes; but it is above all a fascinating and entertaining coming-of-age story – sensitive, thoughtful, unsentimental, and with many moments of wit, warmth and humour.

Martin Figura has a wonderful stage presence. The addition of lighting and on-screen images to the performance create a masterful and professional whole.

Since my first experience of the performance, which has now been seen, appreciated and discussed by many, Whistle has been deservedly nominated for both the Saboteur Best Spoken Word show 2013 and the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry.

Cathy Grindrod

Ophelia’s Sistas – some poems

Here’s a little something to whet your appetite for Friday’s performance…

Ridge Walking

Char March

This
is my life
out here
on this edge.

Windy here
—a narrow ridge.
Often I am scared,
have to squeeze my eyes shut,
hug myself to the rock,
crawl along on all fours
mumbling mantras.

But sometimes
I dance the thin line,
whirling in the sun,
shouting in an arms-up,
head-back laugh.

This
Is my life out here.
A slim chance
with steep drops on either side,
but the views
Are bloody marvellous.

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Wonderbra!

Valerie Laws

After he dumped me,
I felt a little flat. My life
Needed perking up,
So in search of something
Uplifting I turned to
Wonderbra!
I let Wonderbra handle everything,
Relaxed into its cupped hands,
Let it brace me up while
It carried my troubles for me.
It was fantastic. Suddenly
I was transformed, I had
Direction, Wonderbra pointed
The way. With its firm support,
I began to venture out. I followed
As Wonderbra led the way
Into every party. The trouble was,
I sometimes felt Wonderbra
Collected all the admiring glances,
The accidental arm-brushings,
While I stood behind. I felt
Unworthy to be with Wonderbra.
Then one night, a man
Sought me out, chatted, invited,
Seduced me back to his place.
Deftly, he removed my Wonderbra;
Left me drooping, and vanished
With it into the bedroom,
My false, deceiving Wonderbra:

I’m glad I’ve got it off my chest.

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And… some animated poetry of pathology from Valerie Laws:

Watch this fullscreen at 1080pHD to get the full effect.

Andy Croft explains Pushkin sonnets

Did you miss Andy Croft’s reading last December? If you did, you probably won’t know what Pushkin sonnets are… watch this video clip to find out more and to hear the beginning of his latest novel written entirely in Pushkin sonnets, 1948.

Why you should see Ophelia’s Sistas

Last summer Valerie Laws and Char March came to Southwell Poetry Festival. They attracted an audience of around 40 people, but the laughter and applause that resounded around Southwell Library sounded as if it had come from at least twice that many people. I’ve talked to people who remember Val as ‘the woman with the horse skull’ and Char as ‘the woman who looks great in a Viking helmet’… all of whom are eager to see the show once more.

One of their fans is Sheelagh Gallagher, who has provided this review of their 2012 show.

Valerie Laws (and friend)

The highlight of last year’s Southwell Library’s Poetry Festival for me was Ophelia’s Sistas, a performance by Valerie Laws and Char March.
An amazing experience, not at all like the mixed experience you get when you first hear your favourite poets reading live and are sometimes just a little bit disappointed and secretly want to tell them they’re not doing it right. (Or is that just me?)

I had heard about Valerie Laws and her Quantum Sheep Haikus and I knew about Char March as part of the successful Some Mothers tour: I had no idea how they would connect their work to each other’s or to the hapless Ophelia. There’s a clue in the titles of their most recent collections which both come from Hamlet – Valerie Laws’ All that Lives and Char March’s The Thousand Natural Shocks, but there’s nothing forced about the way they bring their work together.

Char March – allotment Viking?

Both poets are experienced teachers and holders of residencies around the country and reflect the voices of the people they’ve worked with as well as exploring the humour and sadness in their own lives. Together they shocked and delighted their audience, Char with her responses to clunky stereotypes of lesbian life and Val with her adventures on becoming newly single. Very different perspectives, but so in tune with each other as they read and chatted that the audience was riveted.

At the end of the performance and after enthusiastic applause there was a moment’s silence and people processed some of what they had heard. I saw people with tears in their eyes, some from laughing at Char’s outrageousness and some deeply moved by Valerie’s graphic images of malformed foetuses in pathology museums. After a short break they settled down to talk to the audience until the post–performance session looked likely to be longer than the reading. That’s something you don’t often see, an audience unwilling to leave the charged atmosphere of a great evening’s poetry.

Not for the faint-hearted, you might say. Well, yes, that’s the point of their rallying cry against Ophelia’s passivity. That and a challenge to poetry that is safe and cerebral. This poetry is tough and visceral and an unforgettable experience. I can’t tell you how pleased I am that they’ve agreed to come back to Nottinghamshire to our ever more popular Beeston Poets series. Don’t miss it!

Get your tickets (£7.50, £5.50 concessions) from Beeston Library or via our online shop. If there are tickets remaining, they will also be available on the door.

Versions of the North: video clips

Just in case you missed our Versions of the North evening, or if you were there and would like a reminder of how wonderful it was, here are some of the poems captured on video for posterity.

Ian Parks reads Mabel Ferrett’s ‘Atherton Moor, 1643’

 

Becky Cherriman reads ‘That Room’

 

Steve Ely reads ‘Arthur Scargill’

 

Elizabeth Barrett reads ‘Kingfisher’

 

Ian Parks reads ‘Strikebreaker’

Versions of the North

Blog post from Ross Bradshaw of Five Leaves – written after the first event in our 2013 spring/summer season and reposted with his permission.

Becky Cherriman

I was unable to attend the launch of our Versions of the North: contemporary Yorkshire poetry last week in Leeds at the wonderful Flux Gallery. I think about 23 of the poets in the book read, which is not a record but is a lot of poets. Last night the editor, Ian Parks, and three of the contributors – Steve Ely, Becky Cherriman and Elizabeth Barrett – read at Beeston Poets, and I was impressed. Ian remarked that among other things he wanted the book to represent the work of some dead poets whose work was in danger of being forgotten and to present the work of a new generation of young Yorkshire poets (represented at this reading by Becky). Becky read well, with some of her poems being read from memory but I was particularly impressed with Ian’s reading of poets no longer with us, and of a poem by Milner Place, who wrote his first poem at 65.

But what interested me most were the references to the miners’ strike of 1984/85. There is material on this in the book, but it was by chance that the platform included two poets whose Yorkshire fathers were on strike the whole year and Elizabeth, Liz, whose brother was on strike throughout but whose father was one of the few Yorkshire colliers who returned to work. Liz herself was involved in strike support in London where she was then living. Ian read his “Strikebreakers” poem which includes the verse:

They weren’t there when the brass bands played
and the banners were unfurled,
When the men marched to the pit gate
as if they’d won the day.
They weren’t there when the promises were made.

The whole poem is worth reading.

Steve Ely

Steve went further back to the years prior to the great strike when “Arthur Scargill” (the title of the poem) raised miners’ wages and respect, those who had previously been:

The lowest of the low and low-paid
the primary men; farmhands, quarrymen, colliers

– a poem that ends

You brought them health and Palma de Majorca,
Cortinas on the drive and kids in college
reading Marx and Mao and The Wealth of Nations.

Elizabeth Barrett

This set the stage for Liz – whose poems were mostly about other things – to find a poem from an early collection, a poem she described as a bit creaky (I regret I did not note its name) but which described the situation she found herself in, becoming estranged from her father as she was there the four o’clock morning he joined the strikebreakers, with a policeman posted in his drive. The estrangement is only now receding.

Ian Parks

Ian, in his introduction, had remarked about the Yorkshire facility for direct speech, and that the collection was direct in what the writers had to say. And here we were, back in 1984, every emotion clear. Direct all right.

And I could not help feel, in listening to Ian’s last brilliant reading of the late Mabel Ferrett’s “Atherton Moor, 1643” and the late Stanley Cook’s “Towton”, that these bloody battles were somehow connected to Cortonwood, to Orgreave, where skirmishes took place and our modern history was changed.

Ophelia’s Sistas and Whistle – tickets now available

Please visit our Big Cartel shop to buy tickets online for Ophelia’s Sistas on May 24th, and Whistle on July 5th. Both promise to be highly entertaining and jam-packed with superb poetry.

Versions of the North was wonderful… I’ll post a review soon.

Ophelia’s Sistas – Valerie Laws (left) and Char March

Martin Figura, performing Whistle