lgbt – Page 42 – Robert Garnham

A poem for now.

Sometimes it’s hard to look at the world and think that things are getting better for those in the lgbt community. There are still places where ignorance and superstition reign.

I recently read an article in Time Magazine about the struggle for gay rights in Africa. Indeed, it’s something I’ve been interested in for a long time. And of course, the current situation in Russia seems more ludicrous every day. It makes me realize how lucky I am to live in a place where such things are not a big deal.

This poem, which I hope to perform soon, is an attempt to understand such issues.

The doors.
For those who are the exquisite hidden in cupboards.

For those who fortune denies because they refuse to shout.

For those who would otherwise shine so bright were it not so dark and needlessly so.

For those who are conscious ever more obviously than the jaded so called moral imperative.

For those who multicolor the beige.

For those who feel that burning pounding quick-tempo heartbeat tick tick ticking absolute proof down deep within.

For those who don’t want to upset anyone.

For those who are being true to themselves.

For those who love.

For those who would dearly like to love but never will so long as they’re fumbling in the pitch dark.

For those who would spread compassion if given the chance.

For those who stand tall and proud in the face of ignorance.

For those who challenge the invented with the blinding torch of truth.

For those who caress and whisper sweet nothings and then open their eyes to find an empty bed.

For those who don’t want to shock and close the door voluntarily.

For those who care too much.

For those who feel they have no brothers or sisters.

For those who feel they are the only person ever ever ever ever to feel this way.

For those who make a thousand tiny differences a year.

For those whose revolution will knowingly take longer than their own lifetimes.

For those who would otherwise be flogged or hanged or stoned or cast from the safety of decent thought by those who profess to know the truth of words written fluently yet deliberately twisted ambiguous in order to hide the cultural anger seething beneath.

For those who delete their browsing history.

For those who try to prize open a door knowing that it will be slammed shut but keep on trying nonetheless.

For those who paid the ultimate price.

For those who resort to secret languages and those who give in and try to decipher filled with the eager promise of just knowing.

For those who are afraid.

For those who never will.

For those who see the world quivering ecstatic and reach out with trembling fingertips ever so eager to be a part yet knowing deep down they never will because they are really not as brave or as fortunate as those who color the world with love.

For those who hide behind masks of dubious preferences just to make it look like they are one of the crowd.

For those who are furious.

For those who are curious.

For those who log on with an alias.

For those who dance ecstatic the most writhing sexual beautiful hypnotic dance but only to themselves alone alone alone in the mirror.

For those who feel that everything is hopeless faced with ninety six percent against, newspaper editorials, fuming spitting evangelists, political bullies, idiots with guns and clubs and religious texts, charismatic spirituality, cultural commentators and peddlers of hated.

For those who burst out so fast that the world never could catch them.

For those who burned up too soon.

For those who took a chance and flowered briefly then disappeared leaving behind them the hint that if done differently it might actually work.

For those who are vehement in their love.

For those who are just plain unlucky.

For those who are scared.

For those who are scarred.

For those who would otherwise be sacred.
You are the real

And your time will come

When superstition loses and common sense takes over.

Pile up your love right now

So that when the doors finally open

It will all come tumbling through.

A funny thing happened on the way to the poetry recital.

One of the strangest things about being a performance poet is that I am, obviously, not a performance poet all the time. In fact, when you think about it, I’m probably only a performance poet at those moments when I’m on the stage or behind a mic, performing poetry. The rest of the time, I’m just an anonymous bloke.

Because I have an anonymous job and I live in an anonymous town, and the clothes I wear when I’m at work or at home or going round the town are nothing like the clothes I wear when I’m performing poetry. And while it’s true that most of my spare time is taken up with admin, emails, research, watching video clips of other performance poets, and of course, the actual writing and rehearsing of performance poems, I still have the mindset of being just an ordinary person, until the moment,of course, that I arrive at the gig.
Last week I had a gig in Exeter at the Apples and Snakes Spokes Amaze evening. It’s always a wonderful night of energy and poetic brilliance and I like it especially that I can just pop up on the train. So I got into costume and I got out my set list to do some last minute adjustments when, at the next station, a group of drunk lads got on.
They were hammered. Posh, hammered drunk lads in shirts, all called Tarquin and Maurice. And as the train carried on into the early evening I kind of sunk down in my seat a little bit, hoping that their loud joshing to each other would make me somehow anonymous. But I was wearing my poetry costume. The tweed jacket,the glasses, the spiky hair, and worse still, I had my briefcase and my large sparkly hat decorated with fairy lights. I wasn’t exactly inconspicuous.
Eventually one of them asked me where I was going and I had to tell him, hoping that they would leave me alone. But they were most interested indeed. Drunk, loud and interested. What kind of poetry? Comedy poetry? Do you like Michael McIntyre? Do you like The Pub Landlord? Make us laugh, then.
I knew that I could probably have said anything at this point and they would have laughed. They wanted me to get up and put the hat on, and then do some poetry. A part of me wanted to get off as soon as possible, but another part of me realized that this was a golden opportunity not only to perform in front of a brand new audience and bring poetry to a place where it had never been before, but also, I could use it as a practice for my forthcoming set.
So I got up and went through a couple of poems, right there at the front of the carriage. And they loved it. And the conductor loved it. And the other passengers, some of whom were watching, seemed to tolerate it. And when I finished, they all cheered and clapped. They took turns wearing the hat. Tarquin went and sat in the luggage rack and recited one of my poems from the notebook. It was a strange, yet ultimately fulfilling start to the evening.
As luck would have it, a lad got on at the next stop who looked just like Ed Sheeran, and to top it all off, he was a singer too. So they made him perform and I was able to concentrate again on my set for the gig.
Only afterwards did I think how weird the whole experience was. The lads weren’t louts, but they were certainly loud. They weren’t violent or silly, but they’re still not the sort of people I’d hang around with, even though they shall wanted to go for a drink with me.
I have, of course, been in touch with Apples and Snakes to see if they can throw some extra cash my way for bringing poetry to carriage two of the Paignton to Exmouth train. They have yet to respond.
Anyway, here’s a new poem.

LUMINOUS SUPER FUN TOKYO MASSIVE BODY SURPRISE

I’m becoming Tokyo.

I used to be a human being.

But now I’m becoming Tokyo.

My fingers are now motorway bridges.

My face is the Roppongi district.

My teeth are now neon.

My chin is the metro system.

Instead of living in a house

I now surround a bay.

I used to have an armpit.

Now I have an airport.

I used to have two armpits.

Now I have two airports.

People didn’t use

To be able to find me

In my cosy little house

But now they look at a map

Of Japan and they say,

There he is!

I went to a bar

And I asked for a beer

And the barman said,

I’m sorry, but you are a whole

City and there’s no room

For you in here

Unless the laws of physics were to be

Somehow contravened.

So I had a cola and sat outside.

You should see my Mount Fuji.

It’s huge.

The doctor has given me a cream

For it.

Arms length out like

Supple bullet train

Shinkansen just far enough

To tickle Kyoto

Ha ha ha rumble rumble

Is that an earthquake?

No, I just told you,

I tickled Kyoto

Super bouncy fun happy.

I look through a magnifying glass

At my own arm

See Ginza shopping district shoppers

Shopping in the shops with their shopping

When I sneeze they

Put up umbrellas

And they carry on shopping

Posing for selfies next

To my wristwatch.

Skyscraper head antennas

Winking like eyes blinking

Spikey-haired towers voluminous

Suspended roadway ninja hung clinging

Motorbike sounds karaoke rhythmic feet

From subway constant noise

No wonder my friends stay away from me

And the Tshirt I bought last week

Just doesn’t fit

Since I started my metropolitan

Metamorphosis

And this poem has got now

Far too many syllables

To be a haiku.

‘Poetry is not as important as Hollyoaks’. An interview with Robert Garnham

Last month I was interviewed by Exepose Magazine by Nickie Shobeiry. Below you will find the full, unedited version in all it’s glory. The original interview can be found here: http://exepose.com/poets-corner-robert-garnham/

And yes, the title is deliberately provocative. I don’t mean it really!

Interview – Robert Garnham
• What inspired you to begin writing poetry? Do you remember the first poem you ever wrote?

Hello! I started writing poetry by accident. I’d always written short stories, more for my own amusement. I also wrote a play, ‘Fuselage’, which was rehearsed read at the Northcott Theatre in 2009, but it was all just as a hobby. I went to a night of performance poetry in Torquay run by Chris Brooks and I was inspired to give it a go.
My first poem was about my family, and it’s a little embarrassing to read it now! It had some good rhymes in it. I don’t usually use rhyme much now. Anyway, I made my debut at Poetry Island with the family poem, and people loved it! Chris asked me to come again, and I’ve been doing it ever since.
• Do you have a specific place you go to for writing? Any particular habits?
Yes, weirdly, I do. I always write at my desk every morning and every night, but on my day off I go to the Quiet Room at Paignton Library. There are no distractions here, unless someone comes in with a packet of crisps. Also, I spend weekends at my parent’s house and they have a room at the back of their garage which, like the Quiet Room, has no distractions. It’s my own private place!
I’ve used the same pen for every single thing I’ve written since 1995, so I suppose that’s a habit of sorts. I write everything in long hand first, then type it up.
• Where does most of your inspiration come from?
I have no idea! Poems are usually when two or three concepts seem to merge together. One of my poems, ‘Poem’, is about an ostrich queuing at a buffet on a train to buy some crisps, but he’s slowly metamorphosing into a wheelbarrow. I have no idea where the idea for it came from!
Often, though, people say funny things and the words come back to me when I sit down to write. None of my friends like poetry. Not one single one of them! So they don’t come and watch me perform, which means I can use the silly things they’ve said freely without repercussion. It also helps that most of my friends, in their own little ways, are incredibly eccentric. I’m fairly normal.
• Your performance at the Bike Shed Theatre’s Slam Poetry event last year had everyone in stitches, hanging onto your every word. How would you describe your own writing?
Thanks! I work hard at every single line and once a poem is written, I put it aside, then come back to it and pretend to be the audience. Some times I look at a poem and I think, ‘This has to be 33% funnier’. Often the best time to write is when you’re feeling relaxed, but the mind kind of has to be almost half disinterested in the outcome. This is when the silly stuff kicks in, or the unusual connections. If I concentrated on being funny, It would probably end up sounding forced. So the mood to write is hard to conjur up.
• You work as the host of Poetry Island in Torquay – can you talk a little about your experience there, and some of your favourite performances?
I was host for three years or so. I took over from Chris Brooks, who’s now off being a comedy genius, and if had a great time booking acts from the national scene and nurturing new talent locally. We had some great performers come down to Torquay, such as Ash Dickinson, Matt Harvey, Byron Vincent, (a hero of mine), Liv Torc. I think Chris Redmond was one of my favourites. (Am I allowed to have favourites? I suppose now that I’m no longer host, I can admit to this!).
The best nights were when you see someone who you’ve helped and encouraged go up and be amazing. I gave headline slots to Joanna Hatfull and Tom Austin, who are huge local talents. I don’t think either had had paid gigs before, so it was a nice feeling.
I’ve handed Poetry Island over now to Ian Beech, and he’s doing a much better job than I ever managed!
• You perform a lot of spoken word poetry – is this your favourite mode? Can you share some of your most memorable performances?
I’d like to have another crack at writing a theatre script, and I’d love to have a book published. I have a novel which I finished recently, if anyone’s interested! But I can’t act or sing or dance or do comedy, so I suppose it’s spoken word all the way for me.
As for memorable performances. Well! There’s loads. My first paid gig was at Jawdance, a regular night in London, and it was amazing because a London friend came to watch and then I was recognized on a tube station platform a couple of hours later! And London again, supporting the wonderful John Hegley at Gongoozled, will also be a cherished memory. I got lost on the way to the venue and panicked that they’d be angry, I got there, and Mr Hegley had also got lost on the way!
Any night that goes well is cherished. Performing to my sister for the first time in Guildford at Pop Up Poetry was great. She’d never seen me do my thing before. And the Edinburgh Fringe was a fantastic experience. Performing to one person on a wet Monday afternoon. Oh, the romance!
• Could you talk a little about the inspiration behind your poems beginning ‘a friend of mine thinks he might be straight’ and ‘people think your beard is weird’?
The ‘straight’ poem is based on a composite of several friends and it was just a chance to explore some cliches about straight men and what they get up to, like building sheds and watching Top Gear. It was just a chance to turn the whole thing around and make it feel as if straight people were the minority, something weird that has to be studied so that we can understand their ways. As for the Beard poem, well. There are so many people around with beards at the moment and I always think, ‘He’d be quite good looking if it wasn’t for that beard’.

• I recently saw you perform at the Phoenix’s Taking The Mic event. Your poem – hilarious as always – was about a bald man, and you had a lit-up box to boot. Could you share the story behind the poem? Do you often use props on stage, and what do you think it brings to the performance?
Funny you should ask about the bald man poem, because the whole thing just came to me, at almost midnight when I was in bed. Completely from nowhere! I suddenly thought that it might be quite funny to write a poem about something entirely meaningless and small, something everyday and commonplace, and what more commonplace thing can there be than seeing a bald man walking in the street? I’ve also written poems about unrolling a new bin liner, vacuuming a carpet and losing a pen in the lining of a coat. I think this is my minimalist phase.
I used to use props all the time, at every performance. Over the years I’ve built a theremin from two Wellington boots and a feather duster, and a large hadron collider out of garden hose and a custard cream biscuit. Indeed, I was known for quite some time just as a prop poet. But then, when you start getting invitations to perform all over the county, you have to lug these props on buses and trains and the joke kind of wears off, especially when someone sits on your theremin. But I like props, generally. One of my favourite poets, Rachel Pantechnicon, uses props to hilarious effect, and if she’s ever performing in your neighborhood, then I urge you to go along.
• Do you have a favourite of your own poems?
I like performing ‘Poem’, because of the energy that I put into it. ‘Poem’ is also good, I wrote it when I was on holiday in Australia and it kind of stayed with me, it always conjurs up a specific time and place. But I suppose it has to be ‘Poem’, even though I’ve performed it countless times. It’s still one of my favourites even after all of these years!
• What was the last poem you wrote about?
Losing a pen in the lining of my jacket (see above).
• Why do you think poetry is important?
I’m not sure that poetry is important. It’s not as important as the news, or Hollyoaks. But that’s because it’s now more of a niche interest. Often, though, poetry gives people a chance to take the audience somewhere. Dean Atta writes about his experience of being a black gay man in contemporary London, for example, and AJ McKenna writes about being a transgender poet. Poetry has also been used as a form of political release, airing views and grievances. I’m thinking of such people as Atilla the Stockbroker and Pete the Temp, Bob Hill and Exeter’s very own Tim King. Poetry is the medium by which they raise political concerns and encourage debate about certain issues. Tim’s poem about FGM is amazingly powerful.
• Who are your favourite writers? If you had to pick your top three favourite poems, what would you pick and why?
My favourite poet is Frank O’Hara. He was active in the 1950s and early 1960s and wrote poems about city life and the experiences of being a gay man in 1950s USA. Yet there was nothing political about him, his poems had a matter or fact ness about them, almost a flippancy about big issues. He demonstrated that you can mix high and low culture and hold either in high esteem so long as you are earnest in your beliefs. He’s the poet whose ethos I’m closest room though I’ve now outlived him. He died aged 40 after being run over by a beach buggy. He was drunk at the time.
I also like poets who use humour and language in unexpected ways. I absolutely adore Byron Vincent and Rob Auton, both of whom I’ve met and worked with. They never cease to amaze me with their output. Also Rachel Pantechnicon, hilarious and life affirming. She’s a big influence on me and was one of the people who were instrumental in getting me going.
Favourite poems? I suppose Frank O’Hara’s ‘Getting Up Ahead of Someone’, Byron Vincent’s ‘Hold the Pickle’, and ‘Spherical Man’, by Mighty Mike McGee. These poems are inventive, funny, with great use of language and incredible humanity. Every time I read them I get something different from them.
• What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received as a poet, that you think is relevant to people from all walks of life?
Well, there’s ‘never be a prop poet’, which is the advice Rachel Pantechnicon gave me. This can’t really be translated into everyday life, unless you think on terms of doing away with the baggage that we always carry around with us.
My closest colleagues and friends in the world of poetry are Tim King, Chris Brooks, Ian Beech and Dan Haynes. I see the way they commit themselves to poetry and performance and to being moral people and I try to apply this to my own life. It’s not advice, as such.
So I suppose the biggest piece of advice has to come from Frank O’Hara, who said the one must act with ‘grace to be born and live as variously as possible’. Which I suppose means, cram in as much as possible!
• What can the world expected next from Robert Garnham?
I’ve got a book coming out some time towards the end of this year with Burning Eye, who are the biggest publisher of spoken word poets in the country. It’s a huge honour! In the mean time I’m working on a second novel, which is about retail management, and I’m planning a one person show, the provisional title of which is ‘Static’. I’m also poeting all over the place, I’ve recently been doing shows with a comedy group called Jocular Spectacular and we have a show coming up in Exeter during the LOL festival supporting Arthur Smith, and I’m also off to Manchester in a couple of weeks to do a gig up there. So it’s all go at the moment!

An Interview with AJ McKenna

Hello, AJ. You’ve had a busy couple of years, it looks like. What have been the highlights, both in terms of your poetry, and personally?

I think the two biggest highlights professionally have been my film, ‘Letter to a Minnesota Prison’, about the case of CeCe McDonald, which was shown at the Royal Festival Hall as part of ‘Architects of Our Republic’, an Apples and Snakes project – and, more recently, working as Deputy Editor at the online LGBT magazine So So Gay, which I did from last spring until I stepped down at the start of this year to concentrate on my own writing. The great thing about that role was the opportunity it gave me to amplify other trans voices, by commissioning work from people like J Mase III, Elaine O’Neill and Jude Enroljas.

– You’re a wonderfully outspoken person, fighting intolerance in all its forms. Do all poets have a duty to highlight the things that make them angry?

We live in very angry times: the news reports over the past week have been enough to confirm that. But equally, they’ve been very interesting in giving us space in which to consider what kinds of expression of anger are artistically worth it. If you look at the stuff that Charlie Hebdo was publishing, there is undoubtedly an anger behind it, but it’s a kind of spluttering, obvious, one-dimensional anger. No-one deserves to die for producing cartoons like that, but equally, they aren’t worth dying for either. If you think about some of the great free speech cases, stuff like the suppression of Ulysses, or the Lady Chatterley trial, or the Howl case, it absolutely would have been worth dying to have produced works like those. They were all to some extent motivated by anger, but it seems to me that they made something out of their anger which is beautiful and arresting and three-dimensional. So I think the question you have to ask is – can I make something worthwhile of my anger? Can I turn it into something which has space in it? That’s what you should ask yourself.

– Can you tell us a little bit about transphobia?

Well, it’s obviously the main thing I get angry about! Transphobia is the irrational prejudice people have against trans people – I don’t want to say it’s ‘the same as’ homophobia is for cisgender (non-trans) gay people, but obviously there are differences. Transphobia is still a lot more casually tolerated in this society than homophobia, for one. For another, you often encounter cis gay people who can be horribly transphobic, which really makes me angry, because you’d think if you understand what it’s like to be a minority you would hope people wouldn’t inflict the same hurt on other people.

– I see you are putting together a one hour show for the Edinburgh Fringe. Can you tell us anything about it?

The original idea for the show was to do an extended version of one of my 20-minute sets, a set which focuses on performing pieces which are inspired by the worst things people have said to me. It’s still based on that initial premise, but gradually other themes are emerging – politics (gender politics particularly), family, my years as a teenage anorexic, and a large helping of what I can only refer to as sex and violence. Hopefully people will find that a heady enough combination!

– Which poems do you consider to be your ‘greatest hits’?

The two poems people ask for most at gigs are ‘You’re fucking dead lol j/k’, which is my anti-banter poem, and ‘My revelation will not be trivialised’, which is a poem I wrote in response to transphobic labels. And the video of mine which has had the most hits on YouTube is ‘The Bathroom Thing’, my poem about anti-trans bathroom panic. So yes, I see your point about being outspoken…

– What aims do you have when you sit down to write a poem?

I tend to write in one of two ways – either something will make me very immediately angry, in which case I’ll write something as a kind of rapid response. Usually with these I don’t really have an idea of where the piece will end up – I’ll start with a line and then riff on it from there and see where it gets me. ‘My revelation’ was written in that way – I’d been annoyed by being referred to as a ‘TV’ and so I started riffing on the phrase ‘I am not a TV’, coming up with ways in which I’m not, which of course led me to think about Gil Scott-Heron and ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’ and so I thought I’d carry on in that fashion and…eventually the poem was pretty much written, and only needed a few tweaks thereafter.

The other way I tend to write is that I’ll have an idea in my head which worries away at me for ages, unconsciously, then eventually I’ll find a way into it and come up with something. ‘Letter to a Minnesota Prison’ went like that: I’d wanted to write a poem about CeCe McDonald for a while – indeed I’d made numerous attempts and none of them had really came off. I’d heard about her being wrongly imprisoned for defending herself against a transphobic, racist attack, and I’d initially tried to write a poem about it in the style of that Bob Dylan song, ‘The Ballad of the Hurricane’, but…well, it worked out about as well as you can expect.

Then I was commissioned to do a poem for ‘Architects of Our Republic’, an Apples and Snakes event commemorating the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech. I had no idea how to proceed with it – in fact I found the commission quite daunting. So I decided to start by reading over the speech – the whole speech, not just the peroration, the ‘I have a dream’ bit, which everyone remembers. One of the interesting moments in the earlier part of the speech is a point when he compares the Declaration of Independence to a bad cheque. The interesting thing about this in the context of the CeCe McDonald case was that one of the key pieces of evidence used against her in her pre-trial hearing was that she’d written a cheque that bounced. So this gave me a way in. I began with ‘Your cheque bounced, CeCe…’ and the poem flowed from there. Then it was just a matter of editing.

– Who are your heroes, both in literature, and more widely?

In contemporary poetry my heroes are, in no particular order, Joelle Taylor, Sophia Walker and Angela Readman. More widely I adore the work of Alison Bechdel, the cartoonist who wrote Fun Home, which was a key influence on my decision to come out; Laverne Cox, who’s used her fame from appearing in Orange is the New Black to help advance trans rights; Fallon Fox, who’s done similar work in a much more dangerous environment as the world’s first out trans mixed martial arts fighter…and I’ve always been a massive, massive Tori Amos fan. I don’t think I’d actually write poetry if it hadn’t been for Tori!

– And who are your villains?

Now that is a much longer list! But you could probably sum it up as Tories, transphobes, and Ukip supporters.

– There seems to be a thriving performance poetry scene in Newcastle. Who are the other notable poets who perform regularly there?

That’d be another long list then! But we are blessed to have some amazing poetry and spoken word artists in the region. There’s Jenni Pascoe, who runs Jibba Jabba, Kirsten Luckins, whose show ‘The Moon Cannot Be Stolen’ is an amazing blend of poetry and music…Rowan McCabe is a massive rising star too, who’s also done an amazing show called ‘North East Rising’. Degna Stone, winner of the Verb new voices award…Amy Mackelden, who…her shows are not pure poetry but as spoken word they’re amazing. I remember seeing a performance of her show the ‘Seven Fatal Mistakes of Online Dating’ which finished with her performing a poem to a random guy on Chatroulette, after which the entire audience gave him a big wave. Such an amazing, risk-taking moment. And so nice, too! There’s Ira Lightman, as well, who I consider Britain’s most avant-garde poet, though he doubtless knows 18 different people doing even more experimental stuff than him. Ask him about the clown t-shirts. There’s Asa J Maddison, whose performance poem, ‘Boom’, is one of the most powerful things I saw last year; Sky Hawkins, Chris Harland…there are loads of us. Just move up here already! All of you!

– What are your plans as a poet for the next couple of years?

There is no plan!

AJ is performing at Stirred in Manchester on Monday 23rd February, Talking Heids in Leith on Tuesday 22nd, and at ‘Do Us Proud’, a special event to mark the end of LGBT History Month in York, on Thursday 25th

On saying ‘Thanks’ at the end of a poetry performance

Hello, today I thought I’d talk about what it is we say when a poem has finished.

I’ve been to many gigs all over the place and it’s true that the nature of these events is defined by the sort of poetry thats performed there. It’s not uncommon, at a page poetry event where poems are ‘read’ rather than performed, that there should be no clapping at the end. People sit there in a respectful silence. And that’s ok. That’s the culture that these events have created for themselves. And in any case, the poems are usually about the seasons or wildflowers or ennui.

Performance poetry nights are a different beast entirely. They are hipper, more energetic, more like entertainment than poems about agriculture and hedges, and the audience becomes a part of the whole performance. That’s why it’s often somewhat disconcerting when a poet finishes a poem and says absolutely nothing. The audience doesn’t know what to do.

We’ve probably all seen it. The poet stands there, having finished their poem, and there’s no acknowledgement whatsoever from the audience. And then they say something awkward like, ‘That’s it’. Or ‘That’s the end’. And then there’s a bit of muted clapping.

The vast majority of performance poets build up a rhythm as they go along and the final words, usually, ‘Thanks’, or sometimes ‘Cheers’, if the poet is a bit blokey, signals to the audience that their wait is over and that they are free to cheer, clap, whoop or should ‘Yeah!’. It becomes a part of the performance. And it helps the evening flow along.

But are there alternatives? Do people get tired of the same old ‘Thanks’? The wonderful local poet Simon Blades built a whole routine around this and would signal that a poem had finished wins lavish arm gesture which was both funny and a humorous aspect of his act. Every now and then I do something similar. Perhaps I might blow on a harmonica or whistle or something. But the essence is just the same. I’m telling the audience that the poem has finished and,if they’re not clapping already, the audience should damn well clap now.

Another aspect is the comedic acknowledgement that the poem has finished and that the next one is starting already. I’ve done this a few times. I’ve signaled that the poem had ended by announcing that ‘This next poem is called . . .’. In such cases I’m sacrificing potential applause for a comedic response. Hopefully laughter. It doesn’t always work but it’s very nice when it does.

So that’s what I’ve been thinking about, anyway. The acknowledgement that a poem has finished is part of the act. Unless the poet doesn’t want applause, and that’s fine. They might purposefully build themselves a reputation as a serious page poet, and the audience might be glad of an opportunity not to clap. Deadly silence at the end of a poem is a response in itself. It’s just a little embarrassing when the poet has read something that they hoped would elicit applause. The audience probably still likes them just the same, it’s just that they never got the chance to show it.

Anyway. That’s the end of today’s lecture. Next week we shall be discussing clearing throats on stage.

http://youtu.be/EkMmsv4OjqM

My hero: Professor Zazzo Thiim

I’ve been writing poetry now for the best part of ten years. Yet my foray into the world of ‘comic’ verse did not come completely by accident.

There is one man who came before who showed me that performance poetry was a real art form and worthy of investigation. Indeed, when people ask who my influences are, (which, come to think of it, has only ever happened once), I often reply ‘Frank O’Hara, but to a greater extent, Professor Zazzo Thiim’.
Who is Professor Zazzo Thiim? Notwithstanding several attempts by many in the Californian poetry community to attribute the invention of performance poetry to their particular clique, or the claims of those within the British poetic movement to assign invention of this genre to those from various diverse backgrounds both cultural and symbolic, there remains a theory within the English departments of some major university establishments that the invention of ‘performance’ poetry can be traved to the moment in June 1953 when Professor Zazzo Thiim accidentally sat on a harpsichord while reciting the works of Tennyson. Indeed, it was seen as the most whimsical and amusing moment of the Basingstoke literary season, mainly on account of the audience reaction – (sheer disbelief mixed with a fair amount of loathing) – and the apparent embarrassment not only of Thiim himself, but also the Mayor, and Arthur Miller, to whom the harpsichored belonged.

There were immediate appeals for a repetition of Thiim’s groundbreaking (and harpsichord-breaking) work. Indeed, he was asked to perform it on the radio (to general acclaim), and before the Ambassador to the United States, (who turned out to be just a man in a hat who was passing by). Performance poetry was born. Thiim was astounded by the fact that he had invented an entire new genre. He began writing his own verse, which he would perform either sitting on a harpsichord, astride a harpsichord, while playing a harpsichord, while lying on a harpsichord, and finally, while lying underneath a harpsichord. This lasted for six years, until a colleague is said to have inquired of him, ‘What is it with you and all these bleeding harpsichords, anyway?’ He turned up at the next poetry event with a mouth organ.

Throughout this time, not only did Thiim write poems to fit in with his harpsichord smashing regime, but he also began to dissemble and play around with the poetic form. Working in unison with the University of Staines, he looked at poems in more detail than any other literary practitioner until he acquired a reputation as a literary and poetic experimenter. Poems were shot from cannons. Poems were jumped up and down on. One poem was whispered to the Queen, who was asked to ‘pass it on’. (She didn’t). One poem, entitled ‘Frank (23 ½ Seconds of Silence)’ was performed as twenty three and a half seconds of silence. And another, ‘Frank (23 ½ Seconds of Silence with a Brief Interlude)’, was an extended version of the first but with a slight clearing of the throat in the middle. ‘Frank’ was a poem performed with a tambourine with the eminent professor repeating the word ‘scones’ over and over, finally ending the consuming of a whole scone live on stage, while ‘Frank’ consisted of the Professor shouting out the words ‘I do not believe in Aberystwith’ while pouring yoghurt over his head. One of his most famous poems, ‘Frank’, received some notoriety when it was discovered that it had been the last work read by Tony Blackburn before his debut on Radio One. And of course, who can forget the stirring moment when one of his better known poems, ‘Frank’, was included in the first space probe sent out by the Belgians?

There has been of course some question as to why the Professor should have entitled all of his poems ‘Frank’. But as the good professor has pointed out on numerous occasions, all titles are essentially meaningless and spoil the anticipation of a poem or a work of art. Just look at ‘Last of the Summer Wine’. ‘Frank seemed as good a name as any. Do we enoy the Professor’s poems today? Naturally. As the performance poetry scene goes from strength to strength, the work of Professor Zazzo Thiim has been cited by many, including myself, as their main inspiration for taking to the stage. In areas where performance poetry is popular, there has also been a marked increase in sales of harpsichords, and there can be no other reason why this is so than the enduring legacy of Professor Zazzo Thiim.

Foibles in Guildford and Other Poetic Adventures

This week I felt really badly. For the first time that I can remember, I cancelled going to a poetry gig and performing. Taking the Mic in Exeter is a brilliant event which I love. But I was just so, so tired! I asked Tim if I could phone it in from home, but I was too tired even to do this!

The reason was that I had a gig the night before in Guildford at the excellent Pop Up Poetry, run by Janice Windle and Donall Dempsey, two enthusiastic and lovely people who I first met a couple of years ago on a previous visit. This time they asked me to do a twenty minute slot, and even better, my sister came along to watch. It was the first time she had ever seen me before, and I’m glad that I didn’t suck that night.

The audience were amazing and receptive and my set was greeted with applause and laughter in all the right places, even if I did emit a loud belch halfway through one of the poems!

The one drawback was that I had to get up at half four the next morning to get the train back to Deb’n. Hence my fatigue the next night when Taking the Mic rolled around.

It had been a week of performing. The Friday before I’d participated in the poetry tent at GlasDenbury. Yes, you read that write, a music festival in the small Devon village of Denbury. There were young people there, and they played the music terribly loudly, and the headliners were those mighty rock leviathans Dr And the Medics.

The best part of performing at a festival was the wristbands. I wore mine for two days afterwards to show everyone that I had two wristbands. The first said ‘Artist’. The second was proof that it over 18. You know, just in case it wasn’t too obvious.

And then the next day I was performing at Paignton Green for the Family Fun Day. I was with two poetry friends, Ellie and Brenda, and we all decided we would do family friendly material. Which was ok, except Brenda decided to edit as she went along, and quickly had to change a very dodgy line mid-poem from explaining exactly what she did with the cheese-cutter knickers to ‘and then something else happened’.

It was good performing in my adopted home town. Especially because there was just a two minute walk home. Unlike the Guildford gig.

So that’s what I’ve been up to the last few days. And now I’m working on the Poetry Island Anthology, which will be available very soon!

A busy week. And a new poem.

The week started weirdly and then it just got weirder as it went on. But that’s what happens when you’re a performance poet, apparently.

You know that crazy hazy place you inhabit just before you wake, when dreams and reality kind of combine until you don’t really know what’s going on? I dreamed that I was at a poetry night watching Simon Williams, and he was reciting a poem called ‘There’s A Penguin In My House’. It all seemed so vivid and real and I had his voice right thee in my head. And when I woke, I could still remember the words! So the first thing I did was to write them down.

Nothing like a parrot though I’m told
Nothing like a parrot though I’m told
Though it’s got a dainty beak
every now and then a squeak

There’s s penguin there’s a penguin there’s s penguin in my house.

The next weird thing to happen was that Chris Brooks phoned me at work to say that he wasn’t feeling too good, and could I take his performance poetry workshop that night in Torquay? I said yes, and then only afterwards thought how I could possibly get away with leading a workshop and professing to know something about a subject through which I have bumbled in the most part.

But the group was excellent and enthusiastic, and the next thing I knew was that I ha dispensed with the lesson plan that Chris had sent me. Indeed, we all probably had too much fun. Apparently there was a lot of giggling.

Tuesday morning I went to the library quiet room and had a good writing session, coming up with two great new poems which I shall no doubt perform somewhere, some time.

Wednesday passed without incident.

On Thursday, I was asked to do an unannounced three minute set at Chris Brooks’ comedy night, Jocular Spectacular. On these nights, I usually do the door for him, so to throw people off the scent I wore a t-shirt and shorts for my door duties before changing into my performance clothes once the show had started. Chris informed the audience that I was only there so that the comedy night could apply for an arts council grant by proving that it had other art forms. The audience was amazing, really receptive and warm, the two poems I performed, ‘Titanic’ and ‘Baton Twirling Eel’, going down very well indeed. The headliner was Mitch Benn. I’d heard of him. I sat in the green room with him after my set. He didn’t say anything.

I left the venue to find my train home was delayed. And then when I finally got home at midnight, I discovered that I was locked out! I had to go to the shop where I work and borrow blankets and pillows, and then go to the flat I’m currently moving in to and sleep on the floor all night.

I say slept. I didn’t get much sleeping done. Hey fever, for a start. Secondly, it was damn uncomfortable. Thirdly, I’ve slept with earplugs ever since I was a teenager and I didn’t have any for the first time in years. All of a sudden I had superhearing. I could hear cars three roads away. Birds. Trees. It was very disconcerting.

Saturday, and rehearsals in Barnstaple for Spectacular Vernacular. Yes, it’s confusing being in two shows, one called Spectacular Vernacular, the other called Jocular Spectacular. In searing heat,I took the train to Exeter and shared the journey, by chance, with actor and comedian, star of stage and TV, James Cotter. We chatted about theatrical matters and it felt kind of good to hear about his career. At Exeter, he got off and Daniel Haynes got on, and so did fifteen drunk England fans, who spent the rest of the journey singing such classics as Minnie the Moocher and American Pie.

Rehearsals went well enough. A tin of tuna kept falling out of my flasher’s overcoat. That was the only setback.

Tim King offered a lift home to Paignton, and Saskia came along because she was going clubbing in Torquay. Tim’s sat nav diverted us into the sticks and, as the sun went down on a very hot Devon evening, we kind of drifted off the face of the earth. We passed a cheese factory. Then the road was closed for unspecified reasons, so we had to go back past the cheese factory. It was a very camp little factory. It had big chimney stacks. I wondered why a cheese factory should need chimney stacks, but there you go. By the time we got to Torbay three hours later, the streets were crowded with revelry makers, what with their being Football On and a UB40 concert on the sea front.

Arrived home knackered, and felt somewhat for Tim, who now had to drive all the way back to Exeter.

So it’s been a very busy week, and next week promises to be just as busy with nine shows over four days in Exeter, and a gig on Wednesday night too. But that’s the life of a performance poet, apparently.

Anyway, here’s one of my new poems.

Poem

For years
My parents didn’t know their neighbour’s names.
One day their neighbours walked past and said hello
And their dog got it’s head stuck in the
Slats of the gate.
My parents forever then referred to them as
Dog’s Head Stuck In Gate Man And Woman.

Oh look, they’d say,
There goes Dog’s Head Stuck In Gate Man And Woman
As the two of them walked past
Exercising their dog.

I thought how strange life is
And the certain barriers which we create
Such as names and other niceties
That this amiable couple should
Forever be defined, after a lifetime,
As Dog’s Head Stuck In Gate Man And Woman
Forever imbuing that one lame incident
With all kinds of semantics.

One day I visited
And Dog’s Head Stuck In Gate Man And Woman past
Without their dog.
‘Where’s Dog’s Head Stuck In Gate Man And Woman’s dog?’
I asked
And dad said, ‘it died, unfortunately’.
And I said ‘so what do you call them now?’
And mum said, ‘Philip and Beryl’.