Tag Archives: literature

The most significant full stop (part five)

A few years ago I flew from Vancouver back to London having just caught a train from one side of Canada to the other. It was an amazing time with a lot of travelling and a lot of connections. With about ten minutes to go before the boarding was announced, I went to the toilet in the Vancouver terminal and, while I was enjoying a wee, I noticed a very small dot on the otherwise spotless cubicle wall. I remembered thinking, ‘That wall is not spotless’. But then I came over all profound and thought, ‘I will never see that tiny dot again. In a few hours I will be thousands of miles from that small dot. That insignificant dot’.
And do you know what happened? The plane developed a fault in one of its own toilets and we all had to get off and wait four hours for a new plane. I went for another wee a couple of hours later, and saw that tiny insignificant dot once again. Which meant that it wasn’t quite so insignificant any more. In fact, of all the dots in the world, it was now probably one of the most significant, because what were the chances of me ever seeing it again?
Here I am writing this at Manchester airport waiting for a flight to Exeter. It’s a 25 minute flight and it’s just been delayed by three hours.
I don’t want to repeat the significant dot experiment again because I don’t want to take precedence away from the dot that I saw in Vancouver, yet my mind is not so developed as I’d like it to be, and I’m seeing significant dots everywhere. Just look at this floor. It’s full of them.
This brings me back to the significant full stop experiment and how elements of the Vancouver Dot have been playing at the back of my mind these intervening years. Im wondering, of course, what has happened to the dot and whether the toilet in the terminal has been redecorated. It’s quite possible.



There. That one. There. 

Yesterday.

A man walked into a bar. It was actually a night club. We don’t know why but he killed a lot of people. The people who were there, were there to have a good time. Maybe he didn’t like people having a good time, but what’s known for sure is that he had a gun. It was a powerful gun and he was able to purchase it quite legally. The people who were having a good time were also doing so quite legally.
The man who did it had reasons which a lot of people would find different and quite at odds with their own way of living. The people who died most probably had a lifestyle which these same people would find at odds with their own way of living. But this isn’t about religion or sexuality, even though these are the labels which will be used for the next few days and weeks. It’s about a man who was angry or quite possibly deluded, and some people who were having a good time.
There will be those who disagree with the way other people live their lives, their own philosophies and methods of being. But life carries on and on the whole, people embrace the difference which makes being human so wonderfully diverse and interesting. We can learn from other cultures, belief systems, view points, and while we might not agree, we never enforce this with violence.
Having said that.
Fifty people died. And it was an attack on a very specific community of which I am a part. It happened in a place of symbolism, such as a church or a place of worship. It happened because of one persons ignorance. It happened possibly because of superstition. There’s no other way to look at it other than as a wilful expression of hatred. And naturally there will be underlying questions about weapons and religion (if indeed it was a religious act at all), and the response to it by those who commentate on such matters will be proportional to their own preconceived notions. But fifty people died, and right now, there is pain and suffering and disbelief.
There is no easy moral to this episode other than a man with a gun and a grudge, and how easily it happened.
 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 more conscious 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.
Performance Poet, Writer, Spoken Word Artist. 

The most significant full stop (Part four)

This evening I searched through my notebooks to find the most insignificant full stop that I had ever written. The results were somewhat disappointing because all of the full stops that I’ve written have been insignificant, except for the occasions in which I’ve purposefully written a significant full stop. I wrote one at the end of my dissertation at the end of my postgraduate degree, and I did another one in my last A Level exam.

Every full stop has been insignificant, and as such significant only in their insignificance. Which made me free to choose any at random.

The one I chose came from my scribblings where I have been trying out lines and ideas for poems.

I have photographed this full stop with my iPad and I have magnified it several times, each time taking a screen shot. The results do not look as exciting as the electronically generated full stop, perhaps the lighting was all wrong. The full stop was written in ink by my Parker pen, the same one that I have used for writing every day since 1995.

The thing with full stops is that you never realise you’re writing them. They come easily and they are dotted on to the page with abandon and little thought. They pass like moments forgotten. 

I would like you to take part in an experiment, but I must warn you that it is very dangerous. I have come up with three words which will alter, or perhaps even ruin the rest of your day. If you are willing, able and un afraid of the consequences, then feel free to click on this link and see these three words for yourself.

The most annoying three words imaginable. – Robert Garnham https://robertdgarnham.wordpress.com/2016/06/11/the-most-annoying-three-words-imaginable/
I will then monitor the page where these words appear and see how many of you have been brave enough.

The most significant full stop (Part two).

Hello.

This morning I typed a full stop and by means of social media, attempted to make it the most famous full stop in the history of existence. So far the plan has not been a success. As many as sixteen people have viewed the full stop on social media.

For the next phase of this project, I have decided to focus on the full stop itself. This solitary mark of punctuation was generated electronically rather than handwritten which means that it does not exist in any tactile form. It exists purely as electronic information. Which makes me wonder if it exists at all.

So I have taken a screenshot of the full stop, magnified the picture, and each time taken another screen shot, so as to get to the very essence of the full stop and see how it exists on a massively intensified form. The results thus far have been inconclusive.

Here’s the original full stop, followed by the several magnifications.


It is interesting to note that the magnified full stop has particles, ‘ghosts’, if you will, orbiting around it, which our scientists are very interested in. Perhaps all marks of punctuation have these orbitings, and every letter too, making one wonder if there is hidden meaning in the most simple of texts which we subconsciously glean from any reading.
More news will be forthcoming, and further investigation into the full stop, will be provided, as and when.

Your continued patience is much appreciated.
Robert .

The most significant full stop.

The aim is to make this the most famous full stop in the history of mankind.

It was originally typed at 0845 on a Wednesday morning, at a Costa coffee shop in Paignton, Devon, UK.
There will never be a full stop as momentous as this one.
Why, you ask. Why should it get all of the acclaim? To which we reply, why not?

The font is irrelevant.

This full stop could have gone anywhere but it gave up on all that potential because it sees the bigger picture.

Feel free to share this full stop. It needs you help.

What is Static?

I’ve been developing Static for almost a year now. During that time it has metamorphosed into something completely different from its origins, and the discovery process has been both fun and rewarding from an artistic point of view. Along the way, I have had to learn a lot of new things and come to terms with concepts which is not known anything about, such as ‘scratch nights’, ‘blocking’, ‘mind maps’. It’s all been a little bit scary.
‘Static’ the show sprang from a short performance art piece which I’ve performed here and there, also called ‘Static’. Indeed, the show ends with this piece, which people have often described as thought provoking, sad and subdued, which isn’t my normal style at all! During the piece I would examine issues of movement and geography, expectations and identity, all during a five minute ‘poem without words’.

When it came to thinking of ideas for a one hour show, I thought back to this piece and I decided that I could expand it, make it autobiographical, and yet encompass much else, focussing more explicitly on issues of identity. This forced me to look at my own life and upbringing, my own desires and motivations, my own life. Born and raised in Surrey, there was always this sense of movement, which is something I touch on in the show.
The writing process has been fun. I started out with a loose narrative and some old poems which I’d performed all over the UK, but I soon realised that I should write new material for it. And because the show is autobiographical, the poems are more introspective than normal, with one or two of the usual comedy ones thrown in for relief. Four of them are brand new and will be heard when the show is performed for the first time. Two of them have wriggled free of the show, and I have performed them for the last couple of months: ‘Jamie’, and ‘The Doors’.
The show also incorporates some prop work which I have been developing, including a theremin, and a large hadron collider.
So I’m looking forward now to the challenge of learning the show, working on it and perfecting it. I’ve been working with Ziggy Abd El Malak, a fantastic director who has completely changed the way that I perform and approach both performance and rehearsal.
The show will be performed at the Artizan Gallery in Torquay for the first time on 29th May, then at the Guildford Fringe, before a run at the Edinbrugh Fringe in August.

Thoughts on my collection ‘Nice’

It’s been a few months now since my first collection came out, so I thought I’d write a blog post about just what it means and how it feels.
Every time I see the book, I get a strange little feeling inside of me of pride mixed with a weird sense of justification. The book represents an acceptance, of sorts, that I’ve been acknowledged at least of being worthy of publication. And I suppose I could go back to my degree in literature and the essays I used to write about publication, ‘the cannon’, and the curatorial act of editing and publishing a book.
‘Nice’ exists, it’s out there. It’s mixing with the big boys, and with company that’s in a different league. It lives on shelves in people’s houses, next to books by much better writers and poets, more respected titles, with my name beaming out from its spine. And this is the scariest part. Because it looks just like a normal book!
These are probably emotions which every writer or poet feels. When we read a book, we see these people at their best. We don’t see them on a day to day basis, stumbling over words while buying a train ticket, or walking into the door of Superdrug because they thought it was automatic. I live in my own head and I’m wrapped up in the usual doubts and frustrations of being Robert Garnham the human being, whose a very different creature to Robert Garnham the performance poet / spoken word artist. This morning I spelled yoghurt all over the kitchen counter, and then accidentally missed the bowl when I added granola. It’s everywhere right now, because I haven’t had time to clear it up.
But the book, it goes out there. It’s filled with my best stuff, poems I’m really pleased with and a cover which I love because I based it on a very clear image which I had in my mind, a very clear representation of myself which I wanted the world to see. And every now and then, when I’m swimming or walking, or when I have time to relax, I tell myself, just for a second or so, ‘Hey, you’re a published writer’.
‘You have a book out!’
When I was a kid, it was all I ever wanted. I’d write, and I would write and write, and I would carry on writing, at break time at school, at weekends, every evening, writing, writing, writing. And when I became an adult and got a job, I’d write at lunch hour. I wrote novel after novel and I’d send them off, and nothing would ever happen.
Five years ago I discovered performance poetry.
So the fact that ‘Nice’ exists, with its deliberately understated title, means more than you will ever know! Because it’s out there right now, representing a Robert Garnham of the imagination, and it’s doing a damn fine job!  

 

Found Poems.

I’ve been looking for found poems. I haven’t found any, which is weird, because I’ve been to so many gigs where people have had found poems. They must be lying around all over the place, these found poems, waiting to be found. Perhaps they’re not found poems if you purposefully go looking for them.
I had this big plan of finding a found poem and I figured a good place to look would be the index of a biography under the subject heading of the person the book was about. I thought about who I might choose, because there are so many famous names who are also a bit of a rake and whose biography would have the index and bibliography necessary to provide a found poem. I chose Bill Clinton. The index was dull, because the book itself was a scholarly affair. A book which concentrates on the more sordid details of a celebrity’s life does not, alas, usually bother with such things as indexes and bibliographies.

I went to the bus station and looked at the bus timetables but they were similarly unforthcoming. There’s nothing noteworthy or humorous about a bus timetable, although here in Devon, they might seem more as fiction than found poetry.

I work with second hand books and often people have used old shopping lists as book marks, but these hardly ever have any content worthy of performance repetition.

I looked at Daily Mail headlines, but it turned my hair white with shock.

It seems that the found poems I’m looking for are remaining hidden. I also think that there’s an element of composition in every found poem. There’s editing going on, manipulating of the facts. I’m sitting in a trendy coffee shop as I write this and I’m looking at the menu board, but there’s nothing on it that’s remotely funny. There’s nothing inventive or fun about a flat white.

I think the best thing to do with found poems is not to look for them. Unless, of course, I did a list of found poem subject matter, and then made that into a found poem. Yes, that might be one way out of it.

Or I could just stop looking and get on with my life.

On receiving compliments .

Do you know what I’m really rubbish at? Compliments. I don’t mean giving them out. I’m free and easy with my complements and if I think something is brilliant, then I say it. What I’m pants about is receiving compliments.
It happens, every now and then. But lately people have been reading my book, and even better, buying it. And they’ve been ever so nice about it and told me so. And I’ve done that thing that people do, you know, automatically apologising and saying that it could be better, or some other attempt at humour.
So a friend took me aside a couple of weeks ago and told me that I need to work on this. This whole receiving complements business. Lord knows, it doesn’t happen often over the course of a lifetime.
Smile, they said. Smile and say thank you.
I mentioned this to another friend and he suggested I just put my thumbs up in recognition. To be honest I might not do this.
Another friends says, well, that’s all very well and good, but how are you at taking criticism? You must, they said, ominously, be prepared for that if you’re having a career in performance and doing things in front of the general public.
They’ve got a point.
The other day I received a couple of compliments about my performance style. I was very glad about this because this is the area I’ve been concentrating most on lately. I’ve even gone so far as to get advice from a theatre director, who has been watching me rehearse and gives me fantastic advice about movement and emphasis and all that sort of thing.
I didn’t go to drama school and I never even took drama during GCSEs. I acted in one play in 2009, but that’s as far as it goes when it comes to performance skills before I started all this poetry malarkey.
So I had to watch endless videos and YouTube clips and read all about the finer points of performance, and of course, I had to practise a lot, both on stage and in my room.
The compliments I received were:
1 – You never move your feet when you perform.

2 – I love the way you have perfected that tone of voice as if you’re ever so slightly nervous.

Now, the first thing there, the moving feet thing. I’m glad about that. My director Ziggy told me that this was most important and during rehearsals he’d shout, ‘Feet!’ if I started to move. So I’m glad that someone noticed.
But the second thing . . .
I always felt I sound confident and that this is an important aspect of my performance. And feeling confident makes me feel good about what I’m doing. But the person who said this was the mother of a fellow performer, and someone that I respect a lot.
So then I started thinking, well, maybe perhaps that’s my voice. Maybe that’s a trademark of my style which I’ve never noticed before. Maybe I should build on this.
So I started trying to sound a little nervous on purpose, but that just made me feel nervous. And then I’d get nervous about not sounding nervous enough. So I’d try to overcompensate by sounding confident but then I’d get nervous about not sounding confident enough. And that made me feel nervous, so I’d over compensate again. And now I have no idea where I am.
I’ve decided not to think about it. I’ve decided just to carry on where I am and the apparent nervousness (which I’ve never recognised) may come out during performance, or then again, maybe it won’t.
The last thing I need to do is write a blog post about it.
You see, I think I sound confident. And that’s good enough for me. I’ve decided not to worry about these sorts of things!
  

Steadfast

Imagine a prison

Impossible to break from

Yet without physical form.

Invisible walls

Built not of brick but of pain,

Notions, expectations,

Life ruined by the abstract.
There are others of your kind

Unseen in their struggle.

But the very nature of your

Sublime imprisonment

Blinds you to them.

Rather than fight, they pine,

Or else ignore the obvious,

Face sweating behind bitter masks.
Those who are fortunate

Fill you with anger.

Their love is nought but luck,

And now they love their luck,

And how lucky their love.

Another head of sweat rolls

Beneath your jaded caricature.

They’re so immature.
You dance in your mind.

Rhythms so sensual

Pounding party silly rhythms

Inexplicable sun shining smiling

Fresh faced rhythms incomprehensible

That fact should swamp denial,

Go on dance close your eyes and

Dance and let yourself go in a

Way that shouldn’t be disco lights

Flashing almost unbelievably as you

Submit to the bounty of freedom

Sugar flip heart pump running

Fingers across the forbidden and

Not one ounce of tired regret

Just don’t. Open. Your. Eyes.
Steadfast in your culture.

Grey tomb of the senses.

Flesh unblemished by whip crack.

Absolute devotion to the ether.

Shouting loudest from the opposite shore.

Anger seething in the night.

You’ve got to do what’s right.

You’ve got to do what’s right.

You’ve got to do what’s right.
Imagine a prison

Impossible to break from.

Not one, but many

Millions, everywhere,

And in some places more than others,

From which

Only the lucky few have ever escaped.