Tag Archives: poet

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.

How the song ‘Manhattan’ is actually about Paignton, Devon. True story!

Story Behind the Song

The most cursory glance at Wikipedia or Google will not reveal the full story behind the song ‘Manhattan’, written by Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart in 1925 and sung by, among others, Ella Fitzgerald and Lee Wiley. Originally intended for the revue ‘Golden Gaieties’, the song has grown to become a signature not only of Fitzgerald’ career, but also an evocative glimpse of 1920s New York society. However, the truth behind its composition is strange enough to be a subject for a comedy itself, and it is this that I shall concentrate on in this essay.
          The story of the lyricist Lorenz ‘Larry’ Hart – (for it is the lyrics of the song that I shall be concentrating on) – in its sadness, is a direct contrast to the sensitivity and humour of which his work is most remembered. Throughout his life he struggled with alcoholism and also the emotional turmoil of his homosexuality which, at the time, was not a socially accepted mode of living. At the same time he was enormously successful as a lyricist – his partnership with Richard Rogers – who wrote the music – resulted in such songs as Blue Moon, My Funny Valentine, The Lady is a Tramp and, of course, Manhattan. That such a talented man should die relatively young and alone of pneumonia at the age of 48 is, of course, tragic for one who brought such joy to the casual listener.

          It is only recently that the full story of ‘Manhattan’ has come to light. As in most cases of art, the simple and timeless lyrics were the product of much editing before a definitive version was arrived at. It is in this process that the most surprising discovery has, of late, been made – ‘Manhattan’ was originally intended not to be about Manhattan at all. A first draft, discovered by historians of popular song, corresponds with the time that the lyricist spent at the English seaside resort of Paignton where, incognito, he was able to recuperate in a harbour side boarding house and recharge his creative batteries.

          Paignton must have seemed a thousand miles from 1920s New York. Indeed, it is odd to think that a lyricist used to the lights of Broadway, Seventh Avenue and Times Square should be immersed in a location in which the only comparable sight was the splendour of the Torbay Road or the lights of the pedestrian crossing at the bottom of Victoria Street. But Hart was industrious during his stay in Paignton. His landlady at the Haddock’s Halt Guest House recalls visitors to his room, local theatrical types with whom he collaborated on such shows as the Fish Gutter’s Lament and the ever-popular I Am The Wife of the Crazy Golf Man. How sad it is that such scripts are forever lost, and that Larry Hart should have used the pseudonym Maud Jenkins on all such promotional material.

          It is not know whether Hart partook of such local delicacies as fish ‘n’ chips or candy floss during his stay in Paignton. As an advocate of inner rhyming in his work, it is certain that, even if he were not aware of their taste, he would almost certainly have attempted to rhyme them. If one were to look at the work he produced on his return to the Big Apple, one will find evidence of Paignton’s memory buried, as if a code, in such songs as ‘The Lady Is A Tramp’ or ‘Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered’. ‘My heart is sings like a crazed midships man / My eyes they sting as if hit by a fish ‘n’ chips pan’, or , ‘You’re woozy over wine, you feint over beer / You stole my heart on Paignton Pier’.

         It is interesting, of course, to speculate on the adventures of Larry Hart during his stay in Paignton. An intensely private man, he was not prone to mix well with other people – however, local historians have placed him at many a local party in the Paignton area and there are reports of him joining Agatha Christie, Gilbert and Sullivan, the D’Oyly Cartes, Albert Einstein and others at a wild party just outside of town, dancing the Charleston into the small hours and consuming vast amounts of chicken tikka misala. Such local tales, of course, have to be treated with the utmost caution, though one would find such to be historically accurate with the exception of the chicken tikka masala. It would almost have certainly have been a light korma.

          Hart’s stay in Paignton must have been recuperative. He regularly attended the local writers circle, or so it is thought, though he left once halfway through a workshop because he could think of nothing to rhyme with ‘Dartmouth Steam Railway’. His biographers explain that he had seen magic in the area, in the sun rising above the pier, in the calm waters of the harbour, the bingo halls, the bins out the back of Tesco’s. After a while, the lure of New York must have seemed like the hint of a timeless other world : who needed the subway when it was just as easy to ride the Number 12 to Newton Abbott? What was the point of the Empire State Building when Paignton had its Woolworth’s? Who needed the Big Apple when Paignton was his very own small, shrivelled prune? Perhaps it is in such a form of mind that Hart sat down one midsummer’s night in the Haddock’s Halt and, ignoring the sound of skateboarders in the street below, wrote the first draft of the song that would later become ‘Manhattan’.

         
And here it is in all its raw poetry. One has to remember that the final wording was not yet decided on, but I think you will recognise, underneath, the song we all know and love today :

Summer journeys to South Devon
and to other places aggravate all our cares
We’ll save our dayrider tickets.

I’ve a little guest house in
what is known as old Torbay Road
We’ll settle down
Right here in town.

We’ll have Paignton beach
Foxhole and Goodrington too.
It’s lovely going through
Hellevoetslus Way!

It’s very cool and neat
on Victoria Street you know.
The number 12 bus charms us so
When cool sea breezes blow
As far as the co-op.

And tell me what street
compares with Winner Street
In July?
Sweets and crisp packets gently gliding
by.

The great big town is a wondrous toy
Though occasionally it might annoy.
We’ll turn Paignton pier
Into a Wetherspoons.

We’ll go to Hookhills
Where they all look ill
Or just weird.
And starve together dear
in KFC.
We’ll go to Broadsands
and eat a pasty or a roll
In Victoria Park we’ll stroll
Where our first wallet we stole
and we were mugged.

And EastEnders
Is a terrific soap they say
We both may see one of the characters smile
some day.

Paignton’s glamour may never spoil
Though in Winner Street, tempers come to the boil.
Yet I quite like it.
It’s handy for the shops.

A good gig!

I had a good gig on Wednesday night. In fact it was as good as it gets, because of several reasons. The first reason was that I practised really hard, memorised everything that I would say, and when it came to it, I didn’t forget a single thing. The second reason was that the audience was fantastic. The third reason was that the structure and the dynamic of the evening was perfect: a young audience, some of whom had trendy beards, and the fact that I was the middle poet, after a serious but incredibly good opening act, and before the main headliner. The fourth reason, and the most important one for me, was that several friends came along and I wasn’t naff, and that my publisher, too, was there.
Not being naff is the biggest contributory factor to a successful performance. I felt at ease with the material and with the props that I would be using. I started by dancing and saying, ‘I don’t know why, but I’m feeling really frisky tonight’. I then did a little dance. I don’t normally do a little dance, but the time just seemed right. This kind of set the whole thing up, and the audience were incredibly up for having a bit of a laugh. I think it helped that the person before me had been brilliant, but deeply serious and very poetic. I was the complete opposite. I ended the evening by dedicating this ‘car crash of a set’ to the memory of Victoria Wood.
So that was the gig, and it just went so smoothly. However, the feeling afterwards was one of mild euphoria mixed with the impression that perhaps every night should be like this. A young, youthful audience in a town where I don’t perform that often, and the feeling of being surrounded by friends. The best bit has to be the moment where I was chatting to my publisher, and someone came up to buy a book. At least that showed him that it was worth him publishing me!
The euphoria lasted all the way home, which was a long way, a two hour drive back to Paignton. There’s nothing better than the sense of a night coming together really well. As the lights of Bristol faded in the rear view mirror, we sped along the motorway passing sleeping towns, strange clusters of road lights and an empty motorway, the sort of place haunted by jobbing comedians and long distance lorry drivers, insomniacs, the perennially lost. I slept well and I was on a bit of a high the next day, until about lunch time.
That’s when the thought starts creeping in: Just what’s been going wrong at all the other gigs?
  

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!  

 

I have no idea why I’m apparently so popular in Brazil.

Hello Brazil.
I’m writing this because something unusual is happening, and extraordinary high amount of people who look at my website who come from Brazil. I’m quite pleased with this, because Brazil is a country which I know almost nothing about except for the fact that Ayrton Senna came from there. Another reason I like this is that the Pet Shop Boys are big in Brazil. So maybe we could tour together sometime. I mean, you never know.
Now I’m aware that there could be an error, of sorts. Perhaps it’s just one person in Brazil who looks at my website several times a day because he really likes whimsy. Perhaps I’ve got a friend who’s on holiday there. Perhaps there’s a mechanical breakdown which means that most of the people who look at my website automatically get registered as having done so in Brazil, and not Basingstoke. Whatever’s happening, I’m not complaining, because at least it means that someone is looking at my website.
But it allows me to daydream. Of a hidden fan base, and invitations to perform somewhere really exotic, like Manaus, in fact I’ve already written a poem where this happens. I try to imagine my book becoming incredibly successful there, and I’m asked to go on Brazilian tv and be genial and humorous while the translator does her work. I daydream of becoming a household name in Brazil.
I know that none of these will happen. But it’s good to daydream, and enjoy the moment while it lasts.
A POETRY GIG IN THE AMAZON BASIN
Thick dense jungle vegetation.
A circle of audience members in a hut by a swamp

By the banks of the mighty Amazon,

Peering at me, nervously, I approach

A microphone which buzzes, or maybe it’s the

Mosquitoes, 

wondering how I ended up here,

And whether to do my famous poem about Lidls.
Thirteen hours by plane from Heathrow, six hours

By internal flight to Manaus, seventeen hours

By pick-up truck then a boat ride followed by

Six hours trek through jungle vegetation led by

A man in a hat with a machete, to this place,

A hut near a mining settlement, only to be

Greeted by puzzled frowns, there’s been a

Booking mix up, they were expecting Pam Ayres.
Preliminary chit chat to break the ice.

Isn’t it annoying, I tell them, when you’re baking a
Soufflé, 

and it doesn’t rise properly?

The rainy season floods took my house away, someone

Helpfully pipes up, I decide not to perform

My new poem about temperamental vacuum cleaners.

I decide on a joke.

 ‘I hear you have electric eels here

In these parts’, I tell them, ‘I’ve heard about them, 

they 
Sound shocking’.  
In the silence that follows I hear the

Distant hooting of parrots.

The relentless humidity causes beads of sweat

To roll down my face like the last lingering hopes

I once had that this would be a good gig,

Having taken with me through the jungle, on the back of

A mule which complained most vociferously all the way,

Twenty copies of my book titled 

‘101 Things Not To Do
At Junction 13 Of The M25’, 

plus the sudden realization

They my fee of sixty quid probably wouldn’t cover

The four days of travel from Basingstoke to here.

Headlining next month, apparently,

Is Kate Tempest.
Distant thunder rumbles.

Fat lazy drops fall from the sky

Falling on fleshy leaves like polite theatre applause.

I make a final effort to tell them some half-baked

Anecdote about a wellie-throwing contest at the annual

Village fete in suburban Surrey where I grew up, only

For the audience to respond with a smattering of applause,

Possibly glad of this sudden exotic interlude into my set,

The chance to learn about a different, strange culture.

The next act after me does some

Urban street dancing, and the audience loves

Every second,

It’s always difficult going on first.

Why I’m no longer going to compete in slams. Possibly. Well. Maybe just one or two more.

Last night I was at Hammer and Tongue in Brighton, supporting The Antipoet, and I had a great time in front of an enthusiastic audience. It was the first time that I’d performed in Brighton, and everyone made me feel very welcome.

One element of the evening, and a large part of the night, was the slam competition. Naturally, I wasn’t in it, because I was already on the bill. And in any case, I had made a solemn declaration to myself never to enter any more slams.

Why is this? I think it’s because I have recently started to realise that slam competitions do not show off the best of spoken word. A three minute crowd-pleasing rant is very entertaining and skilful and often performed incredibly well, but does this translate to a twenty minute set? How can an artist keep up with the energy of such a piece over a longer period? And is there a risk that in a slam situation, everyone seems to act more or less the same?

This is what I was thinking last night. I’d come up with a solution, in my mind, of a slam competition in which the poet gets ten minutes to do a selection of poems, of varying styles and topics, so that the audience can get a better sense of who they are and what they have to say about the world. I’ve had great fun in the past with slams, doing my finest comedy poems which I have practised, but these are only a part of my overall oeuvre.

I know that a slam competition is a very definite art form and a very specialised event. Slam poetry is a style, like jazz or hip hop. The idea I propose of something longer is more of a spoken word pilot show, a chance for an audience to judge, in a playful manner, a longer set. And people would still play to the crowd, no doubt. More skills would come to the forefront, such as props and movement, which are usually frowned on in slam circles.

Anyway, that’s my idea.

But then last night, the slammers were excellent and varied. There was a young lady who did a Kate Tempest-esque piece which was mesmerising, and there were one or two comedy poets who used the language of stand up and mime. In fact, every poet had their own style and method, which made it all the more enjoyable.

Which kind of leaves me in two minds. Should I forego competing in slams? I’ve had great fun in the past and won prizes here and there, and the exposure is great. Maybe I shall do one more. Just one more little slam somewhere, and see how I feel about it. I mean, what harm can it do? When introducing me last night, Sally Jenkinson told the audience about the first time she had seen me, which was at the Bristol Slam. If I hadn’t competed there and done quite well, then she would never have known me from Adam.

So yes. Maybe one more. One more little slam, and then no more.

Although, I’d like to do the Bristol one again . . . 

 

New poem: ‘Kate’

She stood before me

On a sultry summer Surrey night,

The stone steps to her parents flat

Radiating the day’s heat,

Bricks soaked with sun sweat,

Sweet dust smells and caramels

And the subtlety of Kate’s fragrance

Ever so delicate.

The moment was so beautiful.
And so was Kate.

Her cousin was a former Miss World,

Her aunt was married to a very famous

Film star.

Kate,

Californian Kate with Guyanan ancestry,

Skin so soft like coffee,

Wide cinnamon eyes filled with love on that

Exotic sin-drenched August night,

Standing before each other

In a moment of the purest romance.
Yet,

I felt nothing.

Worse,

I could sense a dark chasm

Deep inside of me,

Swallowed down with every lie,

Every untruth, every evasion,

So obvious as to obliterate all but my own

Teenage fabrications,

And Kate, culturally American,

Who saw in me the mannerisms

Of a Disney gentleman

As we bent for a kiss on those

Sun baked steps,

Gazing in each others eyes

Like lovers are meant to.
What do you want?

I don’t know what I want.

How can I reach you?

I think it’s impossible.

Is it something I’ve done?

I think I just need a little time.

Time for what?

To get my head in order.

Why are you lying to me?

You’re not the only person I’m lying to.
Her hand in mine,

Soft and small and warm,

Her cotton summer dress

Falling down to her delicate sandals

With a modesty that so many others

Found truly alluring as I

Fantasised a Hollywood wedding

And saving myself for our

First night of bliss.

An air conditioned kiss

Plenty of time to steel myself,

Brace for her beauty,

So brave,

So brave.
I always knew.

But I can explain.

Every time I looked at you.

Please don’t do this.

We were both young. We were both stupid.

I tried to change.

It’s who you are.

Please don’t do this.

Why couldn’t you ever tell the truth?
Because it was impossible.

Certain processes and cultural

Associations 

None of which can excuse the

Failure to ignite that which only 

Half smouldered,

Or to grasp a truth so vital

As to stay hidden potentially forever.
She stood before me

As the deep blue sky 

Smudged itself brown on traffic fumes

As we parted just with a

Peck on the cheek,

A short walk home relieved to have endured

And prolonged the pretence

To a family happy to have their Romeo return,

And everything right with the world.

How spoken word changed my life. 

I knew who I was from a very early age. Or rather, I knew that I fancied men instead of women. Which doesn’t seem so shocking these days, but growing up in 1980s Surrey with a very conservative family background, at the time it was quite a big deal indeed. For this reason it wasn’t until the year 2000 when I finally ‘came out’ to friends and family and work colleagues, even though I’d known myself since I was about eight.
Yet still there was this sense that I was operating on the fringes of society, and that for some reason my views and likes, my choice of music or film, and absolutely everything about me wasn’t as important or as valid as other people, because I would never get married or have kids or have a sudden urge to do an oil change on a Ford Mondeo. I think that inside, psychologically, i had convinced myself that nothing I did really mattered very much.
I came across spoken word by accident, by going along to a performance poetry night in Torquay, and I soon began performing and using comedy, the same way I’d used comedy in secondary school to avoid being beaten to a pulp every lunch time. However it was only after a year or so that I decided to tackle bigger themes and LGBT issues in poems such as “The Straight Poem”, combining comedy and social critique to look at the world from a slightly different viewpoint. The fact that the audience liked such poems, and that I could even win slams with them and get bookings for other poetry nights, made me think that instead of operating on the sidelines, I had an important voice, or at least, something interesting to say.
I’d always been a shy person and I did not come from a performance orientated background. My school did not teach drama and I’d never even been to a theatre until I was 25. In fact, the worst thing I could think of was wanting to ‘perform’ for an audience, or even stand on a stage and have lots of people look at me, judge me. Performance poetry gave me the confidence to do these things and to share my humour and my voice, and this then translated into other areas. I feel incredibly confident now with who I am as a person and how I conduct myself in life, because the experience of going on the stage and performing has seemingly validated the person I am. Spoken word is all about voices, and it’s great that the voices come from so many different backgrounds, whether black, Muslim, male, female, or a slightly nervous white gay bloke such as myself.

  

Some thoughts on performance poetry.

I was contacted by a student at Exeter University to answer some questions for her dissertation. Anyway, here are my responses. I hope they make good reading.

1. What is your impetus to write? When and why do you write and perform?

I suppose with me the impetus is just to make people laugh. I’ve always been a fan of comedy and humour but never found the vehicle to do this myself until I discovered performance poetry about five years ago. And once I started I realised I could tackle subjects such as gender, sexuality, human rights, loneliness and my own personal failures as a lover but using humour to mask these themes and make them more accessible for the audience.

Oh, and lust. Lust is a great impetus to write! Saying the things that you never could say in real life, knowing that the object of your affections will never know!
I write every day for at least an hour, and on my day off I try and write all day, with gaps for swimming etc. Exercise makes my brain work! The actual physical act of writing feels kind of like a little ceremony and that’s the only time when I feel like a real poet

2. Do you use YouTube/social media to promote your work? What are the advantages and disadvantages of using online platforms?
Yes indeed. In fact I don’t think I’d be getting half the gigs I do get without social media. For a start it’s a great way to keep in touch with what’s going on in the spoken word world. But it also gives you an accessible platform for promoters and other poets to see your work. I can go to a gig in Wolverhampton or Basingstoke and people know about my work because they’ve seen me on YouTube or Facebook.

You do tend to feel more like an avatar at times. I always wear the same sorts of clothes for performing because this is my trademark and people recognise me from photos. I’ve not had many drawbacks from using social media, no stalkers or online abuse or anything, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time! And sometimes I wonder if I’m online too much and that people will get sick and tired of seeing yet another spikey haired selfie. I think you do have to be a bit shameless at times!

3. Do you try to cultivate a relationship with the audience? If so, how do you go about it?
Yes, it is always good to connect with the audience. I’ve actually read about this in performance books and acting manuals because I do not come from a performance background. I try to be warm on stage, I try to look at everyone in the room and look up from the page as I write. I try to smile a lot.

If I go to a gig in a new place, I’m usually very accommodating beforehand, being pleasant and saying hello, because these are the people who will be the audience once the gig starts. I also try to react to the previous performer. It’s hard to go on stage and do a poem about (for example) getting envious about beards, when the previous poet has just done a stirring emotional piece about her dead grandmother. So I try to warm everyone up perhaps with some audience participation. Everybody say yeah!
I also try to react to things that happen. Every now and then one audience member will make some funny sort of laughing noise at a place during a poem where it’s never happened before, so I will stop performing and look over at them. That always gets a laugh. And luckily, you don’t get heckled much during poetry. (See below).

4. Do you care what an audience thinks of your work? 
It would be nice not to, but sometimes you do. If it all goes right and people laugh at the funny poems or clap enthusiastically, it’s a magnificent feeling. But every now and then you’ll get someone who disagrees.

There have been a couple of notable heckles. The first was sheer comedy, because I have a poem which starts with the words ‘isn’t it annoying when you turn the page’. I got as far as ‘isn’t it annoying . . ‘ when someone shouted, ‘Yes!’
And recently out in the sticks I did a gig in a church and I performed my Jeremy Clarkson poem, which usually gets a fantastic reaction in the city urban centres where I normally perform, Bristol, London, Exeter. But out in the sticks it was evident that everyone was a big Clarkson fan, and after the poem someone shouted, ‘At least Jeremy Clarkson makes me laugh’. And afterwards I thought, wow, if only they’d liked that poem! I shouldn’t have cared too much, but I did, and I thought of an amazing comeback to zap him with. Trouble was, it was six hours later, as I cried myself to sleep. 

5. Would you alter your style to cater toward an audience? you were being paid and were asked to edit a poem (ex for swears), would you do it? If you weren’t being paid, would you do it?

Yes, absolutely. I’ve done this on numerous occasions. My poetry isn’t rude or heavy on expletives, but every now and then I do radio, or street poetry, or family fun days. (What the hell are they doing booking me for a family fun day?!). So I’ve excised verses and taken out rude bits, certainly. I’m very aware that he promoter is the person in charge and I don’t want to upset them.
I’d love to be more passionate about this and say things like, ‘I don’t want to compromise my artistic integrity’. But then I always think, ‘There’s a time and a place for everything . .’. Last summer I did a family fun day on Paignton Green to a beach full of families and kids in the hot August sun, and before I performed they played that ‘What does the fox say?’ song, and I remembered chuckling to myself before I went on thinking, ‘I’d love to do the poem about Orgasms right now’. But I was very professional.

6. What do you think an audience is looking for when they attend a performance poetry night or slam?
I think if it’s performance poetry, the audience just wants to be entertained. Poets like Pam Ayres and John Cooper Clarke have revolutionised the way that performance poetry is perceived. The audience will always be different to the more weighty, beard-stroking patrons of page poetry ‘readings’. In this, there are links to stand up comedy. Performance poetry is a wide church which embraces poetry, ranting, comedy, rhyming, rapping, and every night is different, so audiences love the mix and the variety. A well run night will have a bit of everything.

Slam audiences are up for the same but with the added bonus of a competitive element. Slams have a reputation for being youthful and raucous with lots of whooping and stamping of feet. Getting whooped is always a bonus. I’m always glad to be whoop-worthy, even if I’ve just crashed out of last place in a slam.

7. What is new about spoken word? Is spoken word poetry even new?
As you know, there’s always been a tradition of spoken word, and someone once told me that all poetry was originally intended for word of mouth. 

I think lately spoken word has enjoyed a renaissance because of social media. A three minute poem makes a great YouTube video. A politician can say something stupid on the nine o clock news and by six o clock there are poems uploaded getting millions of hits. Social media allows politically aware poets with a good ear for a rhyme to react quickly.
Lately, performance poetry has been adapting to other media and using the language of stand up comedy, rap, chanting, pop music, even computing. (I’m currently working on a batch of poems which are written as if they’ve been produced by a computer programme that’s ever so slightly faulty). I know of performance poets who incorporate magic and juggling. And Cat Brogan performs which hula hooping!
In this regard I think performance poetry is the most postmodern of crafts. But it’s not new. My hero, Frank O’Hara, was influenced by movies, theatre and abstract expressionist art, and he was writing in the 1950s. And thanks to YouTube, Andy Warhol’s fifteen minutes of fame is now down to three minutes. 

8. Do you use multimedia, props, or technology in your work (videos projected while you perform, music, loop pedals, etc) and why? 
Personally, I’m rubbish at technology. But over the years I have (take a deep breath) performed a duet with a videoed version of myself on an iPad, built a large hadron collider on stage out of garden hose and custard cream biscuits, built a robot version of myself on stage out of cardboard boxes, a hair brush and a fishing rod, played a theremin on stage made from two French loaves and a pair of Wellington boots, and I regularly perform with a pink bird puppet called Mister Pinkerton.
9. What has spoken word poetry done for you in terms of shaping an identity? What has it done for you in general? Has performing poetry improved your confidence?
Yes, indeed. I’d been in a play before I discovered performance poetry, but I was terribly shy and unsure of the world right up until about 2011. When I started performing I discovered that there really isn’t that much to be scared about, particularly with performing, and better still, that everyone has a right to a voice and views and can be treated equally because of these. Coming from an LGBT background and being a teenager in the 1990s meant that I always saw myself as Not Being Right compared to the rest of society, but thankfully now things are a little more equal, and the fact that I can be judged – or better still, not judged at all – has come about purely through performance poetry and Being Myself. If that makes any kind of sense!
10. Do you feel that as a spoken word poet you’ve become part of a community? What is that community like and what does it do for you/what do you do for it?
Yes, there’s a wonderful community particularly down here in the south west, because there are so many different voices and styles of performance. There’s also a very strange crossover between page and performance here that you don’t tend to get in other areas. There’s no snobbishness! We are also very welcoming to newcomers, such as students from the university. Ian Beech, Tim King, Morwenna Aldiss and I all run different poetry nights and we are all keen on giving new people a platform to perform and to advance their abilities. I often get emails for advice. And also, over the last few years I’ve begun to realise that my best friends are all now spoken word poets. We hang out and drink and talk about our lives and that, I suppose, is a community!

Going back to the LGBT thing, I grew up seeing the LGBT community as being something to aspire to but also something that didn’t seem very interested in me. Last year I performed at London gay pride and afterwards I got this sense of my poetry helping me affirm who I am. It told me that i was already a member of this particular community!

11. Do you think you can “find yourself?” Does spoken word allow you to do this, and if so, how?

I’ve probably answered that already, actually. It’s helped me discover my identity and it’s given me friendship with similarly minded people.
And the writing process itself is somewhat like therapy. Being insecure about love and relationships and sex and the state of the world is a horrible state, but the moment you start to write about it, or make fun of (for example) having really bad sex, then it somehow makes you feel much better. So now I know how those ranty poets feel! It’s such a good therapy!

12. How would you characterize “yourself” on stage? What do you turn into? ex do you have a persona you fall into?

Absolutely.
It took a while to find this character. I used to perform in tshirt and jeans. Then one day I came from work in a shirt and tie and I just kind of kept that up. I don’t think many performance poets wear shirts and ties, because they’re all so trendy and they’ve got interesting hair. So my stage persona began to adapt to the clothes that I was wearing. Next I added a jacket, and then a jumper, and now the quintessential Robert Garnham look is complete! (And the tie is a little nod to Ron Mael, one of my favourite musicians).
My stage persona is an exaggerated version of myself. I always think of myself as being super confident on stage, but someone’s mother said that she really liked my slightly nervous manner. I became terribly self aware after this, which probably made me even more nervous! But I think if I go in with a clear idea of what to do and what to say, and then add this layer of nervousness, then that’s probably what’s working.
I try to sound like a very deep, meaningful poet who just happens to be saying very weird things. Slightly academic, a bit old fashioned. That’s my persona, I suppose.
It’s hard, then, slipping out of this persona. I usually need to wear different clothes and have a shower to get rid of the gel, and change my glasses, before I feel like the version of myself that I’ve always been. When poets see me in ‘real life’, in a hoodie and shorts for example, they always say, ‘I didn’t recognise you’.

13. Do you think a certain type of person does spoken word? If so, what is that person like?

I’m not sure. There are so many different types of poet and performer. I think more people would do it if it had the media coverage that comedy gets. I mean, if I can do it, then others can, because it felt like it was ready made for me before I’d even performed a poem!
If I look at the backgrounds of my closest poet friends, there’s an amazing array of routes into performance. Chris White comes from a theatrical trained background, Tim King was in music, Chris Brooks was a comedian. Yet there also seems to be a lot of librarians: Ian Beech, James Turner, Alaisdair Paterson. What’s that all about? And come to think of it, my background is in museum management!
Slam poets and performance poets often come from minority backgrounds. They act as powerful voices for their communities, such as Vanessa Kisuule, Chanje Kunda, Dean Atta and your good self. They have something to say, which needs saying, and performance poetry is as good a vehicle, and as accepting a vehicle, as any. Often there seems to be a gender bias towards men, which makes programming events difficult when you realise that you’ve got 10 men and 2 women appLying for slots at a poetry night, which is where curating comes into effect. (That’s my museum training coming out again!)

An interview with Project Adorno

During the last few years I have seen a number of music and spoken word acts, and combinations of the both. There’s something about the mix of styles which I rather enjoy. However, one group in particular seemed to touch on themes and ideas which I’ve always liked or had a fascination with: libraries, Doctor Who and the Pet Shop Boys.

I first saw Project Adorno when they came down to Torquay while I was hosting Poetry Island. It was an amazing and funny set of songs and witty banter which left my head filled with inspiration. Even my grumpy friend Mark, who did the door for me, bought their cd afterwards. Since then I have eagerly followed Project Adorno, stalking them via social media to see what they’re up to. 
Project Adorno are Russell Thompson and Praveen Manghani.
  
Hello! What are you working on at the moment?

R: A musical appreciation of the screenwriter Dennis Potter (The Singing Detective, Pennies From Heaven, etc). It’ll be one continuous suite of songs, spoken word and ambient music, accompanied by Patrick Keiller-esque film. In fact, we’ll be doing for the Forest of Dean what Keiller did for London.

 P: Yes, still very much a work in progress, though some nice bits emerging. It’ll either become an art-house Keiller-esque film or a quirky version of The Singing Detective complete with lip-synched songs…somewhere in-between I suspect. It has been nice to include visuals in some of our recent work. Just at the moment I’m very taken with the “information” films of Charles and Ray Eames…

– The last time we met you were working on a project about film maker Derek Jarman. How is that going, and why did you choose him?
R: Jarman would have hated the idea, but he does seem to have become a sort of countercultural national treasure. Even if you don’t admire every piece of work he produced, it’s still possible to think ‘thank God there was a Derek Jarman’. The arts are full of people who court controversy, but they seldom have the degree of integrity that he had, or the conviction of their own beliefs. Later, of course, that increasingly applied to his lifestyle as well as to his art. We took the show – Jarman in Pieces – to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2014, since when we’ve been doing one-off performances of it at various LGBT arts festivals around the country. We’re really pleased with it: it took the multimedia side of our work to a new level, and established the format we’re now using for the Potter show. I tend to think of Jarman in Pieces as our Dark Side of the Moon. Which of course means that Potter will be Wish You Were Here. After that we’ll be on to the inflatable pigs.

 P: I was originally fascinated by the whole Super 8 DIY film-making ethos of Derek Jarman. I particularly loved the grainy look and feel of super 8 film. That, and his diaries, and his paintings and his house and garden in Dungeness (an artwork in itself). That’s the thing about Jarman – he had so many strings to his bow. I was also inspired by his oddball, left-field creative spirit (which seemed slightly at odds with his well-to-do middle class background). In 2014 we were asked to curate a film night as part of a local arts festival – as it was also the twentieth anniversary of his death we chose Jarman’s “Last of England”. We performed a short multimedia piece to accompany it and decided to develop it into a full-blown Edinburgh show. It was only when we started working on the Jarman project that Russell and I realised we’d both independently admired him in our respective formative years.

 – Project Adorno seem to be fascinated with libraries. That’s no bad thing. Personally I believe that the downfall of western society began with the introduction of self service machines in libraries. What is it about libraries that appeals so much?

R: You’d better ask Praveen about the machines – it’s all his fault, I’m afraid. But we do have a song about the perfection of the date-stamp. My local library still has one available so that people can stamp their own books if they want. We’re not very progressive in East Sheen. Praveen works in libraries, I just hang around in them. Is it ‘customer’ or ‘user’ these days? Personally, I’m obsessed with books (which a visit to my house would confirm) and with a sense of order (which a visit to my house would not). I’m the sort of person who likes compiling indexes in their spare time. 

 P: Ah the appeal of libraries…don’t get me started…a world of possibilities, escape and imagination. A place to ponder, pontificate….and just generally sit and think, or learn, or just be…reading and books are of course still mainstays…but it’s not just about the “borrowers” any more (another one for the “customer” vs “user” terminology debate). I’ll always prefer the date stamp to the self-service machines but we must move with the times – people now demand computers and wi-fi and coffee shops so we have to adapt if we want to stay relevant. Libraries are one of the few places where one can go unchallenged without requiring a reason to visit and as long as the library remains a place that’s free to enter and universally available for everyone that’s good enough for me. Plus they’re now very established at putting on arts events and literature festivals – a natural home for Project Adorno gigs!

– One of your most famous songs is about Davros from Doctor Who. You’ve been working on a new version of this song. How is it different to the original?
R: A longer intro, just to ramp up the mounting excitement. Oh, and we’ve removed a slightly un-PC line. Apart from that, it’s fairly recognisable – still firmly entrenched in the Baker T era.

 P: It’s actually become a bit more “prog-rock” to my ears – unintentionally so! Oh, and the opening verse is different to the original recorded version (something I’ve been meaning to fix for ages).

– Who are your influences?
R: Our influences are like a Venn diagram with a small intersection between the two circles. Most of my mine are things you may not guess from listening to us: ‘70s folk-rock, ‘80s anarcho-punk, and traditional folk – by which I mean hundred-year-old field recordings of shepherds singing songs about the Napoleonic Wars. My favourite comparison was when someone likened us to Radical Dance Faction, although I think that was just a kind way of saying I couldn’t sing. The intersection consists of The Wedding Present, Philip Jeays and Ian Dury, and we also share an unhealthy fixation with the doo-wop band Darts.

 P: Originally for me it was all about Pet Shop Boys (I still marvel at the sleek simplicity of “West End Girls” and that supposed trick of a G chord with an E in the bass… or perhaps it was the other way round…) and early eighties electro-pop/disco in general. And of course Frankie Goes to Hollywood and in particular Trevor Horn. His production techniques and OTT arrangements and remixes just blew me away – I wanted to do things like that but was limited both by lack of musical ability and studio technology. An anologue Fostex 4 track tape recorder just didn’t quite compare to the (then) state-of-the-art Fairlight sequencer. After that I discovered indie and realised one could do quite a lot with just a few chords and some imaginative words. We’ve mutated into more of a song-based cabaret act over the years and in many ways I think the musical side of things has become more simplistic and DIY as we’ve progressed. The lyrical content, whilst always important, has become ever more so – influenced by Momus, Brel, Aznavour and Jake Thackray amongst others.

-I’ve read some Adorno. He’s incredibly dull and weighty. I tried to include him in my masters dissertation just so that it looked good in the bibliography. Why did you decide to reference him in the band’s name?

R: All I know is a useful four-word summary someone once gave me: miserable German, hated jazz. In other words, he despised popular culture. We like to see Project Adorno as a reconciliation beween high and low art. A modest little aim, there. We should also mention that there’s something called the Adorno Project, which monitors the migratory habits of birds. They’re not us. It’s crazy, though – they’re always getting invited to perform at cabarets in Brighton, we’re always getting invited to read our paper on the movements of the Manx shearwater.

 P: It’s all my brother’s fault. He was doing a critical theory degree (or similar) and he came home one day spouting on about Adorno. We somewhat pretentiously concocted the name Project Adorno as it sounded good. Then my brother then decided to go to Germany and I was sort of left with the name, decided not to change it, and Russell came board. So we both inherited it really. I’ve mugged up a little on Adorno since then, but must agree, he’s not an easy read! As Russell says, he appeared to loathe popular culture, tho’ it would be fascinating to get his view on our work (especially as we’ve taken his name in vain). People have occasionally said of us “it’s very accessible on the face of it, but the lyrics deserve repeated listening as they often contain extra layers of meaning” (or something like that) – and that’s the best compliment I could hope for really.

-What are your creative processes? How do the songs come about?
R: Praveen is a one-man songwriting factory. I have a mental image of him gripped by bouts of creative frenzy, like Beethoven – unable to leave the room until he has given shape to his ideas. He seems to have written at least two new songs every time I see him. As for me, I either present pieces to him solely as lyrics – ‘See what you can do with that’ – or I’ll have an idea of a tune and attempt to sing it to him. Considering my inability to carry a melody, he always does a pretty good job at interpreting what’s in my head.

 P: That’s a nice description from my esteemed colleague. Actually I still have a whole folder full of Russell’s poetry that I’d like to commit to music one day! What I like about Russell’s lyrics is that he often uses words that I either don’t understand or that have never before been used in the medium of popular song – usually both (Coalhole Cover Lover and Zubenelgenubi are just two such examples). He’s certainly broadened my vocabulary! I think we’ve both got a passion for the geekier side of popular culture which helps as reference points. We often each go away and write things on a particular theme (eg as in recent Potter and Jarman projects) and then choose the best of these. Tho’ some of my favourite pieces have emerged more organically with Russell reading a lyric and me just playing a basic guitar rhythm underneath (When London Shone and Famous Diplodocus are two that come to mind).

 – What is the future for Project Adorno?

R: Gosh, there’s a question. As I say, the new multimedia, semi-ambient approach has great possibilities. I’m interested in places, so a show based on some sort of travelogue would be interesting. I’d like to do a show about the A1. That would at least ensure we were listed first in the Fringe brochure, if nothing else.

 P: I’m quite liking the idea of writing some sort of play (It’s all Potter’s fault) – it will have to have songs or music in it of course, so I guess, if it happens, it will end up becoming a musical. Seriously though we’ve often talked about doing a Project Adorno book – a sort of creative “history of” as opposed to a biography. Still, I think we should strive to at least getting a mention on Wikipedia before that happens! If nothing else we are determined to record and release a new CD this year – there are loads of songs which need committing “to tape”. (Tho’ I guess in truth it’s all downloads these days). Anyway, that is a must. Beyond this I’ve often harboured the ambition of performing Project Adorno songs with a live orchestra at somewhere like the Royal Festival Hall…one can dream.