The Pong of Poetry

I'm off poetry. I am. I've been in a few poetry-related situations recently which have made me think of hanging up my haikus and shoving my anapests up my assonance.

A couple of events where it was only poets performing to other poets, a shouty guest night and an under-publicised and rather forced 'workshop' involving table tennis, balls with things written on them have conspired to make me question what exactly I am trying to do, and why...



Poets empty rooms

In five minutes flat

Poets watch poets... because they're 'up' next

we clear whole tables in cafes and pubs,
causing a disorderly egress
from all kinds of event.

We open our mouths and it’s as if
someone in the back row
has shouted: ‘Fire!’ or ‘Free ice cream!’
the way they scamper for the exits
as though our very words are painful
pointed at them, poisoning their minds.
It’s true – I know poets who do.

Ah, the power of the poets’ words

'Darling, we're leaving. That's Broken Biro!'

to knee jerk you from your comfortable position,
have you running for cover,
covering your ears, refusing to hear.

Poets are faster and calmer
than riot police, less brutal... usually.
Stand us in front of the National Front
at crucial junctions of Tottenham orToxteth,
let us open our frightening mouths
and speak. See those hooded, would-be 
thugs put down their weapons,
look at their watches, mumble something

Batty about poetry... is just plain batty

about having to be somewhere else.

If you need a seat on a bus – ask one of us.
Stuck at the back of a crowd?  See how we
part the sea of people like the Moses of poesy.
How our audiences shrink not swell
at every clerihew and villanelle.

Bring us in at closing time to get the punters
draining glasses, or café’s were pensioners
linger on and buy no drinks,
or parks where youths loiter at sundown
causing alarm by laughing and being young.

a load of balls

Summon us wherever people outstay
their welcome: traffic jams, complaints desks,
refugee camps. Let our self-indulgent sestinas
evacuate tall buildings, entire towns.

Poets clear fields and promenades,
empty the deckchairs around bandstands
faster than a sudden downpour.
Use us in wars: front line rhymesters
who send our enemies back to the bunkers;
or during dubious interrogations
extracting prompt confessions with
the drip drip drip
of our water torture words.

A curate's egg

This is not about eggs, or, indeed curates.*  It's about my first 'proper' review, which was, sadly, 'mixed'.

My feelings about it are mixed too.  A proper paid gig at a reputable poetry night at Liverpool's The Bluecoat arts centre is not to be sniffed at, and a review of any sort is a novelty in the easy-come, easy-go world of open mic nights.

I have my share of rejections and am generally not hurt or angered by them despite their implied criticism of or distaste for my work. But a review is much more personal.

The reviewer started by saying he's seen me at open floors:  "I have to say that her work is, generally, not to my taste and I normally wrote her off as being the “Beryl Cook of poetry”, rather in the same mould as Pam Ayres."

He liked some of my poems ("It was a pleasure, then, to hear her reading some of her more serious works") and believes me able, when pushed to "knuckle down and compose really good poetry" but I'm afraid 'tedious' 'tiresome' and 'not very original' are all in there too.

Oh, alright, read it for yourselves - I'm in the middle.

I don't mind being compared to Pam, but I'm not keen on tedious and tiresome, and I think I'm quite original. It's tricky putting together a 20min set of poetry when your style veers wildly from serious lyrical poems to romping rhymes and dreadful puns.  I like to mix it up, with something for everyone. Maybe I've got it wrong and for a proper poetry reading I should stick to serious poems?

The same reviewer raved (quite rightly) about Pauline Rowe who headlined the evening. Her poems are stunning, her delivery calm. But poetry nights where everyone does beautiful, serious poetry can be too much - too beautiful, too serious. Am I a philistine?

I like to make people think, yes, but I see myself as primarily an entertainer, an ambassador for poetry in all its guises. Also, I'd been billed by the organiser thus: "Clare Kirwan will challenge and amuse with her lively, socially engaged poetry" so I planned around that.

So although the review is a wee bit hurtful in places, I will treat it like any rejection - as a matter of personal taste. What pleases me more is that various strangers came up to me later to say how much they enjoyed my poems - each naming a different favourite. Even the girl on the door said she thought I was brilliant "...an' I wouldn't say tha' if it wasn't true, 'cos I'm a right cow."

* Ah, you don't know the saying?  The curate's egg is 'good in parts'

Fran-tastic!

I'm delighted to announce that the normally shy and retiring Fran - author of the very funny and popular 'Being Me' blog - has emerged into the limelight of YouTube.

So in case you don't follow her (and if not why not?) I'm posting one of her comedy/poetry performances below for your weekend edification.

It will appeal particularly to parents of teenagers/young adults. If, like me, your nest has always been empty (except for that cuckoo incident in 1993), I can also highly recommend her other poems about poetry versus sex and getting to 'gwips' with twitter.

Fairy tales... and furry tails

I had a great weekend in Lancaster at the launch of Flashmob - Flax026 - a collection of short fiction which is now available to download free and includes me reading my (true) story: Brother - killed by radiator.

My favourite part was the work of Claire Massey who was launching another Litfest publication: A Book Tale - Flax027, an extraordinary modern fairytale featuring a dress made out of pages of a book (pictured). Isn't it, quite literally, fabulous? Again, you can download it for free by clicking on the link.

At the event I met Sarah-Clare Conlon (who describes herself as a 'Lit Chick' ... damn! I wish I'd thought of that!) , author of the very readable Words and Fixtures - where she talks about the event and describes the 2nd story I read as a 'bit of smut' when there's no mention of actual genitalia. Decide for yourself by reading Parallel Conservatory here.

I also met Ben from We Hate Words - a brand new e-zine which invites short articles on writers (and words) that really wrankle. Now hate is an almost entirely terrible thing, but guess who's in the first issue? Moi, with my hate-affair with the word 'robust.'

Also, David Hartley of 'Do a Barrel Roll' - a real life bunny-hugger who writes amazing single-sentence stories.

Now don't tell any other poets, but my main feeling from the weekend is this:- maybe there are too many poetry events and not enough story ones?

Do you like to listen to stories or prefer to read them? ...Or would you rather just hug your bunny (not a euphemism)?

Bad Gigs

I was going to post this last week, but I didn't want to put anyone (you know who you are!) off their first big performance...

Just when things are going well and you've had a short run of well-received performances and are starting to feel jolly pleased with yourself... comes the Bad Gig. And, confidence being more of a stalactite than a permanent structure - growing slowly from the drip of many layers - it all comes crashing down around you again.

I was invited to a Poetry Night I hadn't been to before. The other guests turned out to be especially 'poetic' - lyrical, composed, and in possession of slim volumes of their work published by reputable presses.

Now I do do that sort of poem, as you know. But last time I was at this venue (different night run by the same people) the comedy stuff went down great and the organisers seemed to want that.

But as I listened to the 'proper' poets I began to feel uncomfortable about my own work. I mentally rearranged my set to include some more 'clever' poems. But during the break, an acquaintance claimed to be desperate for humour, so I started rearranging it back to funny, thus ending up with an awkward mix of the two - which can work well, but just... didn't.

I don't like spotlights - I like venues where you can see your audience, make eye contact with them. When I can't see them, I'm like a bunny in the headlights.

So here are a few tips for gigs... to stop them being BAD:

• Suss out your fellow guests. Do you really want to be the one who lowers the tone?
• Beware of being 'the grand finale' when the audience is numbed already into a strokey-beard seriousness
• Sometimes a small audience that has been required to be serious may be embarrassed to laugh
  
• Avoid 'funny' at poetry events where no-one claps 'til the end of your set - the absence of applause will create a black hole which will sap your 'special' energy
  
• Don't attempt your bestiality poem* in a royal wedding context unless you are sure the audience is with you (I thought it'd be perfect, combining as it does a disrespect for royalty and skepticism about romantic relationships generally)
• Go home, go to bed, stay there. What are you even thinking of?

* Which I did post a while ago but removed because I submitted it for publication... and it's been accepted so it can't be that bad. Remember? The frog-kissing that got out of hand?

We should have told her then (perhaps in verse )
that beasts don’t change to men – quite the reverse.

Just wandering...

This Saturday I'll be joining fellow Wirral poets on a trip to mob the Wenlock Poetry Festival.

It's ok - we're in the programme. We're being egged on (as ever) by the ebullient John Gorman (he of Scaffold and Tiswas fame), who would have poets in odd socks on every corner if he could.

I've 'done' Oxton Secret Gardens' (right) a couple of times - where poets leap out from the rhododendrons at unsuspecting garden-lovers. After I had one irate chap going on at me for '...coming in here with your sonnetts and your villanelles and messing up the geraniums...' (I'm paraphrasing) I'm probably not doing that one this year, because here's the thing: Not everyone (whisper it) likes poetry.

Much Wenlock is different. It's a poetry festival, see - they'll be expecting poems and that's what they'll get! Last year they had a groovy giant knitted poem, sculptures made out of books and a Poet Tree where you hung your smaller works.

But without that context, I confess I'm wary of spouting in the streets. (Apart from that time, giddy from the Glam Slam in my 2nd Most Glamourous Poet in Liverpool' sash, I did an impromptu recitation on the platform of Central Station, Liverpool.)

Faced with a clerihew or sestina, some people will quite literally run away (except the captive audience in the queue of Much Wenlock's famous butcher shop, who don't want to lose their place and will suffer anything). And if everyone involved doesn't do their best, most accessible poems, won't it just confirm people's worst opinions of poetry? Doesn't it then become the opposite of evangelism?

What do you think? Would you be delighted or provoked to mindless violence if you were accosted by a poet in the street?

Top 10 tips for performing poetry

I began performing in 2003 and will have totted up 200 appearances before this year is out. 

I've spouted in slams and jams, open floors and secret gardens, Palm House and Slaughterhouse, The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf (Las Vegas) and Bolton Socialist Club. I've been translated into sign-language, broadcast on a Big Screen and banned from a Cathedral (not my fault).

None of this makes me an expert, but I've picked up a few DOs and DON'Ts along the way - which I am happy to share - hope it helps or inspires (especially a reader of this blog who is about to perform for the first time!) Even if you're not about to launch onto the poetry / spoken word scene, these tips may also help with other public speaking.

The Tips

1. Don't worry! No-one is going to 'boo' you - I've never seen it happen unless someone was being really offensive. Ask yourself: What's the worst thing that will happen? And then don't answer! At the Dead Good Poets Society in Liverpool we often have newbies 'losing their performance cherries' and while they might not give a flawless performance (everyone gets nervous), they are always welcomed and applauded - it takes guts and we all remember our first time!

2. Case the joint. You'll feel more comfortable if you've been to the venue before and know the layout and clientèle. If you can't do that, arrive early and chat to a few people so you're not performing to a room full of strangers. And watch how other performers use the mic - how close do they stand to it?  

3. Be prepared. Know what you're going to read and practice beforehand so you're comfortable with the poems - you don't have to memorise them, even for a slam, but if you haven't read them aloud before, you won't do as well as you could. Have a drink to hand in case of 'dry mouth' and, if your hands tremble, try sticking your poems in a book or folder and reading from that - it reduces page-shake.  

4. Time yourself - practice at home so you're used to reading your poetry out loud, make a note of how long each piece takes (allow time for intros and applause) and keep to time - it really helps organisers, and they are your friends.

5. Choose material that suits the audience and venue. Try to suss out the audience and the vibe before you make your final choice what to perform. Some poems are better read and some better heard - a good rule of thumb is not to read anything too heavy to inexperienced audiences - instead, delight them with something accessible, funny or quirky and not too long. Save more 'poetic' material for serious poetry lovers.
   

6. Breathe. It really, really helps. Even if you don't think it's helping, it is. Take really slow, deep breaths for a few minutes before you get up to read and it WILL calm you down. 

7. Slow down. Most people start out reading their poems too quickly... okay you want to impress with your fluid tongue, and get away again quickly, but speak too fast and people can't take in what you're saying. You really can get away with reading a lot slower than you think. 

8. Mix it up a bit. Start strong with something that will grab attention -  launching with a lively poem can release tension (theirs and yours!).  A 5-minute open floor slot will allow two longish or three short poems (see 4 above) so you can vary the tone. For longer sets, it's even more important to vary the pace - a funny poem after a downbeat one, a fast one after a couple of slow ones. Exaggerate changes in pace within poems too.

9. Make eye contact with your audience as much as you can - it helps them connect with you, and if you're looking up, your voice will project  better. 

10. Enjoy yourself - smile! It's actually fun and empowering to stand up there, speak your own words and get an instant reaction. Nothing beats the feeling of an immediate response to your work... the relief when you've done it afterwards!

P.S. Maybe I ought to add:  
11. 'Don't forget to take your poems to your gig' - like I did last night!

Pictured above: Me, Alabaster de Plume, Colin, Abi & Me

Pictured right: The lovely people at Write Out Loud - check their site for an open floor near YOU!

How to get gigs abroad

The lovely people at Write Out Loud have published my article 'How to knit your own World Tour' on how I planned and executed my recent 'Dead Good Down Under' tour of poetry gigs in Australia and New Zealand.

Here's the link: http://www.writeoutloud.net/public/features.php?year=2010&month=1&tag=Trippin%5C%27 and check out the rest of their excellent site while you're there.