These are extracts from May’s Snakebaskets. Sign up here to receive the whole message!
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From London Coordinator Russell
After a relatively quiet April, we’re back with a vengeance. Poetry, it seems, is bustin’ out all over. So what’s happening? Well, we’ll be back at the Canal Cafe in Little Venice again on the 16th, this time with that tartan toerag Elvis McGonagall. And over in Islington, the lovely Helen East will be pounding the pavements and propping up the bars, taking folk-stories back to where they belong (i.e: da people) – lots of dates for that, see below.
On the 22nd, Jawdance will be opening its arms to those members of society that local newspapers like to call ‘budding bards’. Form an orderly queue, please. Getting the month off to a disturbingly odd close, we’ll be presenting Rob Auton’s Yellow Show on the 28th – in which the surreal wordsmith sings the praises of his favourite xanthic pigment. Well, not literally sing. We hope. All this, plus a SPIN on the 25th (part of Southbank Centre‘s always excellent London Literature Festival) and a Writing Room on the 29th with Malika Booker. Gosh, what a varied month. Aren’t we fantastic?
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From West Midlands Coordinator Bohdan
Hello all! May! Things are growing. Things are blooming. Things are expanding. Oh, and nature is doing its thing too, or so I’m told. I wouldn’t know I’ve been busy marveling at all the poetry sprouting all around the region. A good place to take a look at West Mids talent will be the Artist Reveal Yourself Festival – if you want an overview of what’s been brewing in the region, the two free weekend sessions featuring up-and-coming and established poets are your answer. On Thursday 16th Hit the Ode continues its triumphant march, of course. You may or may not know that we have started filming the nights with an eye on editing a documentary. The short film will be as much about the audience as the guest artists. Show up if you want to be immortalized!
After a month-long break, Wordsmiths & Co. returns on Monday 20th with a wonderfully varied line-up. If you want to refresh your memories from previous editions, check out the series website – wordstmithsand.co. And finally – Poets’ Place is back, in the cozy and welcoming Yorks Bakery Café – that’s on the 4th and 18th.The sessions are going strong, and remain true to the night’s motto: write poetry. Share poetry. Eat biscuits! Join us live and/or online at facebook.com/placeforpoets. See you very soon!
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From North East Coordinator Kirsten
Hi everyone, here’s your exciting May right here… It’s Late Shows month of course, so we’re shifting Scratch Tyne to Saturday 18th and becoming part of Commercial Union House’s evening of wonderment. Expect roaming, floating and site specific poetics in amongst the theatre and visual art on every floor.
Then join us at Jibba Jabba on Thursday 23rd to see gorgeous Birmingham-based poet Jodiann Bickley, just one of the loveliest performers around. At 1pm on Thursday 9th you can hear the next of our radio commissions, the superb Bob Beagrie performing with bespoke music from his album Disendcha – listen online at basic.fm. Sound good to you?
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From South East Coordinator Pete
Hello, how much fun was April’s 451? An enthused audience heard, saw and experienced James Barnes, Megan Beech and Niall O’Sullivan following a top quality open mic. In the words of Megan: “Thanks for a great gig, best atmosphere I’ve seen in a long while.” And Niall said “I had a great time and the two other feature poets on the bill made me genuinely nervous at having to follow them.” And the audience said ‘Yay! and ‘Whoot!’ and clapped a lot.
To May: on Friday 10th there’ll be an Archimedes Screw Showcase in Southampton, featuring World Slam Champ Harry Baker and then in Margate we’ll be listening to Stewart Taylor and Ray Antrobus amongst other voices at Big Talk on Friday 31st. All event details are below. Also look out for a special youth version of the annual Brighton wordfest Poets v MCs called Bite! featuring Dizraeli on Wednesday 29th. And a final word of congratulations to young Oxford poet and member of the One Way Ticket team, Azfa Ali, who won the 2013 Christopher Tower Poetry Competition for young writers.
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From South West Coordinator Gina
It’s May! I’m delighted to welcome Forked back on the 23rd with outstanding new-comers, hysterical Poetry Bingo and the gorgeous Salena Godden, it’s going to be a fantastic ride, jump on board! Get your tickets now for Folly on 6th June, a beautiful spoken word and live music score from Sally Jenkinson.
This month, The Abyss Theatre Company present The Roving Theatre Poetry Festival and a new production Lucifer Saved! It’s an exciting 3 week Theatre and Poetry residency in Exeter, involving tons of Poetry performances, workshops and discussions, all with regional poets and supported by Apples and Snakes, details can be found here. Cheerio!
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These are extracts from April’s Snakebaskets. Apples and Snakes’ Snakebaskets are monthly newsletters tailored for each region we work in. Here you will find lots of exciting spoken word stuff and more about what we are up to in your area. Why not join our mailing list? Click here for more.
“just wanted to say thanks for one of the best poetry-info emails I’ve ever received. Hope to attend at least a couple of the events – brilliant!” London Snakebasket reader.
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The Writing Room continues with Mark Grist and Mixy (AKA Dead Poets) 
It’s here! She’s here! It’s the big one!! Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze heads up a classy playlist at Radikal Words, 
In March we witnessed the birth of 8 new poetic pieces aimed at 8-11 year old audiences from emerging artists, as the One Way Ticket workshops lead by Rosie Harris came to fruition in Brighton. There was also a special event in Totton where Jonny Fluffypunk lead proceedings as the Headway Biscuit Poets presented their hard-bitten (see what I did?) words to a wrapt audience as part of a fundraising showcase. Voices were raised (in a good way) in Canterbury as Patience Agbabi shared her performing poetry wisdom to a full workshop, all of whom have promised to show their faces with their new-found skills at an event near you soon (possibly).
Greetings fine fellow wordsmiths and word lovers. April is a month of contemplation for Apples and Snakes SW, with preparations well under way for a busy summer – though we do have The Rememberers coming to Arnolfini 
After a successful run of 7 workshops, Power Plant has come to an end. If you attend one or more of the sessions, I’d love to hear from you – tell me what you thought of them, whether you think the series was useful, and what you would like future masterclasses to focus on. Let’s make the second season even more powerful. And, er, plant-like, I guess. There’s more – a very special Hit the Ode 
Event-wise, we’ve something for everyone this month. If you find yourself around St. Thomas’ Hospital 
No? Well how about our two participation projects, SPINE and SWITCH? If you (or someone you know!) are aged 12-19, you get to work with Malika Booker and be part of Vauxhall Voices – 
Amuse Bouche comes to Live Theatre on the 19th, so all you Tynesiders can get a free dose of specially selected spoken word from Andrew Sclater, Elaine Cusack and Rowan McCabe. Scratch Tyne 
So, a week with Apples and Snakes… that seemingly omnipresent organisation lurking behind every facebook group and flyer, stamped on workshops and festivals and showcases up and down the country. What’s it actually like here? Do sonnets dribble out of cracks in the ceiling? Do the staff sit on beanbags and host office-slams over lunch break? How does an organisation so rich and essential to poetry in this country keep functioning?
This month starts with the amazing show: Pete The Temp Vs Climate Change plus some wonderful support acts. Wherever you reside in Devon, be sure to head to this multimedia extravaganza as it hits Exeter 
We survived January! Brrr, well done us – and though it’s somehow still not spring yet, I have a lovely load of spoken word to warm your cockles this month. I’m very excited to bring you the truly lovely Richard Tyrone Jones, who has a Big Heart. His one-man show about his personal experience of heart failure is coming to the Lit & Phil 
Cafés are often where we go to fill in spare time to wait, read, contemplate, muse, dream, have conversations, or meet up or to simply feel a part of a community. Whilst there is increasing ways we can interact online, there seems to be fewer ways to interact meaningfully in the community.
I devised a programme which included lodging community books with intriguing writing questions in them in the café, tying them to tables with pens attached. I ran two workshops with young people (who said the books were ‘awesome’ and ‘epic’) and two drop-in workshops in the café to encourage writing in the books (thanks to poets Jocelyn Page and Ray Antrobus for support). To inspire, roving performances took place in the café for small groups and individuals who chose a poem or two from a poetry menu (it included people in the market and down toward the high road as well). I was joined by Malika Booker, Baden Prince, Dzifa Benson and Niall O’Sullivan.
Highlights were those stunned by the potency of poetry with eyes closed in the busy market place, or mouths agog, laughing, smiling or full of conversations after a mini performance. Getting immediate feedback and chatting about poems was very rewarding – not something you get to do at most gigs. It was great reaching so many people who often hadn’t experienced live poetry or participated in community writing before. It was humbling to read hundreds of funny, witty, touching creative writings in the books from children as young as four, families writing together and stories from different cultures and ages.
John Hegley, myself and the roving poets performed live in the café to mark the end of the residency. Highlights were John’s improvised song about the residency and the poets reading extracts from the books as well as their own work. There were some great links between activities – I found a character from one my poems in the books! At times people would tell me how they liked a poem from the week before, and some heard their work read out in the performance. There’s loads of potential to develop this project for other venues and events.
The Rememberers opened last night at The Old Vic Tunnels – and an integral part of the show are the young writers who comprise The Found. In the story, The Found are secret protectors of The Rememberers, guarding them from the sinister NorCon corporation. Before Kenny Baraka begins the show proper, the audience get to tour the Tunnels and hear from these young poets, who have written pieces based in the dystopian world of the show. Have a listen to some below!
Gosh, can you believe it’s 2013? When I was a lad, there was a TV programme called Space: 1999, in which glamorous aliens underwent full-body molecular transformation in the time in takes you or me to make a cup of tea. A neat link, there, to The Rememberers, Kenny Baraka’s spectacular sci-fi spoken-word show. Imagine if you knew all the accumulated knowledge of your ancestors. (Think how full your head would be: never again would you be able to say ‘Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits.’). Imagine a streetwise New York storyteller projecting you into a future where such stuff is not only reality, but the very key to Earth’s survival. Stop imagining, and get yourself down – deep down – to The Old Vic Tunnels, London’s artiest catacombs 
Hello, 2013 is upon us, an auspiciously good year for poetry methinks, but 2012 went out with a double bang as first Big Talk at the Tom Thumb Theatre in Margate drew it’s biggest audience to see Adam Kammerling and Paula Varjack, plus a very high standard open mic. Then at 451 in Southampton we saw Tim Clare, Katie Bonna and plenty of exciting new-to-451 voices fill a rapt audience with poetic joy.
Happy New Year my spoken word lovelies, January 2013 sees Apples and Snakes South West emerged in 
Hooray, it’s a shiny new year to play with! LOTS going on, we’re hitting the ground running – if you missed Simon Mole’s brilliant show Indiana Jones and the Extra Chair at Live last November, you can catch it again at ARC 