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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March saw the final day of the emerging artists’ workshops, which culminated in a rehearsed reading of all the new work generated by the artists involved. New Writing South were again our hosts for the day, and the event was truly inspiring. Chris Elwell, Director of Half Moon, was on hand to input to performance, and Pete and Daniela from Apples were there to video proceedings and input to discussion on taking work forward. Everyone presented great new work, which they will hopefully take forward into other settings.
Given eight artists with ten minutes each, the show was a big ask for the children in the audience, and much longer than the average performance for the age group. However, in an informal feedback session afterwards with Nicky from Apples and Snakes, the children attending generally gave the show a 7-and-upwards out of 10, which is a fantastic result, especially considering most of the artists hadn’t written for children before.
On 9th March I arrived at The Writers Place, New Writing South in Brighton, just in time to wait in the porch way for fear of disturbing Sophie Rose rehearsing her piece, and listening to it, I realised how much work the poets had put into their poems since I had heard the bones of the poems the previous week.
On Saturday 2nd March, the One Way Ticket poets – Azfa Ali, Deborah Stephenson, Michael Vidon, Katerina Quinn, Joshua Seigal, Sophie Rose, Lorianne Tika-Lemba and Jenn Hart, plus the project leader Rosemary Harris – had been in Southampton at the Nuffield Theatre for workshops and to share the half-formed pieces they were intending to present at the showcase the following week. These proto-poems were given their first airing for peer review. Everyone had managed to approach the theme of child migration from a different angle, making for varied, layered, colourful and moving pieces. Some called on personal or family experiences, whilst others put themselves into the minds and families of those who experienced the deportations. It’s a testament to Rosie’s experience at structuring workshops and to the openness of the poets, that feedback was given and taken in good faith and good heart.
On the 9th March, the group gathered in Brighton in order to share their work with the public, but first there were more exercises, tweaks and feedback. Rosie put everyone through their paces and Chris Ewell from Half Moon children’s Theatre offered his expert feedback on the run-through whilst I filmed each poet talking about the project for feedback. What struck me during the afternoon, as well as the raise in quality of the work, was the closeness of the group. The past 4 workshops had really drawn everyone together and they all cared about each other’s poems and shared personal experiences and tips and tricks for performance. As time drew closer for the showcase itself in front of … gasp! … a real audience, nerves were beginning to show and words of reassurance were shared, as, to be honest, no-one needed to be concerned about how they would perform.
Each poet had raised their game since the previous week’s workshop. The poems had been chopped and changed and honed and polished and wrestled into shape and then memorised as much as possible so that each poet could gave as good an account of themselves as possible. There were a few youngsters in the audience, who initially bore the focus of the audience participation sections of the poems until the rest of the audience were drawn in and became involved.
The ways of approaching the difficult subject of the project, child migration, were very inventive – Michaël introduced us to his family tree via the letter ë in his name, which transformed into a roving snail; Azfa shared an allegorical tale of a tortoise rebuilding its shell after it had been blown apart; Katerina became her younger self in a family who relocated to Zambia when she was a child; Sophie created a family expecting the return of a long-lost uncle who was deported in the 50’s; Lorianne explored the idea of not fitting in and how she shared her insecurities with her childhood friend – a doll; Joshua used a piece of string to help him begin to explore a family history he didn’t know he had; Jenn imagined herself being a child in a Centre For Asylum seekers , waiting for someone to claim her and Deborah introduced us to some of the harsh conditions the deported children experienced once they were in Australia.
After the show there was a great deal of chatting and hugging and congratulating amongst the poets and the buzzy atmosphere continued as we made our way to a café/bar for a winding-down drink and something to eat. Gradually everyone reluctantly drifted off, still chattering about poetry, performance and politics. There may even have been a couple of tears!
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 
On Saturday 2nd February, the group of young poets and performers selected to participate in Apples and Snakes’ project One Way Ticket met for the second time. Having kicked off the project the previous week at the Nuffield Theatre in Southampton, the group assembled nice and early at New Writing South, an intimate venue in Brighton, to watch a performance by Rosie Harris, the leader of the project, of her children’s show A Roo In My Suitcase.
The first session of the One Way Ticket programme of workshops started on Saturday 26 January at the Nuffield Theatre in Southampton. Rosemary Harris, who ignited the project in partnership with Apples and Snakes and other organizations of the South East, is our facilitator and mentor.
One Way Ticket is a new children’s spoken word show by me as lead artist, currently in its research and development phase, being funded by Arts Council England and with five (count them!) partner organisations. My previous children’s show (which I’m still bouncing around the country with), 
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