Home Cooking is an hour of spoken word radio for digital station basic.fm – here’s Joel Barrow on his show going out on Thursday 13 June. For more info, click here!
The show came about as a happy co-incidence of two things: Egle Dubinkaite’s (from Bar Loco) idea to stage a show in conjunction with ‘The Late Shows’ at SYSTEM gallery comprised of improvised music with an open invite for anyone to come along and perform, recite or improvise a spoken word piece; and my invite to a local poet to come along and put their poetry to some improvised music.
Initially, all that was required, was for poets and musicians to be contacted. I put together a number of musicians who I knew worked well together along with some that Egle knew were interested. As to the poets, I encouraged some I knew personally to get involved, they passed the word on and with a few posts on various facebook pages a list of performers began to take shape.
Not much else needed to be done, apart from a few meetings with Egle to discuss how things were evolving. One thing we discussed was how the evening would work; we wanted to allow the space and freedom necessary for the unexpected to happen but also had to keep in mind that the music should not overpower the voices. The poetry was the focus of the event, with the music acting as a backdrop.
We decided that the musicians would play whilst poets wanting to perform to the current music getting up to the mike in turn. If no poets got up to the mike after a short interval then the musicians would end the current piece, swap over and begin a different musical style. That way the poets could have some control over the music being played and increase the chance of having music suited to their performance style or material.
By far the majority of the work was on the day, setting up all the equipment and sound-checking with some helpful early arrivers, to try to ensure that the music was at a level for the spoken word performances to be heard. This was also where I learnt how to use the ZOOM recording device – with some level of success amounting to a little tinkering, pointing towards the performers and pressing record. The device proved relatively easy to use with only the added headache of faulty or at least incompatible batteries.
My main fear was that very few performers would turn up and those that did wouldn’t understand how the event was hopefully going to work – poets self-regulating the running order.
I’m very happy to say my fears were unfounded; after some initial polite British dithering it all fell into place. The musicians played a variety of styles that went perfectly with every performer’s delivery, who kept coming up to the mic one-by-one. There did exist an ongoing problem, of mitigating the volume of the musicians so that the poets could be heard – musicians being forever prone to play louder the more excited and exuberant they become! This was monitored and dealt with throughout the show with a combination of fiddling on the mixing desk and giving the ‘band’ crude hand signals.
The show went perfectly, with little to no hiccoughs and everyone present really enjoyed the event. Musicians and poets were all fantastic with some absolutely incredible recordings produced. It was great to observe the interplay between musicians and poets, each influencing and adapting to the other and the sound changing and evolving.
All that remained was for me to upload the ZOOM device files, work on the sound of the recordings and convert to MP3. With some tinkering I got the spoken word vocals to the most audible level possible without drastically changing the overall sound (if I were to do this again I would spend more time on the levels and equalisation of the equipment to optimise the end sound). All I had to do then was decide what to put into the hour radio show. This wasn’t easy, as pretty much all of the recordings were worth listening to! I Eventually narrowed it down and with help, put the chosen files together with some introductions in-between.
The result is the radio show to be aired on Basic FM on Thursday 13 June at 1pm.
Check out previous episodes of Home Cooking below!
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Hi there, poetry-pickers. Join us, if you will, on a journey into the centre of 2013, in a month that, like an ill-cast pantomime-horse, is considerably more substantial in its posterior than in its front bit. We’ll be proffering paternally prandial poetry at St Thomas’s Hospital 
Hello all! And just like that, we find ourselves in June. This month, several of our regular events will have their final regular installments before they go on their yearly summer hiatus. So, if you want to catch Hit the Ode, Level Up, and Wordsmiths & Co. before autumn, here’s your last chance. Look for line-ups, dates and details after the jump… And believe me, it’s well worth your time.
Hello! This month if you come to anything, come to Articulate 
Hello, it’s that time of the month when the ping of the Snakebasket arriving in your inbox wakes you from your post lunch early-summer dreaming. Or something.?? There’s plenty to occupy poetic minds across the South East in June, some of which is listed below, including the monumental line-up of Zena Edwards and Jonny Fluffypunk at 451 on Monday 17 June, with 451’s usual host in an unusual role – Rob Casey will have to introduce himself. (Let’s hope he doesn’t trip over his own hyperbole when he’s stepping onto the stage).
Welcome wordlings! First up, we bring you the beautiful, moving and witty tale that is Folly by the brilliant Sally Jenkinson on 
indsencha’ is an ancient Irish term which relates to ‘Lore of place’, and refers to a body of early Irish poems and stories that explain place names and the mythologies of specific sites within the landscape. Taking this traditional bardic concept, poet Bob Beagrie and composer S.J. Forth created a collection of experimental, contemporary poems, all with musical accompaniment / sound effects which explores a sense of place, identity, visionary interpretations of specific locations – their historical and mythical resonances and the factors that impact upon a sense of self.
It was also very useful to be able to contextualise some of the poems relating to their inspiration and aims, and to reflect upon the different ways of collaborative working we have engaged in while producing the album. Initially we found it quite difficult to establish a tone of conversation and discussion between the tracks, and it felt somewhat unnatural and forced, though as we worked on it we felt that we tuned in to a more casual and conversational mode of introduction and discussion of the work. On the whole it was a very interesting and valuable challenge and both myself and S.J. Forth felt that we had learned a great deal from the process.
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 
Apples and Snakes have been working working with Writers’ Centre Norwich to develop Slam in a Box: two slam poets, Molly Naylor and Andy Bennett, spent two days with students from Caister High, giving them the skills, knowledge and tools to compose, workshop and read aloud their own poems and run their own after school slam poetry club. Check out the result in the video below!