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Forked at Sea Change Festival – A Review by Seren Kiremitcioglu

This year Totnes held their very first Sea Change Festival. Hosted by Drift Record Store, it was the first of its kind to bring a host of artists and musicians to the small town of Totnes, and of course we at Apples and Snakes just had to be a part of the small revolution. We headed over to the Birdwood House on Saturday 27th August to present Forked with Mama Tokus, Rose Cook, Rob Barratt, Jackie Juno and Londoner headliner, Kayo Chingonyi!

Making my way on the train to …

A Week in Arvon: Cecilia Knapp

In our second entry from one of our Writing Room participants, Cecilia Knapp talks about her time at Arvon, accessing old memories as part of a week’s writing retreat.

I’ve just got back from Arvon to a grey, busy and loud London where quite frankly there aren’t enough open fires, communal dinners and writing sessions.

Arvon is a charity that runs residential creative writing courses and retreats. I was lucky enough to go to their Hebden Bridge centre, which is Ted Hughes’ old house. A big stone cottage looking out …

Jess Green – Picture The Poet, Lincolnshire

Jess Green tells us about her experience of running workshops in a Lincolnshire care home, how she saw the young people grow more involved and gain self-confidence.

Over the past six weeks I have been running performance poetry workshops with a group of young girls aged between 14 and 19 in a care home in Lincolnshire. This was organised by Apples and Snakes, part of the Picture the Poet project, a National Portrait Gallery touring exhibition in partnership with the National Literacy Trust and Apples and Snakes.

My aim …

Home Cooking: Trauma Genes by Sammy Brough

TRAUMA GENES produced by Sammy Brough is a spoken word podcast exploring ‘inherited trauma;’ the idea that violence, fear and stress can be passed on in the genes….

Perplexingly, scientific tests have linked physical health problems such as high blood pressure, heart disease, depression and obesity with trauma experienced generations ago. But this abstract idea is not purely scientific, and these lasting, undercover relics from the lived experiences of ancestors are not a new idea.

Through original poetic works from active spoken word artists and participants of Platform’s ‘Shake!’ courses, …

Picture The Poet: Preston

Spoken word artist Ali Gadema says thank you to the young people of Preston…

I have been working in Preston for the past two months, In my time being there, I have met some amazing young people, we have looked at creating self-portraits with words and explored Preston poetically. One of the young people I met is called Toyah Clifton, she had never performed before this project, but she had been writing lyrics for some time. Through Picture The Poet, Toyah ended up sharing a stage with Mike …

SPINE Festival – Hounslow Artist in Residence Rachel Sambrooks

SPINE Artist in Residence for Hounslow, Rachel Sambrooks, tells us all about her work as a writer and performer, and gives us the inside scoop from Hounslow Central Library…

Adventuring with Words at Hounslow Library

I’ve been a writer and performer for many years doing lots of different projects. I love making up poems and stories, telling old stories and making people laugh. Young people are my favourite audience! I’m really excited to be working within Hounslow Central Library and I’ve already met some brilliant writers and performers.

At the …

Edwinify yourself…

The email was from the Royal Institute of British Architects. The brief was to commission five poets to each write a poem inspired by their exhibition of Edwin Smith‘s photographs. I didn’t know the name, but as soon as I swept through the gallery doors, I realised I knew several of the images quite well. If you’ve lived in England for a number of decades, reading a particular kind of book, they’re the sort of things which will have wormed their way into your subconscious.

So far, so good. …

Jordan – Land of Stories by Sally Pomme Clayton

In her blog for Apples and Snakes and the British Council, Sally Pomme Clayton tells of her journey as an Apples and Snakes representative to the 7th Hakaya Festival 2014…

‘There was, and there was not, but all the same there was …’ is one way an Arabic fairytale can start. Stories take us to fantastic lands, to: the moon; underworld; glass mountain; a girl living at the bottom of a well; a prince with one arm and one wing; a flying horse. I was honoured to travel to Jordan…

Spoke: AIR

Continuing from the success of our SPOKE: EARTH project, the third and final season of SPOKE kicked off in May with SPOKE: AIR, and involved even bigger, bolder and more inventive community projects.

AIR brought together many of the strands that made up SPOKE: work in schools and communities, the Young Poet Laureate for London and loads of activities in the Park itself, and finally rounding it up with WORDCUP2014, a giant slam poetry final at Stratford Circus. SPOKE: AIR was a season not to be missed.
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Our Friends, the Enemy.

Our Friends, The Enemy is an acclaimed one-man show combining theatre and spoken word to tell the story of the Christmas truce from the First World War. Here, writer Alex Gwyther explains the development of the piece from initial idea to finished production…

The First World War has always held a particular fascination for me. Perhaps I fought in it during a past life. There is something about it which strikes a chord in me, as I’m sure it does with many others. I can’t pinpoint it myself, but in …