March 29th 06
On a mundane level I’ve had a weird chest infection thing since I last blogged, was stuck in bed for the best part of a week eating only grapes and drinking from a flask of tea. When I felt well enough I finally got out of bed to go to a poetry event at The Chillingham Arms on 18th March. It was a Poetry Vandals thing (why does that sound like it should be on a t-shirt? It’s a poetry vandals thing…you wouldn’t understand) , and I was interested in going to see the Canadian performance poet they had on Dwayne Morgan (also I felt as if I wanted to support the notion of poetry things on at The Chilli, and given it is so nearby would feel rather churlish for not attending.) The turnout wasn’t bad (people will come to poetry things in Heaton? Who knew? ) and it was an interesting night. As usual the night started with the vandals, who provided some interesting material, but I felt read slightly too long. (This is my only problem with the Vandals, quite often they play host to poets from various parts of the world, yet the balance often doesn’t feel quite right. I have been trying to figure out why this is, and I think it is a case of reading slightly too long, so that the guest poets seem to have to wait a long time before reading. The result of reading even one poem each too many can make the balance not quite right, as potentially that’s six too many poems remember. That being said, the Vandals read with good humour, and energy and managed to create a relaxed atmosphere. Highlights of the set included the bizarrely Shakespearian Scott Turrel’s extremely funny poem about Coitus Interruptus, Annie Moir’s highly relatable poem about being a poet (the odd secret shame we have about writing poetry), and Jeff Price. Price seems to epitomize what is good about the vandals at their best, that ability to treat language with a lack of reverence and play with it. Certain things are out there, in the public domain, and on top form the Vandals make this clear, and have fun with wordplay. The Vandals don’t intimidate an audience by making poetry seem holy, when they are in the zone they make poetry accessible to everyone and make us feel as if we wouldn’t mind giving it a try. There is something about the things Jeff Price vandalises that makes me quite inspired to give it a go (last year I was bored one night and ended up writing a vandalism of his vandalized version of Sunscreen), and I came home from the Chilli gig feeling inclined to write a vandalism of his Marks and Sparks poem. Words can be fun, sometimes we forget; Jeff Price seems to be able to remind me. It was interesting watching Kate Fox in her full on stage mode, who managed to become so likeable to the audience that she was later unable to read a serious poem she introduced. The problem seemed to be that she was so likeable and fun to the audience that as soon as she opened her mouth people laughed, so as she was introducing the serious poem people laughed, and the more people laughed the more she seemed to play along with the audiences expectations of her, and ultimately talked herself out of doing the poem. What was interesting about this was that while she was assisting Jeff with one his poems (she was required to read certain lines that were a female voice) she read (the part of Charlie) in a very different manner to the way she reads her own poems, using a voice that managed to convey gravity and purely present the words. I’m sure no one minded that Kate didn’t read the serious poem she introduced (since there was so much fun to be had in her introduction of it then its disappearance), but I would have liked to see it, see her step up and use her body language and voice (and minimal chat) to convey a conviction to read her serious poem (as she did for Jeff.) The format of the vandals on stage actually seems very good for facilitating changes of tone that may otherwise be difficult to achieve in a set, the whole process of reading a poem, stepping back or sitting down while other people do their stuff, and then stepping forward again seems as if you can come to the audience almost afresh for each poem. I think more gigs should have this format for poems, one poem, and then a break sounds good to me.
Sheree Mack read well, but I was disappointed she didn’t read a little longer, as she just seemed to be gone too quick. Still leaving them wanting more is always a good philosophy, and she certainly did that. Dwayne Morgan followed with his slam style poetry performance, of rhythmic words reminiscent of rap. Morgan seemed to have the polished confidence we have come to expect of slam poets, but also seemed to give more of himself to the audience than some performers tend to. He manages to convince the audience they know him a little bit in his set, which instantly gets them on side. The poems were sharp, lively and sexy, and he managed to seduce the audience with words (particularly in the extremely racy oral sex poem, which creates an unusual and effective metaphor. I think there was only me in the audience who was a little disappointed that the poem was a metaphor, as I initially thought I was in the presence of an AA style meeting where a bloke actually states he likes oral sex. You just never hear straight blokes saying such a thing, I was like, how brave, Praise be, Hallelujah! Then oh, metaphor, figures.) What I found particularly interesting about Morgan’s work was the way in which he talks about women. There was a great deal of respect for women in his set, an acknowledgment of feminist concerns, and a simultaneous admission that as a man he has been implicated in some of the things that are issues for women. It seems rare to see this in the work of male poets, and I was impressed by a male poet’s ability to address certain concerns, without coming across as holier than thou.
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