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Sharon Blackie on the path out of our modern wasteland

9 May
Sharon Blackie

Sharon Blackie ©Calyx Picture Agency

“The world is in crisis”, says Sharon Blackie, author of If Women Rose Rooted, and possessor of one of the calmest voices I’ve ever heard.

I’m here as an unofficial representative of the Patriarchy, which quickly becomes an uncomfortable place to be as Sharon opens with a lighthearted tale of the rape and subjugation of the well maidens of ancient Celtic myth.

They used the water from the wells they guarded to nourish the land, so the legend goes, and so the land nourished us in turn. But then menfolk were invented, and we ruined everything. Continue reading →

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Jo Marchant on “the beer goggles of medicine”

9 May
Jo Marchant

Dr. Jo Marchant. Photo ©Calyx Picture Agency

I can remember the exact moment I first became fascinated by the idea of the mind being able to cause physical changes in the body. I was eleven, and I’d just watched Michael Ironside use his brain to force a man’s head to explode in the movie Scanners. The following day I went in to school and squinted really hard at the teacher. He asked me if I needed new glasses.

Real life often finds a way to be both less exciting and more interesting than Hollywood fantasy and it turns out that our brains contain a hidden and little understood power after all.

Jo Marchant has a BSc in genetics, a PhD in microbiology, and a black belt in jiu jitsu. I have a Scottish ‘O’ Level in Biology. Fortunately the science ninja also possesses a storyteller’s knack for unfolding a narrative in way that makes it easy to follow. She’s written a book called Cure: A Journey Into the Science of Mind Over Body which is essentially an examination of the placebo effect and the scientific study of this phenomena. Continue reading →

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There can be only one – Swindon Slam!

8 May
Al Brunker finds urghh tissue on his hands (C) Calyx Picture Agency
Joy-Amy Wigman trying not to think about THAT boyfriend ©Calyx Picture Agency
Slam winners with Matt Holland ©Calyx Picture Agency

First off, a massive congratulations to all who took part in the Swindon Slam! this year (and every year). Everyone who took part wrote a credible piece of poetry and for some it was pouring their souls out on stage. In competitions if you win, or come in the top three, it’s the best feeling in the world, but if you lose it can be very demotivating. So I’m going to say, keep going! You are fantastic, want to hear more!

There were 15 amazing competitors this year, which equalled 29 diverse poems under three minutes or less – including those by comperes – mostly performed with aplomb.

Yes there were poems about beverages and love and references to dead famous poets, and poems about poems or not writing poems or taking part in competitions with poems (like this one).

There were also poems about war, bombings, addiction, the environment and Professor Brian Cox (of course). Continue reading →

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A Simply Splendid Swindon Affair

8 May

A Swindon Affair

8th April 2016

A  Swindon Affair: a Family Affair and a Love Affair

When posting about this event on social media I accidentally referred to it as a ‘Family Affair’. But that was probably a Freudian slip – or something. Because a family affair is really rather what it felt like. The entire affair: afternoon and evening – was filled with people I know and have great affection for. And it was wonderful.

Loving Swindon: in words, pictures and music – a few words first about the afternoon event. The Platform on Faringdon Rd was overflowing with the astonishing literary output and outpouring there has been, and still is, about Swindon from Swindon people and others who love Swindon.

The whole thing was a collaboration between Swindon Civic Voice, Poetry Swindon and the Swindon Literature Festival. Three most marvellous groups right here in Swindon. Continue reading →

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Idling and talking about Kevin

7 May
Tom Hodgkinson (right) with Matt Holland (Lit Fest director) (C) Calyx Picture Agency
Kevin Dutton. ©Calyx Picture Agency

‘I deliberately chose a wind-up word,’ said professional idler Tom Hodgkinson and I suspect the other author this evening, psychopath specialist Kevin Dutton, had done the same.

Tom is the first to admit that his ideas are nothing new, just culturally unpopular since the protestant/puritan work ethic. Though he’s used the words idling, loafing and laziness what he really means is daydreaming, contemplation and creative boredom, or just doing stuff you want to do rather than being ‘condemned to toil by outside forces’ – ‘no shit jobs’. Which is something else both speakers had in common – very quotable.

Not that he’ll be pinned down into a definition, this would be anti-idling. One woman asks if playing app game Candy Crush is the best use of her retirement. Tom says, ‘I’m wary of having an approved list of idling activities’ and then describes how his magazine, The Idler, praised MP Nigel Mills for playing the game in a parliamentary committee.  Continue reading →

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Meeting Isy’s mad mother and Dom’s one-eyed cat

6 May
Isy Suttie – no seriously http://www.claregreenphotography.com
Isy Suttie http://www.claregreenphotography.com
Dom Joly – whatcanIsay? http://www.claregreenphotography.com
Dom Joly – clown http://www.claregreenphotography.com

Comedy night at Swindon Festival of Literature – the evening that gives your brain cells a chance to recover after events featuring deep thinkers and political heavyweights.

Continue reading →

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C is for chocolate – day four of the Poetry Swindon Festival

5 Oct

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Day four of Poetry Swindon Festival
Events take place at Lower Shaw Farm

10:45. Arrival. Hellos, how are yous, coffee, rush (late) to poetry mosaic workshop with Lynette Thomas of Artkore. Manage to cobble together something that started out as ‘life is fun’ and ended up some dark comment about fashion models. Chronicler Pete later says it looks like a bunch of random words and magazine pictures. Other (more enlightened people) say ‘oo I like that one’. Admittedly their favourite thing might be a bunch of random words and magazine pictures.

The sun is shining, gracing us with its warm presence, autumn is only a state of mind. Behind us is the old cow shed converted to event room, and accommodation rooms. In front of us is the covered play area with mattresses and hammocks. All around are flowers, somewhere to sit and chat; ducks and chickens peck round. A fox gives them the willies. Continue reading →

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Is this how God felt? Battered Moons and Pascale Petit at Poetry Swindon Festival

4 Oct

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“I’ve judged a lot of competitions,” said Battered Moons poetry competition judge, Pascale Petit, “and this was of the highest standard.” Big praise at the Battered Moons finale, Swindon Museum and Art Gallery part of the Poetry Swindon Festival, coming from this year’s chair of the judging panel for the TS Elliot prize.

700 entries this year. The seven winners must be well pleased with themselves. Cristina Newton, co-judge and organiser, said, “You don’t know how happy you [poets] made my summer…and so challenging.”

Here are the poems and comments, summarised Robert Vas Dias, parataxis-style*: Continue reading →

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All Afloat! with Poetry Swindon Festival

3 Oct

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“I discovered my Englishness through living on a boat,” said poet and canal dweller Jo Bell, who has recently finished a three year stint as canal poet laureate.

We sat on Dragonfly, a boat on the Wilts and Berks canal just a mile long and slightly curtailed due to bridge renovations, for All Afloat! part of the Poetry Swindon Festival.

Swimming happily (I guess) alongside was the teenage offspring of Mr & Mrs Swindon, adult-sized but still-grey cygnet. Recently Mr Swindon was sick. Canal enthusiasts clubbed together to send him to the swan sanctuary for six weeks to recover. Meanwhile Mrs Swindon found a new love and Teenager was born. Chris, our boat host, explained this is contrary to popular opinion that swans mate for life. Mrs Swindon now divides her time between Mr Swindon and her lover (Mr Wroughton? Just a suggestion) I think this is unfair to suggest Mrs Swindon is feckless. It’s not like you can sit a swan down and explain her hubby is off to hospital for a month and a half. She probably thought he was dead. Though the mourning period was arguably a little short. Continue reading →

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Robert Vas Dias asks Do Angels Eat? Yes if you have a pass for Poetry Swindon Festival

3 Oct

Robert Vas Dias

Robert Vas Dias in the Cow Shed at Lower Shaw Farm

Robert Vas Dias was a delight at Poetry Swindon Festival at today’s poetry lunch (Saturday).

A lesson in perky reading, I had to remind myself that although he sounds American, he’s lived in England for a long time. So it’s not weird that he writes about teapots and their murky colour: ‘A brown that insults taste but forestalls criticism.’ Continue reading →

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