As well as enjoying some of Pam Ayres’s poetry, we heard anecdotes about her life and the inspiration behind some of the audience’s favourite poems, documented in her 2011 autobiography ‘The Necessary Aptitude: a Memoir’.
Pam never had aspirations to write ‘deep’ poetry – ‘other people could do it so much better’. But it’s to poetry’s benefit that she developed her own style and wrote in a way that anyone could relate to and enjoy. Continue reading
Psychogeography aims to make the everyday more interesting or to absorb and appreciate above and beyond the usual tourist attractions one would look for in an urban environment. Just the thing for Swindon, then.
Comments about the session included: “In context signs are really boring, but out of context they’re silly” and “I liked the skip” also “The Wyvern Theatre has stalactites.” Continue reading
Yesterday evenings lively and well-attended Artwords Poetry Open Mic festival special opened with a story from festival organiser Hilda.
Donned in her Mabel Watson persona accompanied by Barry ‘the teeth’ Dicks she megaphoned poetry at Sascos’ Cafe in Swindon’s Brunel Shopping Centre that afternoon. Apparently this was too subversive for the security guards who refused to allow them out into the precinct: ‘No poetry outside the cafe. No permission for poets in the Brunel Centre.’ Or something. So, poetry okay with tea and cake, but not other retail therapy.
First poet Bethany Pope (who will be instructing me in the way of the Sestina poetry form later today) was inspired by a death of a rat for her piece. (This is the second rat death poem today. I must write my own.) She was accompanied by the rhythmic thunder of dancers’ feet from Swindon Dance above the Central Library’s poetry space. Continue reading
So the first Swindon Festival of Poetry kicked off this morning with Poetry Aloud in the Central Library’s Cafe.
(I love cafes in libraries. So much better than of old when it was all about being quiet and grabbing a book and leaving.)
It was a quiet, friendly start to proceedings, with a muster of enthusiasts listening and contributing to the poetry readings, both own and famous contributions.
Then it was off to the library’s poetry space gearing up for the BlueGate poet’s slot.
Both events got in the spirit of National Poetry Day and its theme of ‘stars’, and – as always – some interesting stories.
Bob Johnson, who treated us to his political poems, told us that he’d only been writing for a little while. He’d got into it through writing rhymes in greetings cards for loved ones. From a Valentine’s message (‘you are my Mona Lisa’) to agitation of the Coalition Government in a few short years. Continue reading
And so it is.
A year or so after announcing to about 5 people on Facebook that Swindon is the Poetry Capital of the World, Google – no less – has now got with the programme. So if you Google search for Poetry Capital of the World, Swindon is what comes up. I kid you not. Try it for yourself. Continue reading
With 16,000 people watching 30 acts over two days, the Devizes International Street Festival was bigger than ever before.
From a spectator’s view, the crowds were mercifully thinner this year than in 2011, thanks to the Street Festival being held over two days: Sunday, as well as its traditional bank holiday Monday spot.
I wonder whether rain, or at least the threat of it, may have also kept the audience size manageable on the Monday, when the Festival Chroniclers made their third consecutive pilgrimage to the event – despite some stiff competition it’s become a ‘must-do’ in our calendar. Continue reading
What Larmer Tree Festival lacks in big names (and firm ground) its makes up for in smiles, as Chronicler Pete discovered.
I’ve been going to music festivals for twenty two years – exactly as long as Larmer Tree Festival has been in existence.
Yet until this year I’d never been to the five-day boutique festival, which is held practically on my doorstep in the grounds of a Victorian pleasure garden near Salisbury. Continue reading
Saturday (day three of the Larmer Tree Festival near Salisbury /Shaftesbury) was the ‘All at Sea’ themed fancy dress day. So: tons of mud, sea theme and an aquarian outfit which keeps a body warm and one which can be hosed down at the end of the day. I saw one clever parent who’d thought of this which made me slap my hand on my forehead, accompanied by ‘oweeeee.’
I’d been at the festival since Thursday and my son turned up Friday afternoon. And immediately jumped up and down in the muddy gunk before scooping it up in his fingers. Sigh.
On the whole the kids loved the mud. Usually accompanied by resigned looking parents, desperately trying to keep the mud on their wellies and nowhere else.
Okay, I realise I’ve nearly got to the end and haven’t mentioned music, comedy, art or even toilets. But the mud is all pervasive. It splats and slops and it’s really hard work to walk through. Whine, whine, whine.
That’s it, enough about mud. It won’t pollute the other posts.
No other word for it.
Except maybe: amazing. Incredible. A one off. Fantastic.
I’m talking about Fire Garden at Stonehenge last night.
Not only was a huge amount of people old and young allowed to walk in amongst the stones – a rare experience in itself – but the Fire Garden was breathtaking. Continue reading
Belting out their Number 51 sort-of-hit single One Way (“There’s only one way of life and that’s yer own, yer own, yer own …”), that night in Cardiff the band inspired a venue full of university students to smash the system.
So we did, and by the time the band’s poppy Beautiful Day had charted at the the dizzy heights of Number 13 in August 1997 we’d thrown out the Conservatives and elected Tony Blair and his New Labour party. Go us. Continue reading
Festival Chronicle 