On the hottest day of the year so far, we sent Chronicler Milo (9) to report from Swindon’s Festival of Literature’s Children & Families Day. Continue reading
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
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
Chronicler Milo (9) reports from Swindon’s teenage poetry competition, Youth Slam.
‘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
Amy Liptrot has provided me with my favourite line from any book I have read this year as she recalled her wild life in London Fields and the wildlife of Orkney.
Using her return to the remote Scottish islands following a three-month spell in rehab as the segment of her life to tap and unwrap in a memoir, Liptrop was an engagingly awkward presence at the Arts Centre. Continue reading
©Calyx Mary Hamer at Swindon festival of Literature
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.
So this Swindon Festival of Literature evening involved a spot of dancing to a cheesy tune, being stuck in a car park, and a wild-ish haired professor. Sounds like a good plot for a book.
Which leads into the first event’s theme, Poetry Swindon 78s, where the Richard Jefferies Museum’s writing class used scratchy old 78 RPM vinyl records as a creative prompt. At Swindon Central Library, we heard the tunes and the writers read their work.
Nairobi, a bubbly 1958 Tommy Steele number, became a Cold War spy tale by Ben Holloway. Ben’s nervous rapid delivery and breath-catching apologetic gaps suited the memories of a paranoid molehunt.
I had enough time to catch Anna-May Laugher’s Ready for the River from a 1928 track by The Rollickers – ‘Want to drown my troubles / and leave just the bubbles’. I was glad I bought the accompanying 78s book and could get to know this poem: a five-part account of a river, a living thing, accepting and eating anything thrown in it – dead things, oar cuts, memories – before it is consumed by drought.
Regretfully, I crept out and then spent 10 minutes stuck listening to the bleep of a Swindon car park help button (‘hanging on the help button’ flash fiction coming up) before I could head up to the Arts Centre, which meant I missed the first half of Roger Scruton. So apologies if crucial information is notable by its absence. Continue reading
©Calyx Swindon Festival of Literature A.N.Wilson
The Book of The People
A N Wilson, the author of the above named .. well … book is of the belief that The Bible remains a relevant work even in our modern and largely secular society. He posits that, no matter what one might or might not believe, The Bible stands up as a work of philosophy, of literature and as a cornerstone of our culture and general knowledge.
Festival Chronicle 