GLASTONBURY POETRY&WORDS: FRIDAY, THE FIRST 7

OH MY HOLY GOD, YOU GUYS. We’re all in withdrawal from Glasto so let’s relive it together, day by day, shall we?

The poetry at this stage Friday was face-melting, honest, and compelling as hell. Let’s hear about the first few hours, take a wee, then come back for more.

The AntiPoet

We opened with Antipoet, the two-man, kilt-adorned, madcap bunch of poetic punks who have possibly the hardest job of the weekend, opening each stage from scratch at the start of the day.  The two mix music and poems, a double bass and high heeled patent leather boots. They introduce the audience to the martial artist physiotherapist, where ‘the only thing that lets him down is his bedside manner…” they go on to describe the ‘light saber in mummy’s special drawer…little baby you know bullshit when you smell it cause you’ve so much to endure.” Somehow they manage to create a magic energy from scratch at the start of each day, and offer a kind of solace and call to arms: “There’s no money in performance poetry,’ they sing. “We’ll play for sex! We’ll play for food!”

‘Did they just say they’d play for sex?’ asked an audience member at the edge of tent behind me.  ‘Who wouldn’t?’ his companion replied.

Emily Harrison

Emily Harrison begins the day and has a kind of unapologetic confidence as she leads us down a path of fearless honesty on love, mental health, and a frank openness buoyed by a subtle comic timing and detail. On posh boys, she says ‘I want you to take me to the kind of restaurants where you order bread for the table.’  On revenge, she says it’s best served by the one who prepped it.’ Her serious subject matter is interlaid with comic gems: on a date at a fair she says, ‘Fairgrounds are where children get abducted.’  She did a poem about a mistress showing up at her lover’s funeral against his wife’s wishes, wearing ‘Tantrum’ red lipstick: ‘her holding the bible, me with dirty knees,’ which also went down a storm in a teepee next to a nudist colony the night before, backed by a live band.  There’s a deep current beneath these pieces, and an empathy, and a wicked sense of how to title them. She leaves the audience shook and filled with a kind of power with her refrain: ‘I am worth the trouble to keep.’ What a legend.

 

Roy Hutchins Reads Heathcote Williams

In a unique concoction of a music collaboration Roy Hutchins honors the work of Heathcote Williams accompanied by a musician on guitar.  ‘The world began when we got tired of nothing,’ he begins, covering topics of establishment intrusion and the state of the nation. Fierce and eloquent, full of fire, he talks about electronic surveillance and in an accusation and rallying cry says ‘real terrorists hide behind banks and governments.’

Kieran King

Down from (near) Manchester, Kieran brought his own unique sensibility to the Glasto stage, offering an ode and lament to punk rock with the refrain  ‘no more heroes…I’ve got my own mind I don’t need anyone to follow – I want a Shaun Ryder but I’m stuck with Bono.’ He is one of those poets who seems completely comfortable in front of an audience, as though he’s using his finely-tuned poems to offer them a tour of his house. This is a remarkable gift. He gives a love letter to Solford, his home town, too often a victim of Manchester claiming it during its victories and blaming it during its failures, painting his city as a ‘broadway musical.’  His poems touch on family and class and the fairytale of ordinary life, and he delves into it with love, and into love with all of its stumblings: The ‘Man who drives you mild…can’t make you cry like I can.’ In his poem on the note to self he entreats, ‘you don’t have to hide who you are…hauling the very breath from the audience as he finishes with life-charged cry: ‘Shadows fall behind you when you turn to face the sun. Don’t look back.’

Jasmine Gardosi

Jasmine has a kind of unadorned confidence that becomes astonishingly compelling on stage.  She is one of those poets who seems to grow a foot (a decilitre? A kilogram? I’m American. Anyway, a lot.) when she opens her mouth on stage. And the language: it’s gorgeous. “Why does she write in nightclubs? She’s got blueprints all over her left limb and she ignores the men sticky as the floor.” Jasmine has this mad skill in creating new, unexpected structures for poems — in the midst of her nightclub poem her voice falls silent with an imagined beat, the inevitable staccato, chopped conversation of someone shouting in a bar.  She tells a story of coming out, inhaling and exhaling homophobic terms as they rise in her life, and in her mind, as air does. Also a teacher/activist for sexual education, she ends on an extraordinary piece that pulls the audience into a kind of choreographed witness, confession, and listening. She puts a new spin on the facilitator’s tool of asking an audience to raise their hands for a series of scenarios, with a cleverness that just gets more clever the more times you hear the piece: “If anyone has ever pressured you, you don’t have to do a thing for me.” Wherever she says to go, the audience follows.

Michael James Parker

Michael James Parker joined us last minute and the audience was luckier for it. He arrives on a kind of tide of poetic rage, looking with unabashed honesty at the state of the nation, at regret and nostalgia and a vision of wildness. On the UK and the Tories he looks at trickle down economics and the great grinding of the poor: ‘if the dregs of my wine dribble down my legs, lick it up. ‘ With a outraged political howl he asks ‘if you tax me do I not bleed?’ in Primal Scream he moved on to the uses and elements of art: “I want to write poems that sound like a look when I’m dancing.” A compelling presence on stage, he left us with a kind of call to arms, a cathartic push for something better.

Laurie Bolger

Laurie Bolger is another poet who seems fantastically comfortable on stage. Her voice has a kind of lilt that gives an audience the sense they are being confided in, that some sort of reality they never had a voice for was being recounted as an anecdote. And she’s funny — ‘Snoring so loud you could be sucking the paint off the walls.’ In her anti-hipster ode to the old man pub, ‘I’m drinking beer in a bar with no atmosphere…in some tarted up boozer in Shoreditch.’ She offers elegies for old London and a kind of lost authenticity.  There are lines in her set which arrest: on a breakup, she talks about ‘a look that fastens us.’ In ‘Ode to Your New Girlfriend’ which spans internet stalking, love and melancholy, watching as a distant witness to a person you used to know: ‘She’s a pop song, you’re a song people want played at their funeral…one of those songs that’s difficult to cover because there’s so much going on.” She tells stories that are relatable in their common honesty, “I’ve lost it in the veg aisle” and the entire audience is charmed, charmed utterly.

STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT BATCH!!

 

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Winston Plowes: Final Spoke-N-Word Poem of Glastonbury Festival

Make Art Not War

Spangles for spirit

Walnut Whips for style

and Opal Fruits for when the night is bright

I was feeling crazy when the party arrived

don’t take my singing costume away from me

Unique and chic

Glastonbury is a dancing circus

where the big top is the world

everyone going berserk and the flags unfurled

in every child there’s a poem

in the fragile innocence of trees

something different to sinners.

Make Art not war

 

List of contributors – Caitlin O’Keeffe, London / Winston Plowes / Robyn + Nicky, Yorkshire / Katie, Brighton / Lisa Godwin / Glastonbury / Tula, Falmouth / Des + Neil, Laddingford / Ian, Barnsley

WINSTON PLOWES SPOKE-N-WORD DAY TWO

HOPE IS A RED CRESCENT OF GLITTER AROUND MY LEFT EYE

Just seen Corbyn driving past,
the party convened
a meeting of minds
flocks of seagulls united in tents
singing with friends over marvellous music.

May harangued out of Liverpool
sinking in a bog of muddy waters.
Losing people on her way to a desert island
with a swiss army knife, a spanish guitar and a very long fishing rod.

Meanwhile…

There’s merry men searching for treats
wandering between stages
wearing unexpected smiles
for the canvas of crowds
people drinking and singing.

Oh… Jeremy Corbyn
Oh… Jeremy Corbyn
Oh… Jeremy Corbyn

 

List of contributors – Luke Wright / Gerry Potter / Sarah + Noel, Manchester / Ashley, Bath / Sam, Usk / Gareth, Edinburgh / Izzy, Dulwich / Elaine, Draycott / Gabriella + Jennifer, Herefordshire / Olivia + Toby, Trowbridge / Nom + Mark, London / Anon / Jon, Bristo

WINSTON PLOWES POEM DAY TWO

Winston Plowes brings his Spoke-n-Word show back for Day Two of Glastonbury, assembling a stunner of a poem from the assembled musings of random Glastonbury attendees.

RAINBOW ALLIANCE

The exciting markets were strange
surreal highlights of a yellow night:
My favourite colour, daffodils, sunshine and buttercups, the lemon in my gin.

Amber’s mothers poetry makes her life more colourful.
Red, white and blue, the colors of the soul emerging reborn by the sea, a living force awakened.

Happy random party people, peacefully dreaming, sleeping in red glasses.
Friends of the blues having too much fun in the meadows with toffee treats.
Protective and supportive like a well fitting boot.

List of contributors – Henry, London / David, Bristol / Dylan + Mum, Leamington Spa / Rachel, Greenwich / Jon, Greenwich / Rome + Lucius, New York / Verity, Hebden Bridge / Sue, Bristol / Julian, All Over The Place / Amber + Jaime, London / Cameron, New York / Mark, Manchester

 

 

Winston Plowes Wandering Spoke-n-Word: VOLUME 1

The first of our wandering poet Winston Hughes and his upside-down bicycle ‘spoke-n-word poetry show making collaborative pieces throughout the festival. Try this one on for size:

FESTIVAL PALS

Two chaps,
5’4″ and knocking at the door
loosing the gift of speech
sharing their beers
in the summer sun.

Sitting back
listening to some poetry
and wonderful music,
drinking in the summer.

Happy memories are MADE
at Glastonbury.

List of contributors – Rhys + Adam, Weston-super-Mare / Chris, Wolverhampton / Paul, Rhubarb / Felix + Joe, London E5 / Tom + Hannah, Manchester / Joanne, London SW2 / Liz, Michael + Mark, Bath.

POETRY&WORDS LINE-UP: THE FINAL COUNTDOWN

Keeping this weird carvery metaphor going, sidle up with your hot plates for this selection of roasts and gravy in our final batch of Glasto poets for your delectation:

Jemima Foxtrot 

Shortlisted for the Arts Foundation Spoken Word Fellowship 2015, Jemima performs extensively nationally and internationally including at the Barbican Main Hall, Latitude Festival, Galle Literary Festival & STANZA Poetry Festival. All Damn Day, Jemima’s first collection of poetry, was published by Burning Eye Books in September 2016.

Jemima has written many commissions including for the Tate Britain, the BBC, the Tate Modern and Latitude Festival.  Her poetry film Mirror, commissioned by BBC Arts as part of their Women who Spit series, was available on iplayer for over a year. She has also appeared on Lynn Barber’s episode of Arts Night on BBC2 and on the Tate Modern: Switched on programme on BBC 2 in June 2016 with a poem especially written to celebrate the opening of the Tate Modern’s new wing.

Jemima’s debut poetry play Melody (co-written with and directed by Lucy Allan), won the spoken word award at Buxton Fringe Festival 2015 and was critically acclaimed at its run at the PBH Free Fringe at Edinburgh 2015, receiving several excellent reviews. Melody was runner-up in the Best Spoken Word Show category at the 2016 Saboteur Awards.

Jemima’s second poetry play Above the Mealy-mouthed Sea has received funding from Arts Council England, will show a full run at the Edinburgh Festival 2017 before touring nationally in Autumn/Winter 2017/2018. Jemima is also collaborating with experimental theatre veterans IOU to create a site-specific, outdoor poetry show, Rear View, which is touring in summers 2017 & 2018.

 Jonny Fluffypunk

An economic refugee from the London hinterland, Jonny ‘does’ spoken words that fuse bittersweet autobiography, disillusionment and surreal whimsy in an act which has established him as a firm favourite at gigs, festivals, arts centres and housing benefit offices up and down the country. He has two books of writings- ‘The Sustainable Nihilists’ Handbook’ and the spanking new ‘Poundland Rimbaud’-  both published by Burning Eye Books. Jonny’s solo no-fi stand-up spoken word show ‘Man Up, Jonny Fluffypunk- One Man’s Struggle with Late-Onset Responsibility’ spent 2015/16 touring around theatres, garden sheds, summer houses, empty shops and Britain’s other ad-hoc performance spaces in a blatant championing of homespun DIY culture. A new show, ‘How I Came To Be Where I Never Was,’ all about being the first punk in the village and other tiny epiphanies, is currently in development.

As well as all his own showing off, he also helps others show off, too; bringing obscure art to the masses as host of Stroud’s Mr Fluffypunk’s Penny Gaff and co-host of The Hip Yak Poetry Shack, the South West’s premier lo-fi pop-up poetry gig. Jonny also runs workshops anywhere and everywhere with anyone who’ll listen.

 Maddie Godfrey 

Maddie Godfrey is an Australian-bred performance poet and writer. She has been best described as “a poetry fireball”. Her work aims to facilitate compassionate conversations about social issues.

At age 21 Maddie has performed at The Sydney Opera House, The Royal Albert Hall and The Bowery Poetry Club. She was the 2015 poetry slam champion of Western Australia and has since won poetry slam competitions in London, Cambridge, Oxford and online. Earlier this year Maddie competed in The Women Of The World Poetry Slam in Dallas, Texas. She has also featured at Amnesty International UK and at a TEDx Women event.

Off stage, Maddie Godfrey has been published in literary journals,anthologies, magazines and on a poster at The University of Western Australia. Her work has also been used as an educational resource in an Australian high-school exam and a sexual violence workshop in Italy.

In January 2017 Maddie wrote, directed and performed her solo show “If My Body Was A Poem” at Perth Fringe Festival. To her credit, the show received sold out audiences and rave reviews. OUTinPerth magazine praised Maddie for “treating her language as a duvet she wraps around the audience, drawing them into a sanctuary of sorts”.  Above all Maddie’s work is evocative, emotionally honest and entertaining. She is not a morning person. www.maddiegodfrey.com 

Erin Fornoff  – Official Blogger for Poetry&Words Stage

Dublin-based poet Erin Fornoff is a “story-telling poet” hailing from the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina. She has performed her poetry at dozens of festivals and events including Electric Picnic, Cheltenham Literature Festival, Cuirt Festival, Glastonbury, and a national Irish tour with Hollie McNish. She has featured at Hozier and James Taylor concerts and collaborated with street artists, filmmakers, and musicians. Her poem ‘Thigh’ was included in Best New English and Irish Poets 2016 and her poem “To Make Things’ was commissioned by RTE for national broadcast and performance at Dublin Castle.

Her chapbook Folk Heroes was published by Stewed Rhubarb Press and her first collection will be published this autumn by Dedalus Press. She was part of Poetry Ireland Introductions 2014, won the Stanza Digital Slam in 2013, and her poems and stories have been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and featured on posters and curriculum nationwide for Ireland’s National Poetry Day. In 2015 she received an Arts Council bursary for her first novel Better People.  She is co-founder and Programme director for Lingo, Ireland’s first ever spoken word festival.  She is working on a large scale collaboration with poetry, film, and large scale street art focusing on addiction, mental health, and asylum seekers in Ireland.

 Winston Plowes – Spoke-n-Word Walkabout Show

Based near Hebden Bridge in Calderdale Winston Plowes lives aboard his floating home with his cat ‘Fatty’. In the past year he has collaborated with The Arvon Foundation, the BBC, Glastonbury Festival, UCLAN and Manchester Museum and has recently tutored on courses and workshops for The Square Chapel, The Prince’s Foundation for Children & the Arts and West Yorkshire Playhouse. As Poet in Residence for the Rochdale Canal Festival in 2012 and The Hebden Bridge Arts Festival for the past three years he has being lucky enough to share his community orientated poetry with a wider audience. As Judge for the Found Poetry Review and author of experimental work published in over 50 journals worldwide he gets the chance to play with our precious language and by providing workshops for schools hopes to continue to inspire through mutual creativity for many years to come. The jointly self-published Misery Begins at Home, 2010 and Micro Chap-book Extras, Origami Press, 2014 will soon be followed by his first collection of ghazals First of all I Wrote Your Name, Stairwell Books. Winston is also inventor of the world’s first (and possibly last) Random Poetry Generating Bicycle, the ‘Spoke-n-Word’.

 Emily Harrison

Emily Harrison performs regularly in London and across the UK. She was recently awarded Best Spoken Word Performer 2016 at The Saboteur Awards. Emily has previously performed at Latitude, WOMAD and In The Woods Festival. Other performances include Tongue Fu, Bang Said The Gun, Stand Up and Spit and Hammer & Tongue Hackney and Oxford. “Astute and at times painfully humorous”, her first full-length collection with Burning Eye Books was released last year. Emily is currently working on a second collection, which she believes many of the men who have passed through her life will surely be thrilled to hear.

Roy Hutchins Reads Heathcote Williams

Roy Hutchins performs the comic verse of Heathcote Williams, accompanied on guitar by Dr Blue. 3 short poems that take a satirical look at dissent, surveillance and the cult of ancient and modern celebrity.

 

 

Scott Tyrrell

This Newcastle-based stand up poet has been writing and performing poetry and comedy since the turn of the century. An award-winning comedian as well as a national slam winning poet, he has performed his work around the UK, Europe and at many festivals including the Edinburgh Fringe, the Prague Fringe, WOMAD, Larmer Tree and Glastonbury – where he was Poetry Blogger in Residence in 2015. He has performed on ITV, BBC Arts, Sky Atlantic, Radio 4 and Radio 3’s Free Thinking festival.

He is author of two collections of Poetry; most recently, the warmly received ‘Grown Up’ published by Red Squirrel Press. His new collection is due out later this year published by Burning Eye Books.

 

 Debris Stevenson

At secondary school 2002 – 2008 Debris was educated through the evolution of Grime and found poetry in the mouths of the testosterone and teenagers around her. Nurtured by the Roundhouse, Debris was then followed by Chanel4 for 2 years, published by organisations such as, Louis Vuitton, Oxford University, BBC Radio 4 and finally by Flipped Eye with her debut pamphlet, Pigeon Party.

A social carrier pigeon, Debris has performed her poetry from an ampitheatre in Kayamandi, South Africa to a classroom in Englewood, Chicago. Curve Theatre breakthrough Artist, Heatwave freestyle dancer and Mouthy Poet Founder, Debris has been awarded over £250,000 by Arts Council England to develop young talent in the East Midlands and beyond.

Debris can often be found dancing sober and alone to Grime, Soca or Dancehall but is mainly now focusing on her debut grime poetry show, Poet in da Corner. 

 Anabel Other’s Poetry Library (walkabout act)

The Bristol Art Library is a fully functioning public library housed in a wooden cabinet the size of a small suitcase. Annabel Other, the artist, created the library in 1998 and is the Head Librarian. The library’s volumes cover a wide range of subjects, from palaeontology to astronomy, with 250 books (all 5 in x 4 in) made by artists and practitioners from all areas of the arts and sciences. Membership of Bristol Art Library is free, and once you have joined and received your manilla reader’s ticket you may visit the library and peruse its volumes anywhere in the world. The library now has 12000 members, a gift shop and a friends’ organisation FOTBAL (Friends of The Bristol Art Library).

 

POETRY&WORDS LINE-UP: THIRD BASH

Kieren King

Kieren King is a Salford based spoken word artist. He is best known as the co-creator and host of popular Manchester spoken word nights, Evidently (Shortlisted for Best Regular Spoken Word Night – Saboteur Awards 2015 & 2016) and the Word War Slams, and formerly as a host of Bang Said The Gun: Manchester. He was recently hand-picked by Guy Garvey of Elbow to curate a Spoken Word event as part of the 2016 Meltdown festival at the Southbank Centre.

An experienced performer in his own right, Kieren has been writing and performing his work since 2008 and has featured at various festivals and a number of spoken word nights throughout the UK, including several performances for Amnesty International and Musicians Without Borders. A multiple slam champion, Kieren was also part of the guest Manchester slam team at the 2016 Hammer & Tongue grand final.

He has appeared on several local radio and television shows and was featured on ITV News coverage of Billy Bragg’s “Welcome To Manchester” gig during the 2015 Tory Party Conference. In 2016 he was commissioned to write and perform a poem for a TV spot by SKY for their new channel Blaze.

Rowan McCabe

Aware that poetry isn’t a proper job, Rowan McCabe decided to create his own profession and became the world’s first and only Door-to-Door Poet. Knocking on strangers, he asks them what is important to them; he then goes away and writes a poem about this, bringing it back and performing it on their doorstep. He’s trying to prove absolutely anyone can enjoy poetry and that strangers really aren’t as scary as they seem. He keeps a blog about everything that’s happened to him at http://www.doortodoorpoetry.com.

Dismissed by other poets as impossible, Rowan began the project in October 2015, starting in his home town of Heaton, Newcastle upon Tyne. Despite the advice of a local police officer, he then visited the Byker Wall, an area synonymous with crime and violence. After blogging about this positive and life-changing experience, he was invited to Glastonbury Festival, where he wrote a poem for Michael Eavis’ granddaughter and was featured in the Guardian’s book section.

Rowan also performs on stages as well as doorsteps and he’s appeared all over the country, from the Edinburgh Fringe to the Royal Albert Hall. He was the winner of the 2015 Great Northern Slam and his work has been featured on Radio 4, Radio 5 live and BBC Breakfast.

Toria Garbutt

“Toria’s words are silk javelins. Frank explorations of self, outpourings of a joyfully pained mind. She means it. Cos she’s lived it. I love that girl” Mike Garry

Toria Garbutt is a spoken word artist from Knottingley – a former mining town in West Yorkshire. From as young as 9 she kept a diary, and wrote poetry in parallel by way of navigating an alternative path through the world.  Her resulting début album ‘Hot Plastic Moon’ is an incredibly visceral and engaging collection of confessional, observational and character based punk poetry. With a punk heritage, a staccato heartbeat and a unique flair for storytelling, her work is brutally honest yet breathtakingly beautiful.

In 2017, Toria has established herself as a regular support act for Dr John Cooper Clarke on his ongoing UK tour dates.

Emily Hammond

Emily Hammond is a 19 year old poet and spoken word artist born and raised in Nottingham and studying a History degree at the University of Leeds. Since beginning writing at the start of 2016 Emily has performed on stages and in slams across the country. Emily represented her University at the annual UniSlam competition, where her team reached the semi-finals, and has performed at The Royal Albert Hall.  She was the Glastonbury Festival Poetry Slam winner for 2016.

Anna Freeman

Anna Freeman is a novelist, a multiple poetry slam champion, a creative writing lecturer at Bath Spa University and a producer for Bristol Old Vic. Her work is funny, slightly twisted and explores personal and social neuroses. It’s about the messy, ridiculous, glorious state of being human and the need to laugh at ourselves, often.

Anna’s first novel, The Fair Fight, is a pulsating historical adventure set within the world of female prize-fighters and their patrons in 18^th century Bristol. The Fair Fight won The Tibor Jones Pageturner Prize 2013, is published by W&N in the UK and by Riverhead in the USA, and has been optioned for TV drama by the BBC. Her second novel is due out in early 2018.

Her first poetry collection, Gingering the World from the Inside, is published by Burning Eye Books.

Laurie Bolger

Laurie Bolger is a poet and presenter who style is consistently down to earth and accessible. Laurie currently hosts BANG Said the Gun, London’s leading stand up poetry night and is lead facilitator for BBC 1Xtra’s Words First and The Poetry Takeaway. Laurie’s debut collection Box Rooms was released last year, showing that poetry can be your friend.  “A tell it like it is poet, with down to earth, intelligent and hilarious charm” - Poems in Pubs

Koko Brown

Born and bred in North West London and ‘works well with others’, according to her school reports. Koko is a multidisciplinary artist, who blends theatre with spoken word while incorporating vocal looping throughout. She creates work focusing on race, mental health, gender, and identity.

Koko will be premiering her first solo show ‘WHITE’ at the Roundhouse, where she is a Resident Artist, on 4th June. Then at Ovalhouse theatre, where she is an Associate Artist, from 20th July. She’d love to see you there.  Connect with her via heykoko.com or on all social media – @TheKokoBrown

Paula Varjack

Paula Varjack is a writer, filmmaker and theatre maker. Her work explores identity, the unsaid, and making the invisible visible. She makes work across disciplines; performance, theatre, documentary and spoken word. Her debut prose & poetry publication Letters I Never Sent to You published by Burning Eye Books explores the sometimes slippery nature of the word “home”, and how love and heartbreak can be felt just as strongly for a place as for a person. Her most recent show “ Show Me The Money” – explores the reality of making a living as an artist in the U.K. based on interviews with artists across the country.  In addition to performing, she facilitates workshops with a wide range of age groups, using writing prompts and drama games to unblock creativity.  Born in Washington D.C. to a Ghanaian mother and a British father, out of they many places she has lived she considers east London to be “home”.

 Rosy Carrick

Quick-witted and charismatic, Rosy Carrick has got a PhD in Russian literature and a WTF in 80s beefcake movie obsession. Co-curator of the poetry stage at Port Eliot festival, she also co-hosts the Latitude poetry stage and has been at the helm of the Brighton spoken word scene for the last decade. 2017 brings her back to the happy fields of Glastonbury to [wo]manhandle you through yet another spectacular Poetry & Words line-up, so come out, sit down and shut up, cos this is one charming motherf**ker not to be missed! www.rosycarrick.com

 

POETRY&WORDS LINE-UP EDITION: THE SECOND BUNCH OF MESSERS

More of Glasto’s phenomenal line-up here like a carvery buffet of poetic goodness at Worthy Farm. Hold on to your faces:

Murray Lachlan Young

Prepare for satirical soliloquy, rock-n-roll reverie and ditty as BBC 6 Music & Radio 4 regular  Murray Lachlan Young presents his stunning new live show.  A delightful romp into the bizarre facets of fame, fashion, people, politics, a mild erotic folk ballad and the space-time continuum.

Celebrated for his hybrid mix of stand-up comedy with commentaries on contemporary life, expect flamboyant, punchy wit, brooding subtext and empathetic humour.  Drawing and performing material from his new hardback collection: How Freakin’ Zeitgeist Are You? alongside much loved live favourites, this is unique stand up/comedy/spoken word performance, from one of the very best in the business.

Murray is an acclaimed playwright, actor, screen-writer and poet -extraodinaire. He  most recently co-wrote the screenplay for the latest  film version of the Dylan Thomas classic: ‘Under Milk Wood’ .

Making his name in rock clubs and underground cabaret venues in London in the 1990s he signed to EMI in 1997 releasing the album Vice and Verse.  No stranger to the big screen, Murray has appeared in ‘About A Boy’, ‘Vatel’ and ‘Plunkett & Maclaine’ .His  first stage play, ‘The Incomers’, toured nationally to great acclaim.   A man whose performance clips have notched up over 250,000 hits on YouTube and known for his numerous appearances and residencies on BBC Radio 2 Arts Show , Saturday Live, BBC Test Match Special and The Shipping Forecast and even on Newsnight.   Mick Jagger  recently presented Keith Richards with a CD copy of Murray’s poem,  marking the anniversary of Keith falling out of a coconut tree. Bless.

 

Jasmine Gardosi

Jasmine Gardosi is 2016’s Cheltenham Poetry Festival Slam Champion, Mix It Up Midlands Slam Champion 2015 and one of the 2015 winners of the International Pangaea Poetry Slam. She has appeared on BBC Radio 3’s The Verb, was shortlisted for Birmingham Poet Laureate and placed as a finalist in the Out-Spoken Poetry Prize for Performance 2015.

Since completing her post as a BBC Arts Young Creative producing short-form content, including the film How To Be a Poet With Dyslexia, she has worked as a Poet in Residence for the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, was featured as Apples and Snakes’ Poet of the Month in September last year and is collaborating with Autin Dance Theatre on a sexual health show combining dance and spoken word, set to tour this year.

Jasmine is slightly obsessed with taboo. At TEDxBrum’s International Women’s Day 2014, she delivered a talk exploring the taboo surrounding menstruation and she continues to run workshops that combine creativity with sex education and other awkward topics. Other facilitation work includes running West Midlands Poets’ Place and school workshops. She is selected as an Emerge Young Artist under The Mighty Creatives, through which she is producing a Shakespeare-inspired youth festival in Tamworth.

She has featured at events including Queer’Say, Tongue Fu, Find The Right Words, Spokes: Amaze!, Milk, Hit the Ode, Level Up and Verve Poetry Festival, and has toured nationally as the West Midlands poet on the Apples and Snakes Public Address show. She likes to write about weird things in unweird places – kind of like her, everywhere.

 

Andy Craven-Griffiths

Andy Craven-Griffiths is a writer and musician based in Leeds. He has performed poetry most extensively on stage (Leeds Festival, Latitude, Secret Garden Party), but has also had his poetry broadcast (Radio 1, Radio 4, BBC2), and printed in poetry journals. Commissions include BBC, Arts Council, and Rethink mental health charity. Currently, Andy is writing a play as part of Curve Theatre’s WritersLab, is studying part time for a PhD in creative writing, and is working on a book of poetry for children. In 2016 Andy was one of Radio 3’s Verb New Voices and made work for Oxford University Press.

As an educator he has run poetry workshops for over 25,000 young people, and has published a chapter on teaching rhyme in Making Poetry Happen (Bloomsbury, 2015).

Andy is also vocalist with his band Middleman. The band have toured everywhere from Reading Festival to SXSW, Texas, and have played live sessions for Radio 1, 6 Music, and XFM. Middleman’s music has also been widely synchronized (NBA2K11, Channel 4, Channel 5).

The Antipoet

Paul Eccentric and Ian Newman are, The Antipoet.  They are a comedic beat poetry duo that have been going down rather well for over eight years now and have performed at countless poetry, comedy and music events across the UK. Festivals include; Glastonbury, Brighton, Ledbury, Edinburgh, Camp Bestival, Camden, Wenlock, Larmer Tree, Nostock, Green Gathering and Buxton. They have also performed at Silverstone for the Grand Prix and this year’s tour will add Rebellion and Bestival and they will also be warming up for Adam when he bring his 2016/17 tour to Paul’s home town.

They are absolutely delighted to be the pre-show act for Poetry&Words again this year. They will be performing, among others, pieces from their sixth and latest collection, ‘We Play For Food’ as apparently Poets aren’t actually paid that well, who knew?

Elvis McGonagall

Stand-up poet, armchair revolutionary, comedian and broadcaster, Elvis McGonagall resides at The Graceland Caravan Park somewhere in the middle of nowhere where he scribbles verse whilst drinking Scotch, listening to Johnny Cash and throwing heavy objects at his portable telly.

Two series of his sitcom “Elvis McGonagall Takes A Look On The Bright Side” have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 where he appears regularly as well as popping up occasionally on the television.

Elvis is the 2006 World Slam Champion, the compere of the Blue Suede Sporran Club and performs at literary and music festivals, comedy clubs, pubs and dodgy dives up and down the country and abroad.   In 2015 Elvis made the “Hot 100” – The List magazine’s annual run-down of Scotland’s “hottest cultural contributors”.

Deftly witty, satirical but not afraid to be plain daft, Elvis has been spitting his scabrous diatribes against the powers that be since 2003. And look at the state of the world now. So that’s 14 years of futile ranting.  A collection of his poems from 2003 to 2017 entitled “Viva Loch Lomond!” will be published by Burning Eye Books in spring 2017.

Elvis McGonagall has suffered for his poetry. Now it’s your turn.

 

Face-melting Poetry&Words Line-Up: HEADLINER EDITION

 

John Hegley 

Songs and poems about fig rolls, potatoes (new and old), much singing joining in and a little bit of communal choreography.

Mr Hegley was born in Newington Green, North London, and was educated in Luton, Bristol and Bradford University.  His first public performance monies came from busking his songs, initially outside a shoeshop in Hull, in the late Seventies. He performed on the streets of London in the early Eighties, fronting the Popticians, with whom he also recorded two sessions for John Peel, and has since been a frequent performer of his words, sung and spoken, on both local and national radio.

He has produced ten books of verse and prose pieces, two CDs and one mug, but his largest source of income is from stages on his native island. An Edinburgh Festival regular, he is noted for his exploration of such diverse topics as dog hair, potatoes, handkerchiefs and the misery of human existence.  He is an occasional DJ, dancer and workshop leader, using drawing, poetry and gesture. He has been awarded an honorary Doctorate of Arts from what is now the University of Bedfordshire, and once performed in a women’s prison in Columbia.

 

Luke Wright

Luke Wright writes poetry that is “visceral, poignant and riotously funny,” (The Scotsman). He is the author of two poetry collections, published by Penned in the Margins, the most recent of which is The Toll (2017).

The verse play What I Learned From Johnny Bevan won Luke a Fringe First and The Stage Award for Acting Excellence in 2015, plus a Saboteur Award and an Off-West End Award nomination in 2016.

His live shows are enjoyed by thousands of people across the world every year, where he mixes the wistful with the downright comic to take audiences on an incredible emotional journey. He also programmes the spoken word line-ups at Port Eliot, Festival No.6, and The Edinburgh International Book Festival.

Joe Sellman-Leava – Labels

Worklight Theatre’s multi-award winning show is a funny, moving and honest story about mixed heritage and immigration. Charting a childhood in 90’s Devon, shifting political landscapes and global refugee crisis, the show uses comedy, storytelling and spoken word.

Using humour and honesty, Labels offers a human story from multicultural Britain, and is touring internationally after an award-winning Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Australian tour, London transfer. Expect paper planes, racist romances and lots of sticky labels!

Phill Jupitus (Porky the Poet)

Porky the Poet is a stand-up comedian, poet, improviser, and TV stalwart.  Watch in delight and/or horror as this experienced funnyman smashes laughs out of the chaos of his own life and the uncertain world that surrounds it.  Adult themes and situations, but delivered childishly.

Phill became a familiar face when he started as team captain on BBC2’s pop quiz Never Mind The Buzzcocks in 1996, which went on to run for 19 years.  Aside from Never Mind the Buzzcocks and live stand up shows all over the UK, he also appears as a regular guest on BBC’s QI, Alan Davies’ As Yet Untitled and in 2012 returned to television stand-up for the first time since 2000 with an appearance on Live at the Apollo.

Phill toured the UK and Ireland with the musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bangin 2016 starring as Baron Bomburst/Lord Scrumptious and he played Bottom in the Bath Theatre Royal production of A Midsummer’s Night Dream in August.  His other theatre work includes appearing alongside Jason Manford in the UK touring production of The Producers as Franz Liebkind.

 

ANNOUNCING: OUR FULL LINE-UP!

See below for our weekend palace of poetic wonders. Hold on to your faces cause they’re about to be melted off: