Introducing: Helen and Benita Johnson, Organisers of Glastonbury Poetry&Words

The Johnsons, by Scott Tyrrell

Time to tell you something about the history of the stage, and thereby Helen Johnson, who’ll be there with partner Benita every day, barring a natural disaster! If they’re new to you/ you’d like a reminder, read on:

In Helen’s own words:

“The Poetry&Words stage was set up in 1992 by Pat V T West. It started off in a yurt and then moved quickly to a small stage in the corner of the Green Fields. Just before her untimely death in 2008 Pat called me to her flat in Clifton to ask me if I would take over the stage. To say I was taken aback would be a massive under-statement. I had absolutely no idea that was coming! At the time, I was in the midst of my PhD, juggling that with a full-time teaching job. I had no idea how I could possibly run a festival stage too, but you just can’t say no to that!

“So I said yes – on condition that the infrastructure was sorted out for me. (No arriving two weeks’ before to a bare patch of grass for me; I needed the tent up already!) So it was that the Poetry&Words stage moved to Theatre and Circus, who had a tent they would house us in for a few hours a day; a tent, as it turned out, that was several times the size of Poetry&Words Mark I.

“That first year, before I headed off to a conference in Saskatoon, Canada, I packed two bags – one for Canada and one for Glastonbury. After the conference, I got back to my house, had a shower, switched bags and caught the train to the festival! I had a skeleton crew that first year and ran much of it myself – compering, performing, organising etc, alongside a few helpers and poets. By the Sunday, I was so exhausted by jet lag and festival fever that I literally fell asleep on my feet (to quite a lively band, as it happens!)

“Anyway, fast forward to 2010. The stage now ran all day and I had a full crew to help me with it (having discovered the wonders of delegation). At the time, I was performing my poetry as part of the duo, Yaffle, with musician, Benita Johnson. I invited Benita along to perform with me at the festival. Two years later we were married (not something, I can assure you, that happens with everyone I book, though we did get engaged at the festival in 2011).

“When we had our son, Jake, in 2015, Benita stood in for me as stage manager, and I had the pleasure of attending as a punter for only the third time ever, along with our 6 week old boy. Benita proved to be so adept at running the stage, that we’ve worked together on it ever since. I suspect that Jake won’t be far behind. He helped me laminate Scott Tyrrell’s bunting this year, talking to each of the poets as they went through the laminator. (Some were told off for being naughty, but most, you’ll be pleased to hear, behaved well and made friends with him on their journey.)”

Reviews:

“Her sparkling witty poetry is continuing to wow audiences on the performance poetry circuit.” ~ Three Tuns Poetry

“…poignant yet sultry and stirring, complex and sweet.” ~ Everton Hartley

“She glides and canters over hills and vales of words leaving a landscape of language hanging on the wall of your mind.” ~ Mal Travers, Acoustic Night

“Like Ani DiFranco on steroids.” ~ Bob (happy audience member at a Yaffle performance)

Fay Other people’s words:

I really wanted to highlight the folk who make this all possible. It turns out we haven’t heard explicitly from Helen since Scott’s interview in 2015, so it felt like time! In a total cop-out, I canvassed those poets who I know who’ve worked with Helen (and Benita) in the past. They have this to say:

“These two create, curate, and nurture one of the most unique stages at Glasto – a true space for listeners to open themselves or take a quiet breath among the chaos. The two of them create life changing experiences for poets – I can genuinely say going to Glasto, my first ever gig in the U.K., was transformative – and it was thanks to them.” – Erin Fornoff

“How hard Helen and Benita work for make P&W happen is indescribable by even a billion villanelles!

“Loadsa folks believe these things ‘just happen’, they don’t consider how much organisation it takes to make it happen. That attitude is the greatest sign the event is well managed, cos most people only notice when stuff goes wrong. P&W is a Glastonbury Festival staple any poet worth their sonnets is proud to shout about being on the team.

“Helen has deeply studied the art of performance poetry, she knows what makes a solid stanza, and her love for our art is evident in all she achieves.

“Long may P&W’s flags triumphantly fly!” – Dominic Berry

“I met Helen around 2003, when we were both part of the Bristol poetry scene, and when Pat West was still the P&W boss. The stage has grown and diversified so dramatically in the years since Helen’s been at the helm and I’m so glad to still be a part of it now, and to see her and her growing family (and amazing thigh-bum-bag thing) pottering gloriously around the site!” – Rosy Carrick

“We met Helen and Benita at Larmer Tree festival in 2011. I had submitted The Antipoet for Glastonbury, along with a couple of thousand other people that year. I had never seen so much negativity on social media before! Many people that realised they hadn’t been chosen were angry and expressed themselves accordingly. I felt I needed to address the balance and simply wrote on line, that even though they hadn’t been selected, that they would happily step in if anyone had a problem at the last minute and thanked them for all their hard work and wished them good luck with it all. A few similar responses appeared after mine and the ‘angries’ petered out. I received a response a couple of days later stating that yes, I was correct in thinking that they hadn’t got Glastonbury but would they be interested in Larmer Tree, another poetry Stage that Helen ran? Yes please! They did it, had a ball and found a great fan base that saw them being asked to play there every year since. I didn’t give up submitting to Glastonbury and the next year when they were given the second opportunity to play Larmer Tree, they were pleased but Ian simply acknowledged my text notifying them with a, ‘lovely, I guess that means no Glastonbury’. I said, ‘never say never’ and a few weeks afterwards we were told they had been successful in applying for Poetry and Words as well that year! I cannot put into words how happy they both were as I’m the manager and they’re the creatives but I can still remember the look on Paul’s face when I read out the email over breakfast. He never did finish that boiled egg.

“Having done that I realise it’s more how they all got together than about Helen and Benita themselves 😮 It just all came flooding back. The fact that they’re lovely people, who have a stupidly hard job sorting through submissions every year and juggling poets that can really handle festivals and create a good mix across the board in all areas whilst looking for performers they know that can trust to turn up and do the job should be forgotten either.” – Donna Ray, Manager of The Antipoet

“Both Helen and Benita have thrown themselves into the gargantuan task of getting a world class lineup together every single year. A lineup that flows and wows seamlessly and effortlessly over 3 days. They’ve worked hard to get a first class backstage team to grease the wheels, and they have an unerring eye for spotting talent and giving them a platform at the world’s greatest outdoor festival. The likes of Luke Wright, Kate Tempest and Hollie McNish all started out being picked for Poetry&Words when they were bright, young, hungry things. And I personally have huge gratitude for being allowed to have plied both my love of illustration and spoken word at such an amazing place regularly over the years. I am truly in their debt.” – Scott Tyrrell

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I’m really looking forward to finally meeting Helen and Benita in person later this month and telling them in person what an amazing job they do! ♥

Sneak preview:

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Behind every great Slam Trophy…

…is an artist hoping the slammer won’t drop it before they get off stage.

Behold, this year’s Glastonbury Poetry Slam trophy and she’s a beauty. This proud, rearing mare awaits she or he who holds their nerve and delivers the most powerful poetry performance at this year’s Poetry Slam.

This wonderful work of unsubtlety was created, as always by the poet and visual artist, Peter Hunter. I asked Pete recently about his involvement with Poetry&Words over the years and his inspiration for this year’s piece.

Peter Hunter – artist & P&W unsung hero

You’ve had a long history of creating the prestigious Glastonbury Slam trophy. How did you get involved in the first place?

I met Helen Johnson (then Gregory) when she started performing at an open mic I was running in Bristol many moons ago. We became friends and were involved in several projects with other poets over the years. When Helen inherited the Poetry&Words stage, she invited me to help out. As part of this I volunteered what skills I had, other than poetry and hosting,  in trying to find a revamped identity for Poetry&Words, this included the stage props and backdrop, various sorts of signage, redesigning the Poetry&Words poster each year, the introduction of the mini-programme and of course a glamorous trophy for the slam winners to receive in recognition of their poetic derring-do.

Tell us about your background as a sculptor and visual artist.

I have always had an aptitude for visual arts, it was the thing I most liked doing at school, and I was fortunate enough to study (study being a loose term) Fine Art at Falmouth School of Art back in the days when going to college didn’t leave you with crippling debt afterwards.

After that, for some reason, I became a ceramicist (making things out of clay, rather than sitting at a potter’s wheel making ‘pots’ and being a potter) and had a studio in central Bristol where I didn’t quite scrape enough money together to earn a proper living. I also did a short stint at an animation company making plasticine puppets for TV shows (to this day you can find some of my work on Youtube – I made the mouths for the animated Elton John in the Stars in Their Eyes titles from the 90’s).  I had some of my work featured on TV as an April Fools – fossils of fairies found on the banks of the river Severn – and at one point a woman came to my studio claiming to be the aunt of Robert Downey Jnr and bought him some chop-stick holders that I’d made that looked like little reclining people. (‘He’ll just love them!’)

In 2007 I managed to combine both my sculpting and poeting skills for Bristol Poetry Festival by creating a faux contemporary art exhibition at Arnolfini (Bristol’s main contemporary art gallery) which I then critiqued in rhyme. It was a controversial piece that didn’t go down very well with contemporay fine artists but apparently the volunteer staff liked it. Also the Arnolfini had to call me in because one of my ‘exhibits’ was starting to rot and the smell was getting into the air conditioning and begining to stink out the whole building, which I thought was a nice, if unplanned, touch.  There’s a (poor quality) vid of the piece here if you’re interested:

This year’s effort is quite special, having departed from your usual convention of a mic with embellishments to the radical creation of a rearing unicorn with a logo on its butt. Can you tell us your inspiration for this?

I try and make something unique and relatively different each year. It’s an opportunity for me to try out ideas within a loose theme. Usually the ideas are a reflection of what I’m generally interested in, or whatever pops into my head when I’m soaking in the bath.

Last year’s 3D pop-up book trophy was because I was wandering around charity shops and there seemed to be a lot of pop-up books and I thought I’d give it a go – it also meant that the trophy was relatively safe to transport when the book was closed.

Previously I’ve got hold of a microphone and, as you say, embellished it – once as a space ship, once as a towering sculpture over a festival site diarama. There is always an element of tongue-in-cheek about the trophy and this year I thought I’d push it a little further by creating this grand rampant golden unicorn with the microphone carried in it’s mouth, as if the unicorn represented the poets’ magical transformation from slam hopeful to slam champion! Or something.

I also like the trophy’s to have some sort of interactive element if possible. The spaceship one was also a bedside light, the book was pop-up and this years unicorn is a pencil sharpener. I’ll leave that to your imagination.

Which of the trophies you’ve created do you have the most fondness for?

Obviously the latest one is the best one, but I do have a fondness for the spaceship trophy – I think that was for the 2010 slam – it seemed to tick many fun design boxes for me.

I used the mic for the spaceship body with the rounded head of the mic being the ‘front end’ with the jack-plug attached for a point. Then I added 3 tail-fins like a 1950’s style rocket – the sort you might see on the cover of an old sci-fi comic – but what I was most pleased with, was that I found a ceiling light that was slightly domed, and when it was turned upside down (so the dome faced up) it was curved like the surface of a planet and I stuck the mic-rocket onto that, as if it had landed – and the best thing was,

if you pushed the rocket down, the planet lit up! It was brilliant!

I still have a love for the trophy I won from the Bristol Slam of 2002 which you made (which was kind of a gold brick with an etching of the UK on it) How far back does your slam trophy creation go?

I think you have the first slam trophy I made (nice one for getting your City of Culture Slam win into the interview, Scott)*.  That didn’t quite turn out as planned. I had intended it to be all sharp edged and geometic and professional-looking, it even has a real gold-leaf coating. But I left it late and the material I made it out of didn’t set properly, so it’s a bit rough around the edges and the varnish I used took the glister off the gold. I seem to remember you refering to it at the time as ‘a golden brick’. Still, I’m glad it has a homely charm. 😉

*Well, why not? it’s not like I brought up the Ant-Slam ceramic fish I won recently, Or the Great Northern Slam microphone, Or the Apples&Snakes Poetry Boxing belt, Or the Belfast Intercity Slam glass bowl… 😉

What are you working on at the moment?

I don’t have a studio at the moment – haven’t for a few years now – so everyhting I do sculpture-wise is restricted to being small enough to fit on my desk.

I’ve been making some props for the local youth theatre production of His Dark Materials and I amuse myself by gluing stuff together to see what happens (the neighbours cat will never be the same again) I’ve also been working on some small lino-prints and then there’s a bigger project in the pipeline that I can’t say too much about, but it’s working with a local arts group and I’m hoping they’ll allow me to make a full-sized mock-up space cargo transporter. All being well…

What advice would you give the winner of this year’s trophy regarding a) taking care of it b) the best room/setting to display it?

Having won the trophy, the next problem is getting it home in one piece (it’s not that delicate, but it may not withstand being worn as a hat in the dance tent untill 4am) If possible, hire a couple of security guards to stand over it for the Sunday evening and then order a helicopter to airlift it off site and back home.

Once there I’d suggest, if they don’t already have a trophy room, maybe try the traditional pride-of-place on the mantlepiece – somewhere that’s in full view to everyone who comes into the house, so they can marvel at it. Or, for a fee, I can build a wall-mounted, climate controlled, plexi-glass fronted, fully alarmed, trophy cabinet. Get in touch with me via Glastonbury Poetry…

If you wish to be in with a chance to be the owner a beautiful gold unicorn chewing a microphone, the Glastonbury Poetry Slam will take place on Sunday 28th at 5pm at the Poetry&Words tent.

If you wish to sign up for either the Poetry Slam or an Open Mic spot (which takes place Saturday 27th at 12.50pm) come as early as possible to the Poetry&Words tent and approach one of the MC’s to put your name down.

Coming up next…an interview with last year’s Slam winner, Erin Bolens.

Scott 🙂

 

Interview with Helen Johnson – Glastonbury Poetry’s Heart and Soul

I thought it was about time that the true unsung hero of Poetry&Words stepped out of the shadows. She’s the woman who’s poured over thousands of applications over the years, given emerging stars a world stage to perform on, faced abuse by prima donna poets that didn’t make the line up (Don’t you know who I am?!!! How dare you pass me over!!!) and fought mud-soaked technical, emotional, inclement, bureaucratic battles and won. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the stoic, sleep-deprived, possibly currently-lactating high commander of Poetry&Words, Dr. Helen Johnson…

You’ve been running the Poetry&Words tent at Glastonbury since you took over from Pat V T West in 2008. How has it changed in that time?

In her time, Pat would take over a small, empty corner of the Green Fields and transform it into a poetry haven.  She’d take several weeks and a small crew of miracle workers to do so.  When she asked me to take over the reins just before she passed away, I said I’d love to, but couldn’t possibly put in all that pre-festival work on the infrastructure.  With her help, we moved Poetry&Words to our current home in the Theatre and Circus fields.  We now share a tent with Mavericks (late night cabaret), so I don’t have to worry about getting the tent, green room etc set-up weeks before the festival starts.

That’s a great relief, as there’s plenty to worry about with the just programming!  We started off programming just 4½ hours a day with around 20 poets.  Now we’re on non-stop from 11.30-19.00 every day (Friday to Sunday) and we book around 30 poets.  That first year, I had no crew to speak off and was quite literally asleep on my feet Sunday evening.  Since then I have learned the joys of delegating and I now have a crew of around 7 to help make things happen!

It being Glastonbury there are a huge of number of poets and spoken word artists each year applying for a spot at one of the greatest festivals on Earth and I understand this year has had the highest volume of applications (close to 900). What are your criteria for who makes the stage?

That’s a really difficult question!  Obviously we’re looking for amazing poets.  The Festival isn’t an easy gig – There are a hundred other things competing for the audience’s attention at any one time, so our poets need to be great performers as well as great writers.  They need to know how to work an audience; how to grab and keep their attention.  That means we’re looking for experienced, professional artists and definitely not people who are new to the scene; though we’ve had some fantastic up-and-coming poets on the stage over the years.  We also look for a mix of voices, in terms of writing/performance style, poets’ background, subject matter, poetic genre etc.  It’s important for us to have a balanced bill, which showcases a good selection of the rich, wonderful and varied spoken word offerings currently on the scene.

Without naming names, which have been your strangest applications over the years?

We’ve had all sorts!  Last year, there was someone who wanted to come and give a nappy demonstration.  This year, we had several poets who were keen on performing naked – One I could have overlooked, but there was a real trend emerging there!  Then we get a good chunk of applications every year from musicians trying to sneak in under the radar – reading their song lyrics out without musical backing, submitting clips of shows where they introduce their songs with a lot of banter; that kind of thing.  We’ve had so many of them now that I don’t think they really count as strange anymore; but it is rather strange that, with so many different music venues at Glastonbury, musicians are directing their attentions to the poetry stage!

How has the type of poetry performed at the festival changed over time? Has the influence of rap and slam poetry had an influence in the line ups in recent years?

When I first started in 2008 we had a lot of comic poets on the bill, now the balance has shifted more towards serious, hard hitting poetry with a message, though a lot of our poets have a range of serious and funny work in their repertoires.  We did go through a phase of getting lots of rappers applying to perform on the stage.  A highlight for me, rap-wise, would have to be the fantastic Baba Brinkman.  Things seem to have quietened down on that front now however.  One notable trend in recent years has been an increase in poetry-music combos and particularly poetry bands.  I’m sure that artists like Kate Tempest and Dizraeli (both of whom have graced the stage in the past) have played a role in this.  We could probably fill the bill with poetry-music acts now.  A limited ticket allocation and the need for a balanced bill vetoes this though and we tend just to have a handful of acts that bring music into their sets as a dominant influence.  This year, we have Jess Green and the Mischief Thieves, for instance, as well as the inimitable Antipoet who will be opening the stage every day with their poetry pre-show.

As for ‘slam poetry,’ I wrote my PhD thesis on that, so it’s probably best not to get me started.  I have about 100,000 words to offer up on the subject if you’re having trouble sleeping at any point…

I realise your role as manager of the Poetry&Words tent doesn’t allow you a lot time to relax and enjoy the acts, but in the rare moments when you’ve had the opportunity were there any standout performances you’ve seen that have left their mark?

Can I say all of them?  Seriously, with hundreds of amazing poets to choose from, we don’t book anyone who’s less than fantastic!  You’re right that I miss a lot of the in-tent action though.  A lot of my enduring memories have been backstage – John Hegley rehearsing in the green room with Keith Moore; Raymond Antrobus humouring me by reprising a poem I’d caught a brief snippet of when passing through the P&W tent; Hollie McNish, Andreatta Chuma and Pete Hunter performing their segments for the BBC Radio 4 show Glastonbury Poetry Diaries which we recorded in 2010…  I also make the trek up to festival radio Worthy FM’s HQ every year, leading a small gaggle of poets behind me, and we’ve had some really great moments recording poetry for them in the fields.

You’ve seen a lot of young poets who’ve performed at Glastonbury go on to become huge stars in the field of performance poetry and literature. Are there are any who you are especially proud of?

I’m not sure I’d use the word ‘proud,’ as that implies we’re somehow responsible for their achievements, but we have been privileged to book some truly fantastic up and coming poets over the years.  We’ve hosted some particularly strong young performance poets, who’ve come up through the youth spoken word and slam scene, honing their talents on programmes like Slambassadors and in groups like Barbican Young Poets.  By the time we come across them they are already  incredible, strong writers, confident, engaging performers and consummate professionals with a lot of experience performing on the scene. Some names to watch out for this year in that regard are Antosh Wojcik, Megan Beech, Kayo Chingonyi, Charlotte Higgins and Vanessa Kisuule.  We’ve had Antosh and Vanessa along in the past, and the others will be joining us for the first time this year.

Can you share any of your more weirder moments at Glastonbury?

I’ll always remember the first time John Hegley performed with Keith Moore.  Keith plays the double bass and we had to get them and their instruments safely off site after the gig.  I’d tried to organise some kind of transport, but after about an hour of failure on that front, I ended up borrowing a wheelbarrow.  We then proceeded to push this, laden with Keith’s double bass, up a variety of muddy, crowded slopes to the car park!

Have you ever been tempted to persuade Michael or Emily Eavis to sign up for the Poetry Slam?

Michael has been spotted hanging out in the Poetry&Words tent, but I’m not sure how he or Emily would respond if I asked them to join in on stage!  They’d have to be quick anyway, if they wanted to sign up.  The lists for the slam and the open mic fill up really quickly and both are really popular events.  I’m sure some of the lure of the slam is the fact that the winner gets a spot in the following year’s programme, but there’s also the kudos of competing in one of the longest running slams in the country and performing on the same stage as some of the top poets in the UK and beyond.

The running of the Poetry&Words tent is a military operation with a handful of dedicated staff zig-zagging like honey bees trying to keep everything ticking over. I’ve seen how stressful it can get but has there ever been a situation that has completely flummoxed you?

There’s always something. It constantly amazes me that such a vast and complex festival appears to come off so smoothly every year.  Usually, whatever hitches there are stay firmly behind the scenes, but occasionally there’s something that shows front of stage.  Two particular incidents spring to mind: A few years’ ago, we were almost half an hour late oepning on the first morning as we were missing our fire exit signs.  You might think the exits are obvious in a large tent, but Health and Safety rules say we can’t open without the signs, so we had to put the show on hold while we franticly tried to obtain some.  Luckily our intrepid compere, Dreadlockalien, was able to keep our audience entertained outside the tent by rapping into a small PA he just happened to have on hand!  I now keep my own supply of fire exit signs on standby just in case…

The other incident happened last year.  Just as our Friday evening headliners, The Fugitives, were due to take the stage, there was a big thunder storm and all tents were ordered to cut the power to their generators.  The Fugitives are an amazing four piece poetry band from Canada and they were obviously expecting to perform with full amplification.  Luckily they are consummate professionals and took it all in their stride.  They stepped down from the stage, drew the audience close and performed unplugged to an incredibly attentive crowd.  It turned out to be a wonderfully intimate gig in the suddenly quiet setting of Bella’s Field.

Finally, you’re taking this year off and handing over the reins to Benita Johnson, due to the arrival of baby Johnson. What words of wisdom would you give to Benita to cope in your absence? And do you plan to return to Glastonbury next year with young Jake?

Benita’s held me up (sometimes literally!) as I’ve run the stage for the past four years, so I’m not sure there’s much I could say that would surprise her!  Also, she will have a solid crew to rely on in the form of Jack Bird, Joe Sawdon-Smith, Paul Vallis, Jane Yarham and our brilliant sound guys Mark Bothwick and Adrian Keefe.  I guess I’d tell her to rely on their experience and to listen to her own advice to me – roll with the punches, enjoy the highs, remember to take breaks (and eat!) and believe that, ultimately, it will all come together wonderfully, as it always does!

Baby Jake and I are hoping to come to the festival this year just for the Saturday and Sunday, but we will be there in a strictly punters-only capacity.  Next year, we should be back as a whole family, running the P&W stage.  I imagine Jake will be giving the orders!  Talking of which, would anyone like to see my baby photos?  He’s really very cute…

He is. I’ve seen the photos..so many photos. So, future Glastonbury poets – be prepared to be stage-managed by a very serious toddler 😉

More exclusive interviews on the way…

Scott 🙂