Take Cover

It’s here! you asked how to pre-order Spectral, so I’ve set up a means to do so on the new Allographic Big Cartel shop. Which means I get to show off the beautiful art that Sa’adiah Khan created for the front cover of the book from Burning Eye.

I knew I wanted Sa’adiah’s art for this project well before I knew that Burning Eye were going to take it. As soon as the concept blossomed, I realised it needed her take on it to bring it further to life. You may know her as a community artist in Cambridge and nearby – she’s dedicated to bringing art to life in tiny, intricate, intimate pieces, and huge murals, broad and bountiful, and one of her most enduringly beautiful pieces is the collaborative mural which still adorns our local Co-op in Chesterton.

Sa’adiah had already provided the artwork for my show The Selkie a few years ago, somehow taking my rambling depictions and turning them into (sometimes eerily accurate in matching my mind’s vision) images to match the narrative, and I was thrilled to manage to book her for this project shortly after Burning Eye confirmed publication. 

With this being a much vaguer conceptualisation, she had to work in innovative ways to pull out what I needed, and, after various colour cut-ups (literally), kaleidoscopic animations, consultations, and very patiently tiffling about with hues and shadows until I was happy, she produced this absolute beauty:

Isn’t it lush?! I can’t wait to see what Clive does with the design, and am looking forward to making badges of it. In the meantime, please enjoy losing yourself in the layers (and, better, head over to Sa’adiah’s website to see more of the gorgeous colours and holistic visions she has to share; you might even find yourself joining in a drawing workshop!).

And, if you’re feeling as though, this close to Christmas, you’d like to support an independent publisher who does a great deal to make the work of performance artists come to life in print form, you could do a lot worse than donating to or buying some work from Burning Eye who, like a lot of artistic platforms, have been severely hit by the Pandemic.

Over on my poetry blog I’m also sharing sneak peeks into artwork I’m producing for certain pieces in the book, so do check those out – I’m hoping to bring new ones out every week from now until launch.

The commercial debate rumbles on...

So, it seems that people on the spoken word scene are still upset about the Nationwide adverts, and the Jeep advert, and presumably the jeans advert and the cheese adverts and the MacDonalds adverts all using poetry/ spoken word to sell product. This seems to be this season’s visit to Buckingham Palace*.

Just now pitching in: Luke Wright with a poem-to-camera in his car on the subject.

There appear to be two viewpoints contending for people’s hearts and minds here.

On the one hand: the notion that using art to promote commercialism is anathema and offensively soulless. The strong feeling that doing this diminishes the form and not only the individual artists involved but all practitioners of the artform.

On the other: the notion that most advertising (and ALL TV advertising) uses art in some way or other (from the music to the animations to the cinematography to the acting to the you-name-it). That art is intrinsically bound up in the commercial, because we live in a capitalist society and people need food to eat, clothe themselves, enjoy permanent shelter. Some selling-out or other is inevitable. There is always compromise.

So where do you draw the line? And that’s a genuine question, artists and non-artists alike: where should we be drawing the line to retain enough dignity (if that’s the word I want) and still pay the bills? Because there’s always someone paying for the art you produce, whether it’s you, your partner(s), your parent(s), your school, your workplace, direct individual customers, or the taxpayers whose money goes into national arts funding, or commercial organisations giving a fee.

Every time I write a poem for #PoetryToGo, I compromise my taste and vision for the requirements of the person holding the fiver (or whatever), whether it’s to rhyme, talk about fluffy bunnies, or turn it around in the timescale they’ve requested. On the other hand, I’d never write a poem for BP, or the Tories. About, yes; on their behalf, no.

What I’m saying, if I’m saying anything, is that there are financial realities and status frailties that drive people (some with more inner conflict than others) to produce art for corporate entities, but them doing so does not - in my opinion - diminish that artform’s ability to enlighten, transform, communicate, be an extraordinary mirror for the human condition. And it does not automatically diminish their previous work or the work they may choose to do in the future.

Luke has said that he hasn’t seen “much of a discussion around this on the live poetry scene” and that he wants to “spark a debate”. By contrast, this is something people seem to be talking about a LOT, in my experience - spoken word artists and their enablers alike. Let’s keep this going - is there a solution, a way of resolving this conflict at the heart of the scene, or are we always going to be divided on this (or merely strung out along the spectrum of NEVER to OF COURSE with a bunch of us in between, and most of us longing for the opportunity to at least be asked, because that might well mean we’ve “made it”)?

_______________

* A few years ago, a bunch of spoken word artists were invited to visit Buckingham Palace to visit the Queen. Most who were asked went, as far as I know. Some refused. EVERYONE - invited or otherwise - had an opinion.

Poetry Sells…?

So, someone opened the debate again today about performance poets “doing” adverts for large organisations. I suspect that this is what they were talking about: http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/nationwide-strips-back-ads-authentic-connection/1408827# At the time when the adverts in question came out, I was very ill, so let a whole bunch of people fulminating about artists “selling out” slide past my eyes without saying anything. But now I’m feeling better...

I have an opinion about this (of course I do). It goes something like this:

Poetry, as an artform, especially performance poetry, is one that is still low-profile and with a real lack of opportunities to make a career in, full-time. Have talent, work hard, get to the stage where people are willing to pay you, promote you, and tell everyone else that you’re excellent, and you’re faced with dilemmas at several turns. These dilemmas apply, I suspect, to pretty much every artform.

Do any job other than your artform and you’re at risk of being accused (even if only tacitly/ in your own head) of not being a “proper” artist, of diluting, of compromising. So how do you follow your creative path, and make enough money to feed, house, clothe, and transport yourself and your dependents, let alone develop yourself as a human?

If someone is willing to offer decent money for your work in a way that will raise your profile and that of your artform, where you’re not asked to compromise yourself by directly advertising the product at hand, I think that’s a good thing, personally. (It’s also worth bearing in mind: Nationwide are not Barclays, or HSBC, or Lloyds (or Monsanto, or Proctor & Gamble, or Nestlé, etc.). They’re not even a bank. On the Evil Corporations Scale, they’re pretty darned low...)

And, as someone who is still not in a position to leave the dayjob (while simultaneously wondering whether not leaving the day job is the thing that is holding me back from just saying “the fuck with it - let’s just go, commit, be awesome!”), and as someone active in promoting the artform more generally, above and beyond my own practice, I’m pleased to see performance poetry given a mainstream platform in a positive way (how many cheesy stereotypes of shit, pretentious performance poetry have we seen portrayed in mainstream media...?), with an admirable diversity of artists, considering they only picked three.

I remember the artsy, talking-heads Barclays adverts made at the turn of the Century, featuring actors who people accused of “selling out” their indie cred, their otherwise edgy images. One of them was Gary Oldman, who openly discussed how he was willing to make the compromise because the money was going to pay for his outreach programme getting children off the street and into community theatre.

Nationwide were going to make money and produce advertising. I’m glad that they decided to produce sensitive, non-exploitative showcases of artists who are ambassadors for my artform. I’m glad they promoted this notion of performance poets as bard, as voices for the nation. I don’t know the other two artists, but one of them is someone whose work (and work ethic, and politics) I admire and support, and I very much hope she got paid well.

Poets used to make their living from patrons, unless they were independently wealthy. Over the years poets have made their living by writing things other than poetry for other people, teaching, or doing other jobs to keep body and awen together. Arts grants are on the decline, commissions aren’t that easy to find, and not everyone has the time, training, or temperament for teaching. I choose to use my non-creative skills to muster a part-time day job to muster stability for the platform under my creative endeavours. I’m still not sure if I want to make 100% of my income from the creative arts, but I won’t denigrate those who sell their poetry to those with the money to pay for it, especially when these modern-day patrons aren’t particularly evil.

What are your thoughts?

Echo Speaks Panegyric

Sing me the chorus of solos
And say true, my brothers and sisters...
These double wicks blister fingers,
A sinister glint in the eye
As we burn -
A pyre, sky-high - sacrifice
To the first Gods of civilisation
Nations crush nations,
Then go home and make oblation
To Apollo's horses -
We let others let the beast out.

We walking mirrors, thinking
That we express our true selves
Are conduits,
Priests of fear-of-failure
Of the terror of success
Of the gift of gesticulation
In the face of the infinite.

We double in time -
Lambs in the train,
Baring our tender necks,
And the goat who leads the way.
Dance, goat, dance.

We are will o' the wisp,
Stepping stones through
The quagmire.
And we will never,
Ever
Be truly seen
Except by the blind eyes of love,
And the faith of our own kind,
Lights in the dusk of a world
That processes its pain
Through these hands,
These eyes and voices,
And then rolls on.