SLAM!

So, people have been getting stuck into debate about this article.  In “Slam Poetry Does Not Exist: How a movement has been misconstrued as a genre”, the author contends that people have misconstrued a poetical movement into a poetical genre. He contends this for the best part of 2,000 words, and is talking from the perspective of the North American slam scene, but much of what he says can be applied to the British slam scene, though more in some places than others (yay cultural diversity).

And other poets have been getting stuck into this, so I thought I’d give my personal take on it.

I love slams.

I hate slams.

Look...

Slamming got my poetry out from notebooks and onto a stage, where I’ve always felt more comfortable (I was a singer, now I’m a poet, this happens; also - poetry was wickedly badly-taught in my school). I started running a slam in Milton Keynes, which moved onto a mixed-slam-and-open-mic because people wanted to perform but not everyone likes to slam. Getting involved with (and now running) Hammer & Tongue in Cambridge got me exposed to more people, and upped my hosting game immensely.  Competing in (and then judging) the BBC Slam again linked me to performers and promoters I wouldn’t otherwise have met. I have friends I’d never have even met if it wasn’t for slam. I’ve witnessed poets I might never have experienced if it wasn’t for slam. Seeing people get poetry for the first time because they were drawn in by the more universally-understood hook of competition and having them come up afterwards and say “OH MY GOD! POETRY! I NEVER KNEW! WHERE CAN I GET MORE?!” and then running off to read All Of The Internet (Poetry Section) that very night - that’s exciting and humbling in one breath.

I can’t slam myself. It’s too much. I shake and freeze and the explicit judgement (and anticipation of the same) is like physical pain. I don’t care that I’ve done well in them in the past; I only remember the humiliation of doing badly, and the bored/ pitying looks of those who were expecting funny, or political, or just louder, please, louder, we can’t hear you... And there’s a style that’s creeping into (especially big city) slam that’s becoming a bit homogenous - a tickbox, cut-out-theatrical, three minute emotional blackmail personal story with artful gasps to break the flow into lines. It takes inspiration from some of the most beautiful artists out there and clumsily apes it, and it makes me bored, and angry that I’m bored.

We see people performing poems they clearly wrote in order to win slams, not as good performance pieces that fit the timeframe, and that annoys me.  But then, hell, page poetry has its forms where people compress thoughts into a set number of lines, and rhymes, and syllables, and enter those into the relevant competitions. We have people setting out to deliberately fling a string of vague-but-beautiful metaphysical bon-mots at their readers/ listeners. We have people who take easy political potshots for empty applause. EVERY form of poetry... hell, every form of ART has its hackneyed pretenders, and its cynical manipulators.

Recently I’ve seen a series of poets storm slams with brave, meaty, relevant, excellent, vital, original poetry, and the people who won did so with difficult, challenging, viscerally true pieces. Few of them, once you get to a certain level, are “slam”-style poems, and I think for good reason: because people enjoy showmanship, but you need that and the truth to win a poetry crowd. It’s also important to note that - like X-Factor or whatever - it’s not the winning that necessarily gets you gigs, if that’s your aim: a promoter in a crowd may dig your stuff and book you, no matter what the judges say.
 
In short, in my opinion: slam poetry can be a genre/ style, but it is ultimately self-limiting. Slams are bringing people to excellent and exciting art in a way they can understand, and then they can choose whether and how they want to explore performance poetry (we see plenty of people who go from our slams to our open mics and decide to stick with the gentler nights; we also see plenty others “graduate” from trying it out on the open mics to competing the high-octane buzz of slam; and then there are those who like both...!). And I’m starting to lose count of those artists I seen for whom slam has been the platform for them to go on and do great work outside of the slam arena.

Slam can be exciting, and entertaining, and infuriating, and educational, and self-important, and inspirational, and nepotistic, and awe-inspiring, and dull, and connecting, and divisive. Like life. So I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Lucky, really, as tomorrow I'll be running a slam: go to http://htcdecember14.eventbrite.co.uk for more details.

NoNoNaNo (Or: how I will be challenging myself creatively in November 2014.)

Firstly: I will not be taking part in NaPoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). For a variety of reasons, it's not going to happen this year.

Secondly: I will be challenging myself to write something every day. Unlike with NaPoWriMo, I won't be aiming to write 30 brand new pieces during November.  Unlike with NaNoWriMo, I won't be stitching together a set number of words to make an overall product.  It's going to be a weird halfway house between the two with no set numerical goals except to be writing something (either as part of a larger thing, or a complete piece in itself/ themselves) every day.

This could be:

• Poetry
• Short stories
• Bits of the one-hour, solo spoken word show I'm developing (of course I'm developing a one-hour, solo spoken word show - have you met a spoken word artist lately?!)
• Other Stuff

Thirdly: this is where you come in.  I would like to take some commissions, to prevent me from losing momentum/ writing utter crap. I suspect I'll do better stuff if I'm writing for other people.  (Or will I? That'll be fun to discover...)

The options are:

1. Give me a phrase, or a picture, or a place, or something of that ilk - whatever I write must be either inspired by, or about that item;
2. Give me a precise genre (poem (and style within poetry, if appropriate), short story, or Something Else);
3. Give me a person for whom I should be writing this (it can just be you); or
4. Combine two or more of the above.

The rules are:

1. You can't specify length above 20 lines or 750 words (but you can specify length below that, unless the form you've chosen is constrained to a particular length...);
2. If has to be something it's feasible to write in 2-3 days max (and bear in mind that I work full-time, so use your judgement wisely!);
3. You can give me a commission any time between now and 29th November 2014.
4. I have to start it in November 2014 for it to be considered part of the challenge;
5. If I start it, I have to finish it, even if finishing it happens in a date past 30th November (but no later than 31st December 2014); and
6. I am allowed to turn down commissions on the grounds of the feasibility of the above.

The format of the finished product will likely mostly be electronic, though this is something we can talk about. You choose whether this is something I can share with the general public or if it's just for you.

You can submit a commission request by filling in the form here. I'll be blogging (naturally) about it here.

Fourthly: As this is the first year I'm doing this and I've NO IDEA how/ if this will fly, I won't be raising any money from it.  However, if you feel like you'd like to add an extra incentive, please make a donation to either Mind or Cancer Research and let me know about it. Ta! :)

Let's see what November brings...

A Voice for Cambridge

Right, this is it. We're going to be making a title of Cambridge Bard (or "Bard for Cambridge" - still under debate), as part of a mini-festival on Sunday 21st June 2015.

The Bard would stand for the Voice of the People. They would gain their title ("be chaired") after passing trials (all creative! :)).  They would hold their title for (at least) a year and a day, before passing it on to the next successful Bard.

A Bard needs to be: motivated by a passion for words; talented in crafting words (this can be in song or poetry - even in both!); motivated by a passion for representation and broad social justice (take that as you will!) rather than person gain; willing to serve the people who elect them with their talent and passion by taking the voice of the people to those with the power.

Okay.  I've rambled about this before.  Two immediate things:

1. Who wants to be involved in getting this off the ground? We essentially need a committee who can actually do stuff and are reasonably passionate about this concept.

2. Who wants to help me on Sunday (21-Sep-14) at noon by being physically there to support me when I go to Parker's Piece to ritualistically proclaim that this is going to happen...?! :D

April? It must be #NaPoWriMo time...

And this time I'm not in France, or other such shenanigans. Mind you, while this will make the technical act of posting poems to my blog easier, a) I'll be in work; b) I'll have to milk home harder for inspiration!

This year I'm teaming up (in a fairly loose sense!) with a group of six other poets, and we'll be posting to a team blog as well as anywhere else we pester with poetry.

Having, for once, written my first one quite early in the day, I'm tempted by the notion of building up a buffer, as opposed to having to catch up when the inevitable vicissitudes of, you know, actually taking part in life cramp my time and other resources.  Hmm.  Maybe what I'll do is just make sure that, if inspiration's there and I've already hit my target, I don't stop myself, but don't actively seek to get ahead.

(Yes, I'm thinking aloud here - thanks for listening.)

So yeah, go read the Cambridgeshire NaPoWriMo team blog (http://camsnapowrimo.blogspot.co.uk), or check out my solo one (http://fayrobertsnapowrimo.blogspot.co.uk - also includes 2013's efforts) and we'll see you on the other side of the lyrical half-marathon... :)

Yep, April Beckons

And this year I'll be doing <a href="http://fayrobertsnapowrimo.blogspot.com/ target="npwmblogfr">NaPoWriMo</a> again.

I have to confess, April's crept up on me, but I'm at least a little more prepared this year.  Unless, of course, inspiration is a finite resource, in which case I'm buggered...

Thinking of setting up a blog for those of us who want to do this together can post.  Hands up if you're in.

Assemble!

Yesterday I took part in something called "Sunday Assembly". For the uninitiated, this is best described as a humanist celebration of life, where people enjoy a lot of the good things about religious gathering (starting the day with energy and ritual, meeting like-minded people from across the wider local community, listening to good advice about how to live life in a more enriched way, singing together, listening to readings, messages of hope, drinking tea and eating cake, catching up on people's news, getting together for something the whole family can do together, raising awareness of community issues, a brief moment of meditation, etc.) without the bits they don't want (religious doctrine, guilt, being told you're not good enough, strict dress code... Help me out here: I'm not super-religious).

You can find out more about what TSA do here: http://sundayassembly.com/ and plenty of other people have already been writing about the Cambridge angle, as the 40 Days and 40 Nights tour spreads across (parts of) the (English-speaking bits of the) globe - do the Google!

I very much enjoyed the experience. I first met the founders - Pippa Evans and Sanderson Jones - when they'd put a call out for poets for their Edinburgh Fringe Assemblies. A friend tagged me in, I applied, and - almost before I knew it - I was walking into a bingo hall, watching the band warm up and being enveloped in the whirlwind of relentless energy that is Sanderson (in all his big-voiced, 6'6", long-haired, bearded, cult-leader-cliché glory). I did them a couple of standard poems ("Blissful Chance" - greeted mainly with indifference/ incomprehension, and "Swarm" - more enthusiastically handled - if you're interested), sang and clapped with the congregation, watched Arthur Smith deliver a talk, listened to an enthusiastic but scientifically dubious "sermon" by Sanderson, shook hands with randoms, handed out flyers, then changed and went flyering on the Mile. I thought no more about it until Sanderson got in touch, asking if I was free for a Cambridge Assembly meeting. Sadly, I was working, then doing Hammer & Tongue - did he want to come to that after his meeting?

He did, and rocked up to our Final with a networking fervour that was close to terrifying. Several people found themselves agreeing to get involved, including me (it's hard enough to say no to an invitation to perform at a local community gig without it being delivered at super-close quarters by someone resembling a genial Norse god).

Shortly before the gig, I realised that I didn't want to short-change the good Assemblers by just rocking up with something old I'd shoe-horned into "new beginnings" so, at 1:30am, having got back from a gig in London (watching - and dancing to - Dizraeli and the Small Gods), I decided to write a new piece. Since the clocks went back, I technically went to bed at 1:30am...

"Write drunk, edit sober," apparently. For this teetotaller, it appears that "Write while tired and elated, edit while slightly less tired and somewhat less elated" is the equivalent.

I gave them this (and gave them drums to accompany "Swarm" afterwards):

Arise

It starts with a breath
Deep as oceans,
Echoing everywhere,
The prelude to that first cry.

Dry-mouthed,
You are forgetting to remember:
You are a torrent,
The wellspring of everything

Reach out, touch fingertips
With existence,
embrace it,
Toe to toe with the moment

You are the boldness,
The heat in the heartbeat
The spark in the dark
That heralds the flourish of day

You are birdcall
And dewfall
And all that stirs before
Morning

You are thirst,
And its quenching,
You are strong muscles clenching
Before the first step

You are the elegance of
Potential catastrophe
And the forces summoned
To meet it.

And you are not the one
Who slept on
The one who kept
In darkness

You are the sunrise
You are the brightening skies
You are the one
Who opened your eyes.

Open your eyes.

You are the one who
Took breath and raised your voice
You are the billowing echo
Of making a choice.

Stand up,
Reach out, and
Don't stop.
It is a new day.

The whole thing was a properly joyous experience, with the emphasis on the positive (what's great about people) as opposed to negative (what's not about religion - there was none of that). The talk (sustainable lifestyle) was fun and useful and un-preachy, and the band (check out Tiger Blue) were exactly the right kind of awesome.

It was particularly fab to meet old friends afterwards and have some great conversations with them and lovely new folk.

The next one in Cambridge is on 1st December (somewhere!), and you should totally check it out if you like people, sharing joy, and getting your Sunday off to an energising start. You don't even need to be an atheist...

Women's Work

I was asked, back last year, to perform in a show in February 2013 called “Women’s Work” – an all-female line-up of poets, musicians, a dancer, a storyteller, and anything else we could make happen.  It was in aid of the Cambridge Rape Crisis Centre (CRCC) and, as far as I know, our donated time, effort and merchandise raised good money for a good cause.

Alice Nicholls, who organised the original, asked us to come back and, in slightly different company, we are about to do a very similar thing again in the same place, on 1st November at The Fountain, Cambridge.

I posted the following on my Facebook wall a few hours ago:

“Have just finished putting together a creative fanzine of local women’s work with the aim of raising money for CRCC, featuring work by: Alice Nicholls, Ashley Fox, Carla Keen, Cathy Dunbar, Elaine Ewart, Emma Ormond, Hollie McNish poetry, J.S.Watts, Kay Goodridge, Leanne Moden, Netta Chachamu, and Nikki Marrone.

“Special praise and thanks go to: Leanne, for help, support, and co-production; Carla for a remarkable and inspiring cover design; Alice for getting us all together in aid of CRCC in the first place and, of course, to the Centre itself, for all its amazing work.

“You’ll be able to get your own copy at Women’s Work: A Celebration of Female Performers on 1st November at The Fountain Cambridge.”

I was stoked.  Not only had we produced this in record time, but it was rather beautiful, and will hopefully raise another little bit of money for a very worthy cause.  In addition, I’d managed to say “yes” to someone who’d offered to help.  I even delegated tasks and everything (don’t faint!)…  Yes, we’ll make it available online, but only after the “launch” of the physical version on 1^st November.  I’d also broken the back of fear around producing another Allographic anthology (I may go into this at some other point on this blog; who knows…) by just getting on and doing it.  Expect more goodness in the near future.

Anyway, I was then asked (by a friendly, feminist, cis-male friend) on Facebook if there was any justification in having the aforementioned pamphlet raising funds for CRCC featuring only work from female artists (takes action from both sides of an equation to break down inequality, etc.).  Without revealing who this was, and in the interests of keeping everyone informed who’d like to be, opening the debate to anyone who’d like to get engaged with it, here’s the justification (warning: potentially tl;dr):

Firstly, it was meant to be a fund-raising publication of work from the female performers who would be appearing on the night (people seem more likely to donate if they get something back; people like to buy stuff by people they’ve seen; this was a good solution to combine forces rather than providing separate merch so that potential punters had to choose between artists; not everyone on the bill would have merchandise to offer for the donation stall in any case).

But the women from the 1st November gig didn’t respond in sufficient numbers (for a start, not everyone had the right genre of material to go into print) to fill a decent-sized pamphlet, so we expanded it to those who’d been in the previous show, and then to other notable feminists from the local area (Rebel Arts Women’s Radio), etc.

I decided to stick with female contributors for several reasons:

1. It was the original remit as the performers in the show(s) were all female.

I’m not saying that only women can talk about feminism, or sexism, or rape (which involves all genders in all parts of the issue).  Not in the slightest.  However, the CRCC is run by women for women and girls, the night chose to highlight the work of women, and I chose to follow that theme with the accompanying product.

2. The title of the show is “Women’s Work” - producing a pamphlet entitled “Women’s Work” filled with work by women seemed pretty logical.

3. It’s still very much (in fact, more so now than previously) the central tenet of Allographic to provide showcases for “other words, other voices”; since women’s creative work is still, to my mind, under-exposed in many (if not most) fields, I figured that retaining that theme would fit nicely with Allographic’s core position.

4. You know what? Still, and all too often, even strong women get stuck in that “so pleasantly assertive it’s borderline apologetic” mode, so why not positively celebrate the creative work of women rather than just emphasise the nature of victimhood associated with rape, and emphasise not only the fight of feminism against the negative things that happen to women but also in raising the profile of the positive things that women do?  This is something that local homeless charity FLACK does particularly well, for example.

Was the person who opened this debate with me worried about that notion that feminism is seen as anti-men rather than pro-women?  The thing is: to be feminist is to be pro-people; to raise people up who are in a position of being discriminated against is to elevate the whole human race and to improve the lives of those who’ve just been stepped up to as well.  Feminism is a human rights movement while women are still in a worse position than men.  When the lot of women across the globe is as good as that of men, I will no longer need to call myself a feminist, and I’ll hang up my spurs with a smile.

I want the need for “positive discrimination”* to be dead and buried, having done its job and been retired. But, until that halcyon day when 51% of people in the limelight are women, I’m going to keep trying to positively promote the creative work of women, LGBTQI* people, people of colour, disabled people, vulnerably housed people, and anyone else in the margins until I no longer need to.

Have at it, interwebs.


________________

* A friend has just mentioned that “positive discrimination” should more accurately be called “positive action” - I like!