Saturday 25 March 2017
Friday 24 March 2017
Poetry at Lawnswood School - with Khadijah Ibrahim
Gail Alvarez writes:
We Are Poets – They Are Poets
Khadijah Ibrahim Photos Richard Wilcocks |
A jazz cafe somewhere in north Leeds. Background music, a medley of Steph's mood
music, greets the patrons who have come to have a serious word. With dramatic intent. Yes, it's the annual poetry event at
Lawnswood School, held in the Drama Studio made over with low lighting and high
ideals to form an intimate venue for poetry performance.
Lawnswood's Year 9 poets perform their own
words, written in classroom workshops with Khadijah Ibrahim over the past
two months. Khadijah founded the Leeds
Young Authors in 2003; you may have seen the film We Are Poets when it was
screened in Leeds a couple of years ago – it was based on the work she
initiated with local young poets who went to America to perform their work.
Widely published, Khadijah both writes and coaches with amazing style and
encouragement.
Some well-know poetry by luminaries such as
Langston Hughes and Sylvia Plath showed the sort of material that the
youngsters had worked with to get them in creative mode. And then they took it and ran with it. Powerful, original, thought-provoking,
building on observation, feeling and teenage dreams.
A monologue on Petit Pois by drama teacher Kate Mitchell dwelt on the petty
life of a disappointed wife whose dreams of a firepit, eating quinoa and going
on a road trip to Memphis had dwindled to a dull life with Derek. He likes the
TV quiet; she turns its commentators' voices up loud as Derek's is stilled by
inhaling peas. Macabre but compelling.
An interval challenged the audience to a
haiku competition – 17 syllables arranged in 5,7,5 formation – and was spiced
up by Basil and his card tricks. Sleight
of hand led to sleight of words as the youngsters performed more of their own
work. Envy, childhood, war, name games,
carnival – it was all here and beautifully performed with barely a note needed
as these poets knew their words, inhabited their poems, spoke with such
confidence.
Khadijah performed some of her own original
writing too: work commissioned for the Leeds Film Festival, ghosts in Jamaica
and some reminiscing about school in the 1980s.
Games, lessons, music, sweets, friends – so evocative of a past these
young poets were living in the present.
Thanks to Richard Wilcocks of the LitFest who worked with Khadijah and a whole class of budding young poets for a couple of months to put the evening together. Thanks to the staff who supported their hard work. And thanks too to the young poets themselves: alphabetically, Adele, Agnieszka, Ahmed, Anna, Beata, Bryony, Charlie, Christopher, Edita, Jackie, Ibrahim, Ivana, Kate, Lewis, Luca, Matis, Noah, Okunola, Olivia, Omuya, Robert, Samantha, Stephen, Zak - with particular commendations for Amelia, Christabel, Isra, Lara, Martha, Nell and Raul.
Finally, last but not least, grateful thanks are due to the Inner North West Area Management Committee, especially the local councillors, who granted us the money to deliver this project.
Audience Comments
The evening was
very good, the acts were very well thought out.
The setting was one of my favourites about the night.
The night was
great. We all had an opportunity to show
off our talents.
How lovely to
see young people performing their own work with such confidence and style. Well done Khadijah.
What a lovely
evening. A real mix of styles and
performers
The room setting
was warm, welcoming, cosy – and a brilliant young person playing the keyboard as we came in. The young people had
worked with Khadijah Ibrahim and very confidently spoke about the inspiration
for their poems which they then performed with a professional flair. Audience participation was great and a
monologue inspired by Alan Bennett was amazing.
Khadijah was brilliant, showed her creative talent and encouraged and
inspired the young poets. An excellent event.
Beautifully
hosted event. Great to see the fruition
of sessions building towards a performance.
Some beautiful poems. Great event
to build confidence with the children presenting their own poems.
Great.
Very good poems
by the pupils and teachers at the school.
This was the first time I had been to the school to see the students
perform and I was quite impressed. I
particularly thought it was nice that there was a magician going round at the
interval.
Wednesday 22 March 2017
Creative Edge
Two local WEA creative writing groups joined forces to present their
work around this year's LitFest theme of 'Edge' at the Heart Centre in
Headingley. We were delighted that the
WEA sponsored the venue, and LitFest volunteers cooked up a storm of cakes.
Food for the body sorted, we were then treated to food for the soul with
collections of work by local writers.
First up were the Headingey group, tutored by Alison Taft, most
recently the chair of the judges for last Saturday's LitFest event 'Pitch and
Pen' as well as LitFest's last Writer in Residence. A collection entitled Voices from the Edge
included poems (prose and rhyming), tales,stories, extracts and enticing
snippets that covered many topics. Some were mournful, some elegiac, some
witty, some sad. And saddest of all was
the poem 'Tribute to Michael' who passed away this year and who has written for
the LitFest every year since our first event in 2011. Michael was always entertaining – he rocked a
mean Hawaiian shirt covered in red chillies the year we explored Food -
thoughtful and helpful to the end.
The out-of-town bookshop customer reading with his coffee – 'Postcards
from the Edge' of course. The young
woman on the edge of getting married – or was she? Homeless, alien, alienating. The short but sadly not sweet tale of a
hedgehog at the roadside. A library as refuge for someone without roots for
whom it is a good place to write poetry, because “poems make you exist again.” A sci-fi dystopia where a treasured memory of
'dancefloor dirty' shoes will be a reminder of loss. The tale of the snail and the caterpillar was
not for children, but a moral tale for our times, involving a faithless wife
who ran off (very, very slowly) and short-term temporary housing plans by a
cocooned caterpillar. Families, those on the edge of dementia or insanity
(monkeys of madness chattering in the jungle of my mind), Delhi inhabitants who
literally live on the pavement's edge. Poems so imaginative you could see
daybreak in Dingle, a town on the 'lip of the land'. We could feel the ruffled
feathers of the golden eagle soaring
over a war zone. You could hear the 'silence that is overwhelming' in the Lake
District. The despair of the abuse victim was palpable. Strong stuff, edgy in
every way. Something to remain in your
dreams.
Osmondthorpe Hub Creative Writers |
Replete with cake and coffee, back for the first of two groups of the
Omondthorpe Hub creative writers.
Tutored by Maria Stephenson, they have been working on their pieces for
some time. The nerves, pleasure and anticipation were all there.as they gave us
a selection of poems that reflected their studies of Shakespeare, a poet
and playwright who they felt definitely had an Edge in his writings and his
colourful life. “He was a Romeo of his
time and liked a drink or five”. Married
at 18, dead by 53, but ”he would make a
huge difference in the future.” Quite.
Time is measuring moments, it is precious. Though perhaps less so to
our William, who “lived it so carefree”. He wrote many comedies – and his words
still speak to us today as “his humour never ends”. Tragedies too, sonnets and histories
too. And a history of the life of one of
our poets encompassed all these. Other
spoke of love and the universal longing for it, of history and its affect on
the future, or the language that WS created that still lives on in puking, rant
and savagery – Headingley on a weekend night!
A present plea to “Remember the spirit of who I am and drink to the
memory of the man” conjures up the past too.
We were reminded that Shakespeare says “You must seize the day”, a good
ending to the first section.
All home-made |
The second group from Osmondthorpe gave us a short play, a modern
version of Romeo and Juliet,but with a twist.
Written with a nod to the Shakespearian form: “I hear that the Capulet
girl is a fair maiden”, it updates both the language and the social customs:
“But I don't want a husband – I don't want to spend my life picking up some
man's smelly hose.” There is a
Newsreader and a Narrator too, as well as your traditional characters. And a Happy Ending. Cheers and applause all round. Funny, fast-paced, entertaining – just as
Shakespeare would have wanted.
As Hamlet said, “We know what we are, but
know not what we may be”
True of our writers too, whose writing gets stronger every year as they
find their voices. Now that really is Edgy.
Sue Heath writes:
Sue Heath writes:
Thanks to all the Headingley writers whose words we savoured: Cate Anderson, Howard Benn, Karen Byrne, Janet Fawdington, Nuala |Fernand, Liam Fitzsimmons, Alan Harding, Malcolm Henshall, Humaira Khan, Dru Long, Myrna Moore, Rutta Ozols-Riding and Marie-Paule Sheard.
Thanks, too, to all the Osmondthorpe writers whose work we enjoyed: Group 1: Gaynor Chilvers, Lisa Daniel, Carl Flynn, Mandy Hudson, Paul Jeffrey, Jenny Ruddock and Robert Thorpe
Group 2: l Malcolm Banks, Paul Bugler, Julie Conroy, Julie Fisher, Sue Heath, Jane Moody, Pam Robinson, Lee Rowley and Winston Whiteley.
Finally, huge thanks to the staff from Osmondthorpe who give over and above to help make the event so successful: David Fletcher, Gavin Johnson, Anita and Claire. Thanks too to Hazel Kilner, who was unable to be with us at the event but who put in so much hard work behind the scenes.
Audience Comments
Very thought-provoking performances, particularly the readings about
homelessness. Topical and all indicative
of the times we live in. Thankfully, as
far as I could tell, no mention of Trump or Brexit!
Excellent. Very enjoyable and
moving.
Interesting points of view, varied.
Always a pleasure.
Very creative excellent performances by all – well read by all. Brilliant work by Osmondthorpe group –
performers and staff.
What a fantastic event. The work
of the Headingley group was excellent but the Osmondthorpe group took it to
another level. Brilliant work by the
Osmondthorpe staff!
Very good music to entertain people as they were coming in and at the
interval. Very good entertainment by
both groups as usual but I particularly like the performance by the
Osmondthorpe Hub group.
Wonderful opening – funny and engaging. 'Dancefloor dirty' – what an
enchanting phrase. Impressive range of
writing styles , moving and evocative.
Fantastic performances and pieces of work from Osmondthorpe. Highlight of the Festival.
I found the event quite one of inspiration, both from the content and
the obvious amount of work that had been put into its preparation. The obvious enjoyment and fulfilment of the
particpants also shows the trouble and thought put in to it.
It was great, truly inspirational.
Cakes very scrumptious too.
Writing could be larger on screen for those (like me) whose sight is not
so good.
A wide range of work. Everything
went really well. Great to be involved
and wonderful to share work.
A most enjoyable event – a big thank you to everyone involved. Will look forward to future such events.
Always a great pleasure and inspiration. Long may it continue.
All the pieces of work excellent and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Many heartfelt poems. Gets you
to think about your own life from different perspectives. Makes me thankful too. Some pieces with such intensity!
Very enjoyable – especially enjoyed the snail poem. Very suitable venue. Great to see what Jenny and Julie do at
Osmondthorpe.
Pre-performance music was excellent.
An amazing array of talent in one room.
A really enjoyable couple of hours.
Very creative and enjoyable – diverse, excellent readings. Both groups were inspiring.
Found the event imspiring with na lot of variations on the
readings. Think it might be the design
of the room but was noisy at the beginning without consideration for the reader.
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