Read! Read! Read!

Here's an extract from a recent issue of the official newsletter of Cardinal Heenan Catholic High School in Meanwood:

The   school   was   privileged   to   stage   one   of   the   events   of   the   Headingley   LitFest when  the  celebrated  author,  Robert  Swindells  read  and   discussed   his   works   with   pupils.   Swindells   is   one   of   Britain’s   most   successful  writers  of fiction  for  young  people... 

Robert   Swindells,   who   was   born   in   Yorkshire,   has   received   numerous   awards for his books for children and young adults. Stone Cold, a favourite  with our  pupils,  won  the  Carnegie  Medal  and  has  been  adapted   for television  by the  BBC.  Generations  of  our  pupils  have  enjoyed  reading   his novels  and they  were  delighted  to  be  given  the  opportunity  to  hear  Mr   Swindells  read extracts  from  his  work.  

They   plied   him   with   questions   about   his   subjects,   his   writing   methods,   his   beliefs   and   his   income!   The   quality   and   variety   of   the   questions   asked  was   impressive.   Pupils   found   his   honest,   entertaining   and   down-to-‐earth   approach   engaging   and   many   of   them   said   that   he   made   them   believe   that  they  could  succeed  as  writers  if  they  put their  minds  to  it...  

We  were  delighted  to  welcome  pupils  and  staff  from  Allerton  High  School   to the  event.  Mr  Swindells  was  moved  and  impressed  by the interest our pupils had shown.

Radish Books attended and provided copies of Mr Swindells' work. Many purchased Stone Cold and left clutching copies which carried a personal message from the author: variants of 'Read! Read! Read!

C. Brown

 

Readathon, anyone?

Peter Spafford performed in the LitFest on 20 March in one of the house events. See the earlier posts to read the report. He has just put this message up on  Headingley Chat:

I`m organising a broadcast literature festival for East Leeds FM (www.elfm.co.uk) called WRITING ON AIR, June 13-17. 

 

For the finale, we're doing an all-night reading of Paul Auster's True Tales of American Life. We're looking for a team of 10-15 people crazy enough to camp out inside the fabulously atmospheric Seacroft Chapel and read through the night in shifts. Plenty of coffee and biscuits provided.

 

At the moment we have a hard core, but we need more! Anyone fancy it?         

  

http://www.peterspafford.co.uk/

Beechey Island

This poem was greatly admired by a number of people at the Let Me Speak event on 22 March. Campion Rollinson has now sent it, and you can read it on Headingley LitFest Originals.

Food for thought

Richard Wilcocks writes:

Food appears to be playing an increasingly important part in the LitFest. We began in a restaurant this year, compliments about the home-made cakes and dainties provided last year were commonplace, and similar praise has been drizzled upon us this time around. Perhaps we should finish in a restaurant as well. Or in a house with a good cook in residence.

This particular house event on Sunday afternoon was so successful that there had to be a repeat performance. Fortunately, the first lot through the door did not scoff everything, and there was plenty of Oyster Bay left to drink, because I was there for the second session. Lis Bertolla and Doug Sandle performed a well thought-out poetry programme, Maria Sandle sang and played guitar, and a couple called The Retrolettes sang and played the ukelele. At one point, Doug played a Jew’s Harp!

There were poems written by Lis and Doug themselves and by the likes of Geoffrey Chaucer, Jonathan Swift, John Keats, Edward Lear and Roger McGough, and occasional ventures into prose, with short extracts from Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Laurie Lee’s Cider with Rosie. Maria was particularly charming with her rendition of Junk Food Junkie, and the Retrolettes brought us Trinidadian sunshine with the Andrews Sisters’ version of Rum and Coca Cola.

The session concluded with Lis’s own beautiful poem After the Poetry Reading. Then it was time for the nosh. We’ll have to do this every Sunday afternoon now.

Words and music melted together

Sheila Chapman writes:

A member of the audience said that The Shire Oak Room at HEART ‘had the enticing atmosphere of a New York Jazz Club’ on Saturday night and thus the stage was set for a very special event .

When I was researching the evening I had checked out reviews of The Fruit Tree Project jazz band  (Dave Evans on keys, Colin Sutton on Bass and Alex Wibrow on drums), and came across this comment:  ‘...they take on grooves and at times semi-free excitement equally to create a thrilling array of sounds’. Not knowing a great deal about jazz I was a bit puzzled by these words, but as the band kicked off the night, playing compositions by Dave Evans, I began to understand exactly what they meant. As one member of the audience (Terry Bridges) commented, they were ‘polished and consummate performers’. They entranced the audience and I, for one, found their array of sounds both thrilling and absorbing.

After a few numbers they were joined by the poet Rommi Smith, who explained that her poems for the night were taken from her pamphlet Mornings and Midnights. These poems are based on the lives of female legends such as Billie Holliday, Bessie Smith and Josephine Baker. They do not seek to tell the biography of these women, because that would demand too much ‘truth’, but rather to illuminate and narrate their lives through the life of Gloria Silver, a mythical diva whose experience and history is the backbone of the book.

Rommi’s collection of mornings and midnights poems is growing. We were treated to some poems from the pamphlet such as: Any Old Death Will Do, ‘...and maggots are the jewels against my skin’,  which explores Gloria’s reaction when she reads her own obituary while still very much alive (apparently something that actually happened to Peggy Lee); and when Bessie Smith Came Face to Face with the Klan ‘... stark white hooded exclamation marks’. We also heard new poems such as Fur Coat, Moonsong Jelly, and Rain  - where the musical rendition of the sound of rain in the intro was restrained, and incredibly evocative.

The poems, whether spoken or sung, were interwoven with the music with power and passion, and true musicality. Some written comments from the audience will tell you what it was like:

Words and music melted together like an ice-cream fruit sundae. But do not be misled as the core is as hard-hitting as a bullet (Glo Simons)

Moving, angry, engaged. The coherence of music & word & song was the best I’ve heard. (Murray Edscer)

Such professionalism in the execution of performance. Such knowledge in the poetry and background itself. (Jane Austwick)

It was a brilliant night. Once again some members of the audience say it all:

A moving and exciting performance ... more please.  (Anon)

Overall, a wonderful & moving performance – very inspiring! (Anon)

What a fantastic combination of the spoken word and fab music. (Bev Robinson)

Rommi so soulful. (Selina)

This event was absolutely outstanding. (Jane Austwick)

An inspiring evening and wonderful to have this on our doorstep! (Anon)

Inspired – a great addition to a literary festival. (Beatrice Schofield)

As Murray Edsecar said: "This was inspirational. ... an entrancing evening."

The Fruit Tree Project: Mornings and Midnights by Rommi Smith is published by Peepal Tree Press, Leeds (2005, 2008)

Ben Okri in Headingley