'Spoken Word' at City of Leeds School

Sally Bavage writes:
Billed as a ‘competition for young writers and performers’, some of our young poets showed first-night nerves at the second poetry ‘slam’ event rehearsal – but stepping up to the mike under the spotlights, with the warm support of family and friends in the audience soon gave their courage wings.  And they flew. How lovely to see the nerves dissolve when the words started to flow and the mood of the evening willed them to reach inside and find their inner John Cooper Clarke. 

Three rounds of the competition gave each performer the opportunity to select the original poems they had written that reflected differences in topic, range and style.  Pathos, anger, loss, longing, looking back, looking ahead, joy, pain – all here in spades. The commitment and talent in this school shone a beacon on all that is so valuable about the way that poetry allows something deeply-felt to be explored in a medium that is both edgy and safe, that allows explanation not exploitation.  Michael Gove, you’d have to be there to know what you are missing.

“I write to forget the world, I write ‘cos no-one’s listening” - Hyab Bereket, in ‘Don’t know what to write.’

“You can’t take my shine” – and we certainly couldn’t as Ghyraiss M’Poussa rapped in ‘Superboy’.  In ‘Unleashed’ an angry cry of “Do you not see me?” resounded over the whole studio.  A poet as well as co-host of the event with Antonio Bessa in a bravura performance of confidence.  Both made for the stage.

“Shut up and listen to my wise words, Don’t hate,” Ben Brennan told us in ‘What’s the matter’. Later, his ‘One love’ included “The first kiss …I loved every millisecond of it.”   “Just accept that I’m different” he pleaded in ‘Don’t judge me’ before going back to his place on the technical sound team again. 

“A knot inside your tummy like butterflies flying backwards” was part of Shannen Oddy’s ‘Heartbeat fear.’  “I might be at the bottom but I’m still trying” came from ‘Sadness.’ “We can’t recycle life but we can waste it” resonated not only with the audience listening to ‘Life moving’ but also won her the Best Line award from the judges.

“The earth is flashed in lightning” according to Farhan Khan in ‘Nature is revealed.’  A serious young man who averred that “As long as we’re together, I will love you forever” in his version of ‘Love.’ Still serious in ‘The devils are back’ with “I thought I’d be OK but I’m broken into pieces.”

                                                                                                 

Then Antonio performed his first poem, ‘Rhythm’ – “It’s every person’s goal to be perfect; This is who I choose to be.”  ‘Earliest memories’ told us that “Now I am in England but I want to go back to my home, my Africa, that happiness, that belonging.”  Powerful performance, powerful message too.

Louisa Kwofie didn’t need her script at all to tell us about ‘My understanding’ – “Forget the past.  I’m by your side. Live.”  ‘My life’ told her “Mother, I will make you happy, I love you dearly.” 

Tafadzwa Mokgwathi’s ‘Home’ was poignant and included “I lose myself in the memory.  A past lit by the light of a fire” hinted at darker things.  It won her the award of Best Poem from the three judges.

Charlize Engelbracht also contributed to some of the Master of Ceremonies duties before ‘Not to love him’ told us that “He was never mine.  Momma said, Never fall in love with a guy who isn’t ready to worship the ground you walk on.”  My goodness, old heads on young shoulders.  “I love thee, and with thee my heart is anchored”, in ‘My Africa,’ again spoke of the longing for homeland. 

Neelam Chohan took us to the first break with ‘Where’s the love’ – “Love is trust, honesty, no cries, no lies.”  And then she blew us all away singing her cover of Alicia Keys’ ‘Girl on Fire’ – such a powerful voice and we watched as her confidence just soared along with the notes.  Fantastic.

Jade Gilbertson is a more accomplished performance poet, having already worked with Leeds Young Authors.   She found the evening “inspiring” and “a unique experience,” she said when asked.   She also admonished us in ‘Our generation’ to “Tell the world, Peace is in, Violence is out.”

Courtney Morton in ‘Remember’ spoke of “The empty space in the chair”. Rather chilling.

Emma Rose wondered, in ‘Valentine,’ if it was worth it to “Spend all day chafing your feet in high heels.  Get rid of Valentine’s Day. Pointless.” She found ‘Angel of the North’ both a “Rusting massiveness” and a very sad reminder of a broken family.

Finally, Darren Phillip’s ‘Til death do us part’ reminded us in Headingley LitFest 2013: Lives and Loves that “Love is about the heart and the rest power within.”  He won the judges’ hearts and was awarded Best Overall Performance.

We were also richly rewarded by a performance of breakdancing from Shane Fenton and two young colleagues, Beanz and Georgina (an ex-pupil of City of Leeds), who perform as ‘Speak to the Streets’.  They give up their time to encourage youngsters to use dance and celebrating hip-hop as an expression of energy rather than get involved with guns and gangs and knives.  “It’s not where you’re from, it’s where you’re at!  Stay positive and passionate.  Love life.”  Poetry in motion, too, as they defied gravity and the expectations of what a human body can do.   

Thanks to our three judges – June Diamond of Headingley LitFest, Carrie-Ann Merifield from City of Leeds music department and Saji Ahmed from Leeds Young Authors, who finished the night with an original performance poem, Freedom.’   “Poetry in life”, he said, “is not just Shakespeare, good though he is, but it is in songs, books, the world around you.”  Thanks, too, to artist Michelle Scally Clarke for all her weeks of workshops to nurture and encourage the poet in each performer, and to Jonnie Khan (who was part of the sound team on Refugee Boy  at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, on till 30^th March).  What a feast of talents.

Performances in poetry, dance, music, songs.  If whooping was a sport for medallists, then the assembled crowd in the Drama Studio won gold. What a noise!  What a night! 

Leeds Combined Arts Cultural Poetry & Music Evening

Doug Sandle writes:

Leeds Combined arts lived up to its title with a programme that included poetry, song, music and visual art in a multicultural presentation that featured several languages and traditions. The evening was varied but always interesting and engaging, including some exceptional performances of quality and skill that were received with appreciative enthusiasm by a room full audience. IMOWI, (Indian Music On Western Instruments) opened the proceedings with a fusing of background recorded sitar music with live flute and tabla providing an overlay of more western musical forms, which skilfully fused and counterpointed with the sitar background in a meditative and relaxing opening.

Local poet Bill Fitzsimons followed with a rhyming evocation of his Irish background, opening with Dublin Boy that told of his love of words and poetry. His Irish past was evoked in Back Home and in the second half of the evening Teanga Dhύchais, which was read in Irish Gaelic, ironically lamented his frustration in not being proficient in his ‘mother tongue’. His poem Searching was for me the more evocative and powerful of his contributions, perhaps for not being restricted by the constraints of rhyming couplets, but also for its imagery and expressiveness – it ended as follows:

A gang of raucous ravens mock me

from tall trees and my spirit slumps.

There is no revelation here, no mystical

bonding with ancient ghosts – merely

inadequate memory and a longing

for a childhood that was never mine.

Jacqueline Zacharias from York read work from her Poems on the River Ouse, which were powerfully delivered evocations of nature, myth, folk lore and her personal responses to the river. Her strong presentation beautifully captured the moods and nuances of the river and its landscape in a reading in which voice and body combined - her arm and hand moving as if in a dance with the words and the images she brought forth. Her homage to the Ouse climaxed with a powerful incantation of the sublime and darker supernatural forces of the river – an engrossing performance.

Poetry and folk songs from Russia, spanning over 250 years, were sung and recited by Natasha Mwitta that included work by Pushkin, Tsvetajeva and Pasternak. A regular contributor to Combined Arts, Natasha confidently engaged the audience with both Russian and English versions and the poetic tones and cadences of the Russian language were sensitively expressed to perhaps surprise the non Russian speakers in the audience (99%?) with its lyricism.

The ‘unexpected’ happening of the evening were two presentations that included some actual paintings, held aloft by a volunteer, while local artist Lilliane Gosling explained the origins of her subject matter. Drawing upon myths and folk tales from different eras and cultures, Lilliane’s art illustrates and explores the narratives and their symbolic meanings. In a delivery that was assessable but informed, she recounted the fascinating background to each of the pictures displayed. The audience were intrigued as she deconstructed the imagery to reveal their wider cultural meanings and uses, drawing upon feminist analysis as well as the psychology of archetypes. Her painting The Waq Wag Tree, for example illustrates a mariners’ folk tale about a mythical tree that grows women, but which is both beautiful but empty. The artist having used words to inspire her paintings, the paintings are then used for further words by popular local poet Linda Marshall in poetic responses that were presented in her usual sharply crafted and observed manner. For example, Lilliane’s painting of the Waq Waq tree and Linda’s poem are as below:                                                    

Have you heard of the Waq Waq tree?                                                          

Eyes hang off it like berries.

Skulls surround it like fallen fruit.                                 

Once it was a tree of human heads                                 

All speaking at the same time

In convoluted languages.

If someone had stuck an apple

Into each of those mouths,

It still wouldn’t have been an apple tree,

Or a silent tree.

Look at its glittery jewelled colours!

It is the tree of paradise, of earth, of hell.

Its vociferous lips agree

There is only one word for pleasure

And that is pain.

IMOWI having opened the evening were also featured several times elsewhere in the programme.  Maisie Bannister delightfully played the classical guitar featuring Etude 6 by the Cuban guitarist and composer Leo Brouwer. Sam Lewis on the saxophone and John Ball on tabla closed the evening as they played to a background sitar playing Ahir Bhairav, a Hindustani classical raga. The tones of the sitar provided a background like a rippling meandering brook as the saxophone soared, fluttered and swooped above it like a singing bird – it was an exquisite piece to end the evening, skilfully executed.

However, earlier in opening the second half of the presentation, IMOWI had provided perhaps for many the ‘show stopper’ of the evening  – two songs, one from North Africa and the other from Bengal, sung by Vanessa Chuturghoon, accompanied most professionally by guitarist Joe Harris. Both were most beautifully sung, (in Swahili and Bengali), with a haunting and poetic voice that sonorously filled the room with its lingering notes and hypnotic rhythms.

Carol Downing’s Combined Arts evening has become a regular feature of the Headingley LitFest and, as this evening ably demonstrated, their contribution has gone from strength to strength.

If love is the answer, what was the question?

Sally Bavage writes:

Peter Spafford

Peter Spafford  began this evening of words and music with a quick poem that melded the trial lines left on the ancient exhibition typewriters in the Terry family house in York which is now open to the public – yes, that family of chocoholics and no, not produced by monkeys but youngsters more used to computers with cut ‘n’ paste than cutting words.  The final line?  Love life, love chocolate.

Two songs from Peter set the words of George Borrow - a nineteenth century lyrical travel writer - to his own blues-style keyboard accompaniment (Sweet Things) and then Slow Cooker, a more jazzy homage to extracting and savouring life’s flavours at a more gentle pace.

Gloria (Jeffries) was up next with four songs accompanied by guitar.  Leeds Brig by the ‘river of Aire’ was followed by a song inspired by Shakespeare’s line ‘The iron tongue of midnight hath tolled twelve’ from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was about about searching for love.  Other lines from Titania included:

Gloria

The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts

Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,

And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown

An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds

Is, as in mockery, set.

Then as now…

The Sheffield Fox was based on the work of John Clare, the early nineteenth century poet who celebrated rural life, and then finally Song finished a delightful set that explored love of nature through the ages. Gloria varied the tone and the mood expertly, to the warm and appreciative pleasure of the audience.

Matthew Hedley-Stoppard

Poet Matthew Hedley Stoppard took a more light-hearted look at life.  Fresh from a children’s party – we all shuddered for him – and probably still OD-ing on cake, his set of witty ditties was a change of mood.  The Pyramus and Thisbe of Matlock kissed virtually through the plexiglass of a Post Office counter, pensioners long past seduction.  A first house in Leeds felt a bit like a Wendy House to young marrieds who were still settling in to the awe of being grown-ups. Back to Matlock for an ode about what goes on in the parks – and your blogista has been there and could see, from Matthew’s vivid lines, exactly what he meant.  Rioting in London was the scene for a tragedy as a widower saw his home burn down and with it the memories of his wife.  

Other poems included the finding of abandoned crutches in a local park and a new version of Ten Milk Bottles.  Matthew’s poetry is that of observation of the small things that make up life and love – and love of life.  For more of his work, go to http://www.valleypressuk.com/ in May when his latest collection A Family Under Glass will be published. 

Maggi Stratford

Maggi Stratford and Peter dueted four songs, all rather melancholy, mournful and melodic.  A Victorian merchant ship, the Smiling Thru, comes to grief, leaving the wreckage of the boat and the men strewn on the rocks.  Now there’s a metaphor.  L’Eclousier, by Jacques Brel, follows a canal lock-keeper’s life, fishing out the drowned along with other flotsam.  John Anderson, words by Robert Burns, made the older members of the audience smile to hear of life in love in old age, and Love Letters Straight from the Heart was the golden oldie to take us to the interval.

A quick poem from Peter introduced the second half – Not Waving – riffed on young love, then the young We Be Happy  – Alex Rushfirth on keyboard, Francesca (Frankie) Pidgeon on acoustic guitar and vocals, and accompanied this time by Joe Campbell on electric guitar - took to the stage like experienced hands.  The confidence of youth was evident in their three numbers, each with Frankie reminding me of a young Marianne Faithful with that delightfully breathy voice.  All the gentle songs were about love, for, of course, even at that age it can be painful and powerful.  They will be playing again at HEART on 29 June as part of Headingley LitFest’s first Youth Fringe.  Do catch them. You can find out more about them on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/webehappymusic?fref=ts)

We Be Happy

We were moving towards the mellow end of the evening: some pithy poem portraits from Peter about the important things in life for some of the elderly at a lunch club – Best Thing, This is My Life, Time, Bikes – and one that referenced the opening night of this year’s LitFest on Friday 8 March with a look at the conflicts in those of dual Irish/English nationality. Two more ballads from Gloria, three final songs from Peter and Maggi, again with a French theme and we were ready to go home.  Not quite – the final song encouraged audience participation as we sangalonga Bowie, cuecards helpful here, to his single Where Are We Now?

As long as there is sun (repeat)

As long as there is rain (repeat)

As long as there is fire (repeat)

As long as there is me

As long as there is you.

Life and love in a simple refrain.  It may have been Arctic outside, but inside the Heart Centre it was warm and mellow. Thanks to Peter Spafford and friends for making us love life.

Richard Wilcocks adds:
It was exciting to witness the birth of a new collaboration between Leeds's best known chanteuse Maggi Stratford and Peter Spafford on keyboard. Teamed up with the spirit of the brilliant Jacques Brel, they are sure to go far. Having seen Maggi with Encore!! on previous occasions at various venues (including the Howard Assembly Room), I was struck by the ease with which the two of them were able to convey pathos and charm. Bis! 

Maggi et Peter, vous avez créé en nous ces sentiments spéciaux, passionnés, et nous

sommes convaincus que nous étions dans un café de France.

Photos - Richard Wilcocks

Kay Mellor in the New Headingley Club

Kay Mellor in New Headingley Club.   Photo by Richard Wilcocks

Sally Bavage writes:

Tea and homemade cake - the walnut sponge was chosen by our guest - revived the forty or so frozen souls who battled in to the New Headingley Club on Saturday afternoon for a question-and-answer session with our very own heroine, scriptwriter, actress, director - and much more besides.  And Kay's smile and personality would melt the North Pole.  Chutzpah. Pizzazz.  Whatever the word, she has it.

What scripts hasn't Kay written over the past decades!   Theatre first, after her schooldays at West Park School and her degree in Drama from the sadly-missed Bretton Hall.  Each had one inspiring teacher who had recognised her natural writing talent and given her encouragement to “just get it down in writing.” Kay has a perceptive eye for detail, a keen ear for dialogue and an ability to bring people to life so vividly that we can probably all name someone in our own lives who is just like one of her characters.  As she lives very locally, it could indeed be us!  She confessed that she does use her friends, family, those she meets casually, dinner party conversations, what she reads  - all of these as inspiration for her storytelling.  

Her latest story, The Syndicate, series two, had just started on BBC1, and we were treated to some tantalising glimpses of the second episode which hint at what lies in store for the new Lottery-winning characters who work in the lower end of the embattled NHS.  Celebrations of the win are clearly foreshadowed, with some jealousy and heartache to come - but without these it wouldn't be a Kay Mellor script.  She finds people endlessly fascinating and has no desire yet to write her autobiography whilst the ordinary lives of others in extraordinary circumstances provide such rich material.

Unlike series such as Band of Gold, wich she researched with Bradford sex workers, she prepared for this by talking to Lottery winners over the telephone rather than immersing herself deeply in their lives.  She incorporates psychology as well to carry the story and does not write for a particular actor, but does her homework thoroughly then just writes fluently and keeps going.  When asked why she had used the Syndicate theme for a second series, as with other themes on which she has written several series, she made it clear that she stops when she has said what she wanted to say, explored all facets of people's characters and captured the 'Zeitgeist'.  The Syndicate gave her a vehicle to examine the life-changing consequences of rags-to-riches, and the follow-on story holds less interest for her. She is not impelled to write a moral tale, just to tell a tale and pose questions that leave viewers the opportunity to engage with their own viewpoint.

“Would she ever set her stories outside West Yorkshire?”  she was asked. She countered that she knows the area, lives here in Leeds and loves the place and the people.  The theme for this year's LitFest 2013: Lives and Loves in a nutshell.  Would she respond to the blandishments of Steven Spielberg and move to Hollywood? No again, although a small part of her would love to have that power to produce blockbuster film scripts like Richard Curtis - but family and especially the grandchildren exerted a far greater pull than anything Steven could come up with.  We laughed at her anecdotes of being in conversation with the great mogul himself.  Steven?  Steven who?  Sorry, I'm losing signal - I'll call back after my granddaughter has finished in Topshop.  She is now overseeing the two writers working on the US version of The Syndicate and does get to go to Tinseltown rather than Tinshill just occasionally.

Yes, she does receive a huge amount of mail, not just fan mail, but often from viewers who have been so touched by her stories that they send her very personal information, cries for help really.  She does answer them, briefly, and feels privileged that so many trust her with their confessions.  She also had some advice for young writers trying to 'make it.'  “Can you write your story premise in six lines?”  It is the idea that is the most important thing; good writing will only hang from a sound structural base.  

The choice of which actors will deliver the dialogue she has crafted is negotiated with the producer and casting director after she has written the part. Only once did she dislike who had been cast for a leading role and have to go away to re-write to play to the strengths of the actress.  On that early occasion it was an improvement, but it doesn't happen nowadays.  She produces real dialogue, in two columns, so that it can be intercut, interjections made, overlapped, cut off - just as in real life.  Real conversations in other words - just as we could hear in the audience as we were leaving; even from Finlay who at 19 weeks old was probably the youngest member of any of our audiences this year.

And her ambitions for the future?  Well, 'Steven' had suggested she really ought to write and direct movies, but they would have to be about 'her people', the ones she knows and whose voices she can hear.  Perhaps … watch this space?  She is still very busy running a business and ensuring that what she wants to talk about gets transferred to an audience.  When asked, now that she is growing older, if she thought she would write more parts for older people, she agreed - the babyboomers in her own life gave lots of scope for future plotting.  Scriptwriting for the theatre, the television and other media was still a delightful way to earn a living - if Shakespeare did it, then it was good enough for her!

And finally, does she play the Lottery herself?  No, she has enough richness in her life and is happy to follow the maxim of Ian Fleming when he said “It reads better than it lives.” Our audience plunged out into the freezing spring weather, replete with cake, and looking forward to the next instalments of local life, and the life of locals, that Kay can craft.  Will we be in it? - that may be another story!

Trio Literati - Straight from the Heart

Roger McGough in the Howard Assembly Room

Richard Wilcocks writes:

Roger McGough did not disappoint: the capacity audience at the magnificent Howard Assembly Room loved him to bits. As he read from As Far As I Know, adding witty commentary and extra personal narratives, the laughs and murmurs of appreciation came at frequent intervals, in spite of (because of?) the melancholy subject matter – moving poems on growing old, lost youth, love and death. At one point he reminded me of the comedian Paul Merton, not in appearance but in the wordplay, the wit and the ability to see things afresh, from interesting angles. At another point I was struck by the dark cloud I saw looming behind some of the poems, Knock Knock for example:

The man from the murder

Still on the loose

The man from the nightmare

The man from the fear…

…Did I hear someone knock

Who’s that at the door?

Or in Nice Try:

As we speak, they’re out there

Scythes at the ready, playing hide and seek.

Me under a bush, you in the shade

Someone counting to ten, sharpening a blade.

And I amongst many was deeply impressed by Not For Me a Youngman’s Death, an update on possibly his most famous poem of the Sixties, when he was more fast-living and went to all-night parties, Let Me Die a Youngman’s Death. It was suggested by Carol Ann Duffy, and he tells us about what it’s like now:

My nights are rarely unruly.

My days of all-night parties

Are over, well and truly.

No mistresses no red sports cars

No shady deals no gangland bars

No drugs no fags no rock ‘n’ roll

Time alone has taken its toll

Creating a league table of top contemporary poets is likely to be at best contentious, at worst woundingly humiliating, but that is what the poetic powers-that-be did four decades ago. They were connected with Poetry Review, the influential magazine of the Poetry Society, and included the likes of Andrew Motion, our previous poet laureate. Roger McGough, often associated by commentators with The Beatles, popular and famous as a member of The Scaffold with its Lily The Pink and Aintree Iron, a Liverpudlian with working class origins, was put into the ranks of the second division, at the bottom. That’s the problem with popularity – some people think you can’t be profound as well, and that to be clever you have to be arcane. Perhaps it was thought simply that the scousers were getting above themselves.

It rankled with him, and now it comes out in this latest collection. One  poem in it which he did not read – Scorpio – begins with what the popular John Betjeman wrote: ‘Our poems are part of ourselves. They are our children and we do not like them to be made public fools of by strangers’. McGough continues:

...

I will never reveal the names of those strangers,

Fellow poets some of them, and literary critics

Who have made public fools of my children.

They know who they are. Those still alive, that is.

Their names inscribed on the base of a paperweight.

But McGough rises above mere spleen-venting, which is not his style, as anyone who has been charmed by him as the presenter of Radio 4’s Poetry Please well knows. He is, in fact, a bit of a saint, the ‘patron saint of poetry’ in the words of today’s poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, and the wheel has turned: in addition to being a CBE, he is the new President of the Poetry Society. There are certain ironies to savour there.