Rhythm and Poetry: an evening of Hip Hop in the Purcell Room

Posted on July 22, 2011 by Alex Rowse

The wonderful Yemisi Blake  introduced me to the world of spoken word a couple of years ago, and some of the first poets to draw me in were Kate Tempest, Polarbear and Inua Ellams. Last Thursday they and a handful of incredibly talented poets came together under Inua’s curation to present a night of verse inspired by Hip Hop. Heading up the event was Charlie Dark, possibly the funniest man on the scene. He repeatedly expressed his excitement and disbelief that such an event was happening at the Southbank, a ‘nice venue with flushing toilets’, but its an accolade that it deserves- the sp0ken word is an art form valued as highly as the more traditional events of the Literature festival.

The format was simple: one poem by each poet and then two of their favourite Hip Hop tracks. It made for one of the most explosive evenings I’ve spent at the Southbank as an eclectic audience were united by humour, sorrow and a deep rooted love of music. Every single poet was top notch that night, but here are some of my old favourites.

Charlie Dark’s poem explored how his relationship with Hip Hop evolved when he became a father and found himself turning raps into bedtime stories and standing in the corner of the playground  covertly nodding to beats through headphones. A moment I found poignant was when he noted how the misogyny within the songs he’d always loved did not sit well with having a little daughter.

PolarBear is a Brummie poet who anchors his work in the every day to which we can all relate. As expected, his poem was funny and endearing whilst intensely reminiscent of those awkward teenage experiences that are tucked away under more pleasant memories. He talked about playing spin the bottle with ‘Gemma McBride- she smells like CK1 and flumps’ whilst Biggie Smalls talks in his head.

Kate Tempest came on stage to perform something she ‘just wrote’ that she hoped was ‘ok’ and within minutes the entire audience was on their feet. Her voice is like a storm that I urge you to experience; it gathers you up in its accelerating rhythms and earnest intensity. The perfect ending came with Inua Ellams. Velvet-soft tones balanced the humour that had permeated the event, reminding us of the pure power of words and how they can be manipulated.

Congrats to these guys and the other poets for a memorable night of beauty, fun and Hip Hop.

Roger Robinson

Jacob Sam La-Rose

Warsan Shire

Poetic Pilgrimage

Zena Edwards

Find me on twitter @alexrowse.

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LOVE FEST: AN EVENING WITH LISA APPIGNANESI

Posted on July 18, 2011 by filmaluation

“Everything is about love, and love is about everything.” So begins Lisa Appignanesi.

On Monday 4th July in the Purcell Room, Queen Elizabeth Hall, as part of the Great Thinkers strand, two writers, Lisa Appignanesi and Hanif Kureishi, discussed the former’s new book – All About Love. We were spoiled to have Kureishi as the gentle inquisitor! Did I hear that right? The book is about the lifespan of love. Wow. Who wouldn’t be interested in that?! Appignanesi looked at psychology, philosophy and literature. Not poetry and lyrics, as were too expensive. The remit included falling in love, and sustaining/maintaining love. “Hanif is in the book too.”

Romantic/sexual love is like a form of madness, says Kureishi (from now on ‘K’). Lisa Appignanesi (from now on ‘LA’) responds that it is a delirium, quoting Shakespeare and others. Passion is unruly, irrational, fuelled by unconscious desires. K, “Why would anyone want that?” LA – we find meaning of intensity, and of the body, especially when we’re young. It is personal and cultural/societal, the latter where romance comes from. K, like a devil’s advocate, states that the less you know someone the more you like them. They can fix your problems. LA says that romance was traditionally for women, used for men to civilise them, and make them more attractive. K mentions it is an illusion. LA answers very well, with the idea that we need the illusion so that barriers can be overcome for people to come together. K asks about the attraction of adultery (a theme in his work, Intimacy). LA says there are the forbidden and obstacles and the zing, but it is often short-lived. She talks about us growing up in threes; including in a single parent family, there is the spectre of the third. The third person introduces aliveness into a relationship, re-stimulating youth. K has never been married, is looking forward to it, LA makes it sound appealing [audience laughs]. LA says you can introduce a child to be the third.

LA opines it is hard to talk about love in public. On the page or with another, it’s intimate. K – men don’t talk about love or relationships. L tries to break apart the Mars/Venus paradigm. She is not an evolutionary biologist, and doesn’t believe in stereotyping sexual relations. K asks about other kinds of love – e.g. love for children. LA looks at the manifestations of love. They talk about parenting, identity, expectations, advice columns; the last can be a problem because you don’t live up to expectations. There is also talk about the women (female independence) and gay (permissiveness – you can love the man or woman in the same person) movements being the biggest change to relations. K enquires re the generation above, who seem less tormented by someone better out there for them. LA quotes Balzac, “Domesticity is the great master that kills love”. But there may be less ecstasy, but more pleasures. Writers don’t often admit that they like a routine; and K agrees – writers are very organised.

K questions about scandals in the paper every day, people risk everything. LA answers that celebrities are like our gods, they live out heightened lives. The two then talk about the point of marriage. The history is of property and progeny. In the West, it is love, passion, settled life and progeny; a huge burden of expectation. LA thinks that second marriages tend to be more successful than the first. Why? More settled? Laughter is very important in a relationship. LA wisely suggests that we give power to the other by desiring, by loving. If you worry about how much sex you should have, and what positions, that can kill it.

LA then reads from her book. K states that the people you love are the people that you hate, e.g. child being spanked. LA adds to that; the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. Love is passion. When you fall in love, you fall in love with the “who”, and when you leave it is because of attributes, the “what”. Hate is “who” too. NB/ with dating agencies, you don’t fall in love with attributes. K and LA both rather cutely call each other “the love doctor”.

There was so much to analyse and discuss further I could’ve happily listened for hours more. Lisa Appignanesi is charismatic and articulate, while Hanif Kureishi has a droll wit. I was so fascinated by this perceptive and universal discussion, I bought the book and started reading it immediately. And that hardly ever happens. What a great Festival.

By Hemanth Kissoon

http://www.filmaluation.com

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Meet the Author: Simon Armitage talks to Anita Sethi

Posted on July 15, 2011 by Anita Sethi

By Anita Sethi

www.twitter.com/anitasethi 

An uplifting day of poetry

A huge bouquet of balloons has just been released into the clear blue skies above the Southbank Centre when I meet for a chat with Simon Armitage, who is Artist in Residence at the Southbank where his various projects have included Poetry International; the Lion and Unicorn; Everyone Sang; and Poetry Parnassus. As well as being Professor of Poetry at Sheffield University, the prolific writer also has two books forthcoming over the next year.

Photo by Anita Sethi

On a special day celebrating creativity and freedom through a series of inspiring events called “Everyone Sang”, Simon Armitage gave a powerful reading alongside young members of theLion and the Unicorn project after which the balloons were released, hot-spots of colours floating upwards plastered with poems the young people wrote during a workshop day.  The balloons became tiny specks in the sky and then vanished from sight.

Simon Armitage reads at the balloon launch

During the afternoon, Simon Armitage  has been presenting the film and poetry of young people from refugee backgrounds around themes of peace and freedom, with the young poets reading alongside established poets Joelle Taylor, Karen McCarthy Woolf, Philip Wells and Yemisi Blake.

“The balloon release is a culmination of a project with young people; we’ve been using poetry as a creative process for young people to express themselves”,  explained Armitage.

“They walked into the room thinking it would be all doom and gloom and yet they had a lot of fun and joy. It shows the strength of the human spirit; and it’s about the irrepressible nature of the soul and language itself”

“I also had the idea that, depending which way of the wind was blowing, that the balloons might end up back in the country where the kids are from”. 

Armitage explains how they had to get clearance from air traffic control before the balloon release, but it was worth it, for the uplifting experience.  “It’s the idea of being free and an address to that idea of borders and boundaries”.  

Just as a balloon filling with air, poetry can help people’s confidence grow, the project proved, and help form the identity.

I wonder where the balloons might have floated to by now.  It’s the idea, says Armitage, that they may just drift, or that they may be picked up from a nobody living nowhere, that those poems might just find themselves in the hands of someone whose life might be changed in some small way from the words drifting their way.

Armitage points out that even if your poem might happen to reach all the way to the other side of planet Mars, it’s important as a poet to always retain your voice and write about the things that interest you, whether that voice is colloquial and local or global and symbolic.

Armitage also discusses the idea behind his brainchild, the visionary festival Poetry Parnassus, which will launch next Summer and see poets from all participating nations come together for a week of performances and talks. Click here to find out how to ‘nominate a poet’.

“Parnassus is the mythical home of Orpheus, and we’re trying to recreate those foothills here in the Southbank. The idea is to convene a global coming together of poetry and poets using the Olympics as a convenient device for that.  There’s all kind of reasons it seems to fit, including the whole idea of Olympic values – this will be a non-competitive version of that”.  It is a celebration of poetry as the oldest form of writing. Page image“London is renowned for being an international city”, he continues. “There are people of almost every nationality living in this city”.  Poets from  206 different countries have been invited to the festival.

As well as continuing his explorations into Le Morte D’Arthur, a project which has seen his translations of Sir Gawain and the Green Night being used in a Norton Anthology, Armitage is also working on a book about crossing the Pennine Way, a journey throughout which he would give readings in people’s homes.  “It was absolutely fantastic.  I met some really wonderful people. I was trying to use poetry as a currency.  It would get me from A to B.   I think that readings are part and parcel of the act of being a poet”.

Armitage also comments on the chunks of poetry which can now be found outside the Southbank Centre site.  “There’s something about small chunks of texts that people find uplifting”, he says, since reading them can offer “a little moment of intensity”.  He’s been working on a similar project, “Stanza Stones” through which poems have been etched into the quarries in Marsden.  It’s also “partly about giving something back”.

The most recent acclaimed collection of the prodigiously talented poet is called  Seeing Stars and in beautiful imagery comprises the inspiring idea of looking as far as you can see, and seeing the same old things in different ways.

As I walk through the sunlit day and glance up into the sky for the glimpse of any balloons, it’s certainly been a day of setting the sights far onto distant horizons.  Just as I turn my gaze downwards, a tiny flash of a red balloon floats past the vision then vanishes.

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An evening of poetry with Liz Lochhead

Posted on July 15, 2011 by Anita Sethi

By Anita Sethi

www.twitter.com/anitasethi 

Liz Lochhead was this year named as the national poet of Scotland, or Scots Maker, succeeding Edwin Morgan. This week she gave a brilliant poetry reading followed by a fascinating and far-reading discussion with Jude Kelly, artistic director of the Southbank Centre, exploring topics including poetic vocation, the difference between poetry and art forms such as theatre, and how poetry can bring great pleasure to life.

“There are some people who make the world better and make you sit up and listen”, said Kelly, and one of the ways Lochhead does this is through humour, and it was indeed an evening punctuated with delighted laughter.

It was an evening celebrating the power of the human voice.  Kelly pointed out what a lovely voice Lochhead has, and it was a voice that did indeed hold the audience in the Purcell Room entranced as she read out a selection of her poems. When asked about her development as a poet, the moment she “knew in her belly” she wanted to be a poet, Lochhead described how her granny worked as a maid in an elocutioner’s house so voice has always been of interest.  She takes great pleasure in the act of being able to communicate with a voice. When in love or grief, people turn to poetry, said Lochead, and she believes that poetry should be heard out loud.

“The purpose of art is not to instruct but to delight” – David Mamet

Liz Lochhead described how being the national poet of Scotland had not changed the fact of doing what she believes in, but gave her a greater platform to speak out against issues that concern her, such as library closures, and how poetry is taught in schools.

She called upon this quote from Mamet whilst discussing how the joy of reading poetry should be brought back into schools, rather than students and teachers hating or fearing it.  Poetry should not be a penance but a pleasure, she said.

“That rare, random descent” – Sylvia Plath

Lochhead also shed interesting insight into the mysterious process of creating poetry, quoting Sylvia Plath’s phrase “for that rare, random descent”. Part of the delight in reading Lochhead is the way she plays with language. She spoke of how she enjoys flipping clichés, for example “I wouldn’t like to be in her shoes”, and find ways of refreshing outworn sayings.  Shoes were indeed a theme of the evening, as Lochhead’s silver shoes sparkled before the spotlight.   It was her poetical feet that also stole the show, as Lochead discussed the joy of reading other good poets and being inspired by them and also held the audience captivated with the beguiling poetic feet of her own verse.

“I don’t really believe in standard English”, said Lochhead, saying that to do so would be to condone a “bog-standard English”; instead she celebrates the gloriousness of “living language”, a language she delighted audiences with at the event this week, leaving us with a sense of the thrilling possibilities of that language.


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Romantic Revolution in 1930s England

Posted on July 14, 2011 by timstks

It is the middle of the 1930s and the artistic world is in crisis. Promising abstract artist John Piper has just released his latest piece, a collage made from coloured paper and paint. There is uproar amongst his contemporaries and the arts graduate is branded a traitor. The unthinkable has happened.

The picture is a landscape. And not just any old landscape. It’s a landscape of a British seaside.

John Piper is the hero of Alexandra Harris’ recent book, Romantic Heroes. She spoke at Southbank Centre as part of the 2011 London Literary Festival, to talk about her work which looks into the confused state of English culture during the interwar period.

At a time when the continent was in awe of people like Picasso, England was undergoing it’s own revolution. Artists such as Piper and John Nash were keen to break free from the ties of being labelled as either traditionalists or modernists. Both men set about mixing the artistic forms together, looking at the quaintness of the traditional English landscape through the eyes of a modernist. For many from all quarters of the art world, this was beyond a step too far.

Alexandra Harris with chair Francis Spufford

Yet we learn that this distortion of identity was not being limited to art. Harris covers an incredible range of English society – from literature and photography, to gardening and even cookery – finding evidence of people from all areas of life discovering new ways to look at old England.

She introduces figures like Ralf Handcock, a prominent gardener who liked to build traditional English gardens out of the finest English materials. Except he liked to place them in rather modern places, such as upon the top of the Rockefeller Centre in Manhattan, New York. During it’s creation, Handcock insisted only English materials were used, hence rocks were imported by ship from the Lake District and traditional English trees had to be hoisted by crane on to the roof.

Then there are writers of the period like Virginia Woolf and Evelyn Waugh, both of whom clearly have had a huge impact on Harris. Through books such as The Lighthouse and Brideshead Revisited the authors centred on traditional England, “full of landscape and weather”, but wrote about it in a new and different way.

Even the guidebooks of the time were keen to promote an exciting bold and playful country, providing a new outlook for well-known popular destinations.

Alexandra Harris’ talk is a fascinating insight into a hidden section of English society. She clearly has an incredible passion for the period, getting visibly excited at the mention of characters such as Bill Brandt and Edith Olivier. She has an enormous breadth of knowledge about the time period too, dipping into topics as wide as fascism in farming to books on traditional pie making.

At a time when Southbank Centre is itself looking back at the 1951 Festival of Britain, it seems particularly apt for Harris to be telling us about a similar thing happening in England’s past.

Read more about Alexandra Harris’ Romantic Moderns

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Sketches from London Literature Festival

Posted on July 13, 2011 by Sam Dub

For the duration of the festival artist Beverly Fry has been sketching and painting her way through some of the highlights of the festival. Below are a selection of the beautiful images from her sketchbook.

Anna Selby Introducing Alexander McCall Smith & Alex Clark

Tiffany Tondut, Friday Tonic

Poejazzi & Inspector Sands

Nick Laird, Poetry & Place

Michael Morpurgo

Michael Morpurgo 2

Saison Poetry Library

Kate Clanchy

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Live Review / Anita Sethi reviews “The Post Show Party Show”

Posted on July 12, 2011 by Anita Sethi

The Spirit Level is alive with the sound of music

It was not the hills but the Spirit Level that was alive with the sound of music during an entertaining performance of The Post Show Party Show by turns hilarious and poignant, in which award-winning writer and performance artist Michael Pinchbeck, with his mother and father, recreates the post-show party at which his parents met after an amateur dramatic production of The Sound of Music.  This performance is complete with its own unique interpretations of that classic soundtrack which filled the childhoods of so many.

The Post Show Party Show. Photo by Anita Sethi

“We are renacting this for the first time tonight”, said the father, “We have reanacted it before but not in this way”, and indeed the performance wonderfully brought out the  sense intrinsic in theatre – in contrast to film – that each show is a unique performance. ”I have confidence in confidence itself”,  say the duo, and this is indeed a confident performance.  With only three actors, the intimacy of theatre is used to atmospheric effect as the blood-red lighting creates the sense of a reality bathed in the hues of memory.

There’s a sense that the “post” in the title also refers to the post-modern techniques used to great effect in the show, including the awareness of audience, who are brought in through direct questions to us: “Would you like to see us recreate the postshow party without words?” and “Are you thinking?”.  They stop to reflect upon the progression of the narrative, pausing halfway to consider what has been and what is still to come whilst towards the end it is commented: “we are standing in the wings of the story”.

As the show races through scenes and songs interpreted from the Sound of Music, particularly powerful ones are ‘scene 8, ‘Climb Every Mountain’.  “Follow every rainbow until you find your dream”, sees father racing around son as he clutches his guitar. A synopsis of “The Sound of Music” details the novice young nun Maria arriving at her new employer’s to find tension between the children desperate for their father’s love and attention.

"Climb Every Mountain" scene in The Post Show Party. Photo by Anita Sethi

The actors make comically effective good use of the available props: “Climb every mountain”, for example, sees chairs stacked three high which the son climbs, chairs which are then dismantled and used in a counting game to “do ray me fah”.

“This is a map of the present on the stage of the past” says the son, whose mother Vivienne (Michael’s mother and Tony’s wife) has a cameo speaking part.  There is a gentle nostalgia brought out in the lyrics they select to to sing: ‘somewhere in my youth or childhood I must have done something good”.

In the final act, “So long, farewell”, the intimacy of the show is brought out brilliantly as many of the audience members get a personalized farewell.  The lights dim to leave a single spotlight illuminating a guitar, emphasizing the profound effect music has on memory, music which lingers pleasantly long after this performance is over.

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Casting One Hundred Years of Characters

Posted on July 12, 2011 by timstks

“It was all hell!” For author Alan Hollinghurst, writing the follow-up to his Booker-prize winning novel The Line Of Beauty was clearly not some easy stroll in the park.

The award-winning novelist’s appearance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, as part of the 2011 London Literary Festival, follows the release of his new book A Stranger’s Child. The novel, Hollinghurst’s first for seven years, takes the reader on an enthralling journey covering nearly a century of history, following a large cast of characters as their lives intertwine, fading in and out during the proceedings of the book.

Indeed, the large period of time covered by the novel means no single character from the book’s beginning is alive by the time it ends. This means an enormous number of characters appear during the work, each of them bringing their own intriguing story as the events unfold. The Stranger’s Child manages to achieve this incredibly well and as such it is a joy to hear the writer discuss how he forms such an interesting group of people.

Alan Hollinghurst signing books

From the talk’s outset, it is clear Alan Hollinghurst is not particularly fond of the majority of figures in his book. “I’ve always enjoyed killing people off,” he declares, adding that it was part of the joy of “the novelist’s power”, (probably just to clarify to anyone watching that he only meant death in the most literate of sense).

For Hollinghurst, the people he enjoys writing about most are those he personally likes the least. Dudley, he says, is one character he especially enjoyed creating. Furthermore, he likes to give each person he writes significant flaws, leaving the reader uncertain about their feelings and sympathies towards every character they come across. The novelist is very careful not to give any of his characters – or even the reader – an easy ride.

This method for forming his characters is one Hollinghurst has stuck too throughout his career. When asked about who his favourite was out of all the figures he had created, the author simply states, “I don’t really like any of them much.” Creating disagreeable people is the charm of writing about them, he asserts. Had any of the figures throughout his career actually existed it appears unlikely they would be included on his Christmas card list.

Long queues for Alan Hollinghurst's book signing

It therefore comes as a surprise when Hollinghurst admits that most of the figures he creates have similar interests to him. The author stresses the importance of immersing himself in the world of the character, and allowing “everything [to] follow from that”. For The Stranger’s Child, Hollinghurst highlights the character Paul Bryant, someone he describes as “the most difficult character I have ever tried to write,” because he has completely different interests to those of the author.

For some characters in the book, Hollinghurst found inspiration from real-life figures of the twentieth century. He talks about the character Cecil, someone he based loosely on the English poet Rupert Brooke. Still, he stresses the importance of building these people from imagination rather than sticking too close to reality.

'The Stranger's Child' by Alan Hollinghurst

For Hollinghurst, a large number of historical novels of recent times have been spoiled through too much research, meaning the imagination of the writer is replaced by well-written information. The novelist therefore trusts his own mind when giving a voice to his characters from the different time periods. For example, for Cecil he had to create a large amount of ‘pastiche’ poetry, in a style which could have been written at the start of the twentieth century. This was something he thoroughly enjoyed doing, stating, “I can write bad poetry endlessly!”

Throughout his career, Alan Hollinghurst has created a diverse range of enthralling and intriguing characters. The Stranger’s Child is a book that substantially adds to these. It is now up to the reader to add their own imagination to the people that appear in the story.

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Gilbert & George: Blending Normality and Weirdness in London’s East End

Posted on July 11, 2011 by timstks

It is the second night of the London Literary Festival and the artists Gilbert & George are on the stage of the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Next door in the Purcell Room, the first ever theatrical performance of ‘Sexing The Cherry’ is going on. It does appear the festival is having one of its less literary days.

Yet this is much to the credit of the festival organisers. The event brings an incredibly diverse group of talented people into the area and it is inspirational to hear about their work. An evening with Gilbert & George in particular delivers one full of surprises, even for the most ardent of fans.

For anyone sitting in the hall with no knowledge of the work of Gilbert & George, it would appear that little out of the ordinary is occurring. Just two smartly dressed gentleman in similar brown suits discussing their life’s work. It could quite easily be a pair of sixty-year-old relatives sitting around at a family gathering talking about their years gone past (albeit a family gathering in a very large hall which requires a ticket for entry). Except you don’t generally hear sixty-year-old relatives get quite so excited when they talk about the time they were branded “beasts and sexual perverts”. George in particular seems to relish the chance to say something a little naughty.

“We never do anything that has a point” – Gilbert & George

It is fascinating to hear the pair discuss their work and lives in the East End of London, the area where they have both lived since beginning art courses at St Martins School of Art in the 1960s.

As artists, Gilbert & George are adamant about where they stand. Quite simply, away from everybody else. They are not anti-establishment. They are not rebelling against anything. They are just independent. As George puts it, “the key is to be normal and weird at the same time”. It sounds a rather tricky balance to achieve, especially in a world that is constantly changing.

Yet in a career which has spanned nearly fifty years, the pair do not believe their art has ever changed. It is only everything around them that has. Whilst they have been happy to incorporate new technology in the creation of their work, the subject matter does not alter. Gilbert & George will always be their art.

For example, when asked whether they were happy to use computers to create their work instead of the older photographic methods they started with, George simply state’s “the only thing we miss is the rubber gloves!”

It is clear how important the East End is to the pair both in life and work, and their fondness for the people in the area. At one point, George recalls a story about a newspaper seller in Liverpool Street who they walked past everyday for several decades and would always give them a friendly greeting whenever they saw him. Over the years, age took it’s toll on the newspaper seller and at one point it became clear the man was gravely ill, yet he would always still say hello. Then one day he stopped the pair and told them he wanted to recite a poem that had been passed down through his family. After that, they never saw the newspaper seller again and had to assume he had died.

Reading the poem, George talked about the extraordinary gift this dying man had given them. An example of the diverse range of people who live in the East End and the unexpected things that occur there everyday. The fact that it was a particularly cheeky and rather rude limerick probably helped make it’s mark on the artists too.

This was an evening which featured everything from Gilbert & George’s average day (each day being very regimented and beginning at 5.30am, starting with an hour spent “reading dirty stories”), to the revelation of a new body of work, and even a rendition of their first major piece ‘The Singing Sculptures’. In many ways this was more than just a talk about the artists’ career, but every much as fascinating a performance as the one going on in the room next door.

Filed under: London Literature Festival 2011 | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

Why Boycott Culture?

Posted on July 11, 2011 by brrnrrd

"No heroism, just... basic human decency."

Last night, the motion for the debate was: ‘Cultural boycott can be an effective, indeed morally imperative, political strategy’. Speaking in favour was Omar Barghouti and Seni Seneviratne. Against, Carol Gould and Jonathan Freedland.

(more…)

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