Going to SVP was a bit of an adventure for me. First, it meant bunking off
work early to get the train, then finding somewhere to eat (a great Indian
restaurant near "The Three Cups" which served stale popadoms but
brilliantly spicy curry), and finally, finding "The Three Cups".
In the pub, the crowd - such as it was - were mostly getting ready to watch
England v Argentina - so it was time to "spot the poet". We failed but only
because there were so many "visiting firemen" there that night.
Upstairs at the Three Cups is an intimate room done out in gold wallpaper.
The seats face away from the window and towards a table where the poets do
their thang. The room was comfortably filled and warm by the time everyone
was seated. Occassionally, you could the hear a roar from downstairs as
England scored, or so we had to assume.
The first poet up, Lee Harwood, is a tall, lean figure, grey hair,
blue-eyed with red cheeks; he wore a gorgeous blue shirt and jeans. His set
of approx. 30 minutes, consisted of shortish poems, some of which were
dedicated to friends, dead and o'wise. He spoke in a high pitched, wispy
voice, and at least tried to engage the audience with eye contact. He
didn't make the connection, though: there was the hush of attention which
bespoke concentration of trying to make sense of the poetry rather than
being caught up in the performance. For myself, I didn't like the
performance (emotional colour was lacking with that wispy voice and he
didn't engage me) or the poetry (too arty, too bourgeois - I mean, a
"simple room in Paris"?).
The second poet, Ric Caddel, is short, plump, with brown hair and glasses;
a light blue shirt overhung some form of grey walking trousers. His intro.
was printed on a A4 sheet of paper, and revealed that he was going to
perform 4 pieces straight-thru with only stops for a cough. He was true to
his word. No stops. Not even, as far as I could tell, for line-endings or
verses. He didn't exactly mumble, but it came out as a shapeless ramble,
with little attention to the emotional journey through the poetry. Bits of
the poems were interesting, but nothing stood out - there was something
about politics, bits about something else, but it was all kind of rambly
and disjoint. One section was about(?) the death of his son, but I didn't
feel that this section was anymore special than the rest. His performance
stance was stock-still with, unlike Lee Harwood, no eye-contact with the
audience. Then I noticed that he was being recorded. It brought to mind
Southey, trying to write himself into history with copious amounts of
poetry. His peers seemed to like it, though: after such a marathon session,
there was hearty applause.
On the way home, WAGN managed to lose a train from it's timetable so we had
to wait for a later one. We were entertained by the interest people were
showing in the match even though they weren't directly involved.
Roger
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