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Forgive me cross-posting (I'm largely repeating Faecebök posts I am afraid)
On Wednesday, November 23rd, I am a part of
the line-up (roster? panel?) of Capital Letters
in the Chapel at St
Margaret's House, 21 Old Ford Road, Bethnal Green E29PL,
with Adam Bohman and Iris Colomb. The format for this event, if
you don't know, is to mix poetry with discussion - half reading,
half being prepared to talk about one's poetry - which thanks to
Jonathan Mann's open and enthusiastic chairing, works
tremendously well. Timing is 6.50 to 9 (strict cut off!) - the
place is easily found - out of Bethnal Green tube, past the
Museum of Childhood, take first right, and across the road,
past the big between the wars York Hall, is a run of big old
houses, one of which has a very nice veggie cafe on its ground
floor. Enter. There will be the sort of shady looking persons
such as yourself and myself who attend poetry events - you'll
know them. If you're late, carry on through cafe, into
courtyard, and at the end of that is an Edwardian mission chapel
.
I'll be reading mainly work in progress –
the
current month from “Telling the Beads”. This operates like a
religious almanac
(inspired by Brecht’s “Die Hauspostille”), with an initial piece
for each
month, followed by poems and/or prose for specific days (you
know, like “The
Day of the Annual Painting of the Wheelbarrow”, or “The Day to
Arrange a Visit
to the Opticians”. Those sorts of days.) There’s a general Dark
Age taste to
the prose (largely done through artificial flavours): the
missing adventures of
the famous heroes Unwin, Wade and Wayland, or what the Gewisse
really got up
to, is some of it. And there’s always the weather of course. The
odd bit of
current affairs. Like Old Moore’s Almanack, but much more
serious.
I’ll extol my fellow performers next, as they
may not be known to all. First, Adam Bohman is primarily known
as a musician,
involved in improvisation both of performance and material. He
is a member of
Morphogenesis, and several other groupings, and
performs/records solo also.
Language, lo-fi, low intensity, words as they find themselves
are a major part
of his repertoire here. It is gloriously enjoyable, funny,
accurate, both
personal and situated within all our lives. Check out the two
“Music and Words”
albums on adambohman.bandcamp.com.
He’s also had an exhibition of collages and
other visual works at Café Oto.
Iris Colomb is very creatively active across
a wide front,
which can be summed up as “intermedia” – in her case between art
& design,
performance (very widely, relating to both sound and art) and
poetry. She likes
to use that term (oh so 60s, in a good way) “experimental”, and
means it and
practices it. Now working at By Other Means,
gallery/venue based in The Tram
Depot, Upper Clapton Road, a current project there is Despite
Words: Telharmonium
Mk.IV on November 25 – “we are inviting you to perform
with an improvised,
repurposed or home-made instrument of your own –lets make some
beautiful/awful
noise!” And simply as a read-out-the-words poet she is pretty
good and worth
attending to.
I fear I'm going to be the boring old derriere-garde bloke what reads some things what he wrote down once. But they're very good.
best wishes
Peter Philpott