Not The Oxford Literary Festival 2012 (by sarah)

On March 30th I headed to Oxford to read some of my up coming collection Political Converse. Earlier that day I died my hair what was supposed to be purple - it came out not but that didn't matter. I had a weekend then week then month of readings and workshops, it was time to get rid of the four inch roots plus I was nervous and this sort of thing helps me cope and actually go and perform.

Then there was the issue that due to scare mongering there was no fuel to be had so we had which set up a panic but was quickly solved and we were on our way.

We arrived in plenty of time and then spent an hour trying to find somewhere to park - we didn't use the park and ride as our experience with it have not been good and as I'm still struggling with walking we need to be somewhere relatively near the event.

But we arrived in time to catch the end of an interesting session on self publishing and small indie presses. Including a talk from Dennis Hamley who I remembered from my school days! Though this didn't stop me saying that if he ever met my dad and drink was involved - they would never stop discussing the war (as in WWII).

We then had some fantastic music.

And no I don't remember anyones names 🙁 And that goes for the poets too!

This guy had been involved in the UnCut protests and got himself arrested for being in a shop and reading poetry which is menacing behaviour - if I understood it correctly.

This guy is an ex-solider and has PTSD - his poetry was powerful and I also found out that Westminster is trying to make it illegal to help the homeless to get rid of the problem before the Olympics which makes me sick. I shall be looking into that one a bit more - the guy is involved with various charities.

Dan Holloway the organiser and runner of Eight Cuts Gallery.

I'd bought a posse:

And then sang my Shit Creek I was very nervous and struggled to get my voice out - Alaric said it was just quiet at the beginning but I still did it 🙂 I then read my poetry.

More Poets:

The whole thing was run in the loveliest book shop in the world (that I have found so far). The Albion Beatnik in Oxford - it is almost what me and Alaric wanted to ran our Salaric Emporium (books, gifts, tea, think), back in my uni days.

The night ended on a high with much laughter and deep thought. People left to put poetry to the public - stringing it on fences and what nots. We left to grab a veggie kebab and drive back to Gloucestershire.

p.s. my set was similar but not the same as I read at the Art Tournament No Hoax on the Sunday which Alaric videoed.

Sound quality is naff sorry about that!

I Spy… (by sarah)

Last night we went for a walk with the kids, we were playing eye spy - as any parent will know eye spy with kids is always interesting 🙂

We spent ages trying to guess what began with H and falls off of trees and is a seed with spiky bits (we allow glues if you get stuck in eye spy). The answer was of course Haycorns!

Of course - silly mummy and daddy - Jean has had the whole collection of pooh and piglet and all the other random poems read to her several times.

As it is she thought they weren't acorns and they weren't pine cones but those little almost pine cone things you get on some succulent looking spikey trees we see growing in various places.

She showed us one - and yes it does look like a cross between a pine cone and an acorn 🙂 Felt a bit sad to have to tell her they weren't haycorns and that it is just piglet can't say acorn as he's too little.

The game then progressed and Jean began introducing things like 'I spy with my little eye something beginning with COT' the answer to which was Cut Of Twigs. There was also SWNCII - Sky With No Cloud In It.

She then began to get more and more abstract so we changed the game to 20 questions. But Jean tended to just repeatedly ask if the answer was Horace her House Dragon (a series of stories I've written for her).

When me and Alaric got distracted she announced 'You Guys! Come On Focus, we are trying to play a game here'.

So we then ended up playing word association which was lots of fun though had a tendency to end up in loops of characters from various stories or films - namely Mysterious Cities of Gold and Harry Potter.

It was a fun outing though we did have to keep telling Jean she couldn't whack the bushes with her stick as they were peoples fences but then we found a lovely set of park and tree lined lanes to walk through right near our new house!

Bringing Science-Art to All (by sarah)

Science-Art - sponsor me/give me crowd funding have a little read to see what I am upto and what I need money for!

Ok so as many of you know I did a piece of 3D textural science-art for the exhibition In Braille at Centre Arts last year. I have since been asked to do a second piece - but more interactive so I have designed a sound/sensory cave to show through several media the order and structure of nature.

As you can image it contains proper electronics this time (not just the ipod and speakers) which are going to cost me quiet a bit so I am looking for sponsorship in exchange for things like downloads, art prints and the like. The more you sponsor the bigger the gifts.

Also I have been talking to a local gallery about running a Science-Art Exhibition next year (this is a response to my post about National Science and Engineering Week which very few people had actually heard about!).

Now there are several reasons I feel doing this is important and excess funding over and above component costs will go to fund the exhibition and maybe bigger and more far reaching things in future.

The first is that art is art and stimulating and helps creative thought and then there is science-art which helps communicate the glory and wonder of science - showing people it is not a boring and dead subject. Many people feel science and technology is not approachable so I want to make it approachable - less scary but showing concepts using the medium of art.

It is part of communicating science to the general population for - I am not saying the art is science - just a way of showing concepts.

Secondly - if I am doing this - I want to really comunicate it too everybody reguardless so I am very happy to initially be working on a piece with accessiblity in mind.

Thirdly - Science-Art is not really know in the UK, in other countries there are degrees you can take in science illustration and the like. If this art and science combo had been avalible to me I would have probably gone for that. I did look at Art, Archeology and Art History but was told to reapply for a more scientific degree :/

Art as a form of communication is very important especially for engaging the next generation - that was why even during my degree I was writing kids stories to show concepts with pictures and stories. To show investigation and thinking!

So part of this is to get Science-Art out there to inspire the next generation. Anyway there is a video and things and the list of gifts so go look 🙂

A Welsh Poet In Japan (by sarah)

Ok so this Dudette who I keep bumping into at poetry things at Wychwood, The Cheltenham Science Festival (Slam the Atom), Art Tournament and the like is in Japan sharing Welsh culture in the form of a modern telling of traditional welsh stories!

She is from Cardiff (if I remember correctly) which always makes me homesick for ASDAs (long story). Anyway she has some funding for the trip provided by the Japanese but it doesn't cover everything - so she has a site were you can sponsor her (she's called Mab Jones by the way). Here be the site - go and bung it a tenner - there isn't alot of time left to do so! (3 days I think).

Now I have used far too many curvy brackety things that people tell me aren't brackets so I think it is time to stop writing!

The End of NSEW (by sarah)

So we have reached the end of National Science and Engineering Week - I have had fun following things on twitter and the like - but also seriously talking to gallery owners about putting on a Science Art Exhibition for next year.

I would also like to see more local event - I could find nothing in my area - maybe I was looking in the wrong places. We were going to go down to London to join in some stuff there but due to car braking down Alaric couldn't take me and the girls with him to London (he had to go in anyway on the train to replace our servers!).

Another thing is that I hadn't realised how many science poems I have! There are all the ones from this years World Poetry Writing Month challenge for a start - I'd focused on science and nature poetry written from New Scientist and National Geographic prompts.

So next year I plan to release the full Ballads of the Scientifica - book, CD and science art post cards.

Tomorrow will be the last day to get your free down load of what is already there.