Purple Poet Prepares to Perform Political Poetry Perfectly (by sarah)

I'm off to Oxford tonight for The Not The Oxford Literary Festival at the Albion Betnik. This marks the beginning of a hectic and creative few weeks for me.

Tonight I perform political pieces such as my No Wage Slave poem and Shit Creek song.

I decided as part of this I needed to re-dye my hair - it has not come out as purple as I'd hoped but will probably be more purple after a few washes. The lipstick is also not my favourite but was the only decent one I have so far unpacked and I thought it gave a nice contrast. I've added in my festival hat as well it is a festival and here we go!

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.

Higgs Boson Anthology (by sarah)

I thought I would just re-high light this collection of which I am part with my poems Where Are You?

The Higgs Boson Anthology

Here is a spoken version of the poem: