Poetry Cafe Launch (by sarah)

Yesturday I headed in to Cheltenham to take part in the Poetry Cafe Launch at the Museum and Art Gallery in Cheltenham.

The guest poets where:

Angela France

Who interesting read out a poem called the Bisley Boy which is a local legend which I may nick for my NaNoWriMo this year (more on that later!). This was from her poetry collect called Occupations - I think she's also doing the Literature Festival this year and she runs another poetry things that I've been trying to find out about called Buzz Words.

Brenda Read Brown

This Dudette has been winning slams and actually almost made me cry with her poem about a prisoner from her work in prisons. Her work was mostly humerous though - what I think is termed Slam Poetry - hence winning the slams I assume!

Peter Wyton

I really like Peters poems - he was at Earshot too and I think he did a Stanza Room Only a few years ago. I had a long conversation with him about niche poetry last Thursday which was very helpful for me.

I read Ice and A Picture of Words.

I've read both at Earshot in the past - last time I read A Picture of Words I was accusted by an English teacher asking if she could have a copy of it to work with in class (she also teaches maths). And basically the same thing happened to me last night, resulting in me being on of the last to leave the building.

Outside I tracked down one of the poets I wanted to get Live Journal contacts from as she's moving. Then somehow I ended up reading poetry in the streets as people asked for more of my work and I just happened to have my entire arch lever file full of poetry on me!

I have also discovered I'm a bit odd in having an entire arch level file full of material and I haven't even typed everything up and printed stuff out yet. I haven't written much poetry in the last year but I think I do have enough material to be getting on with anyway.

I'm hoping to get involved in the poetry festival that this is a fore runner of too!

I think it went well especially as Anna told me there had been good feed back about my poems at Earshot. Apparently they are strong - not entirely sure what that means!

I did find I was a little bit paranoid about reading to the 50 poeple in the cafe - more so than the 80 odd I'd read to the week before - these were poet conasers not drunken Freshers and well they're all talking about form and structure and I just sort of smile awkardly and try not to let anyone see my printed sheets - Anna saw them last night and asked had I ment to spell fonetically :/

Earshot Poetry Night (by sarah)

For anyone who's are Cheltenham this evening I'm going to be reading some of my poems at Slaks Comedy Bar on the Bath Street.

The Headliners of the evening are top poetry dudes from Bristol Byron Vincent and Angie Belcher.

I've seen Byron perform before and lets put it this way - its the only time I've ever seen Alaric truelly engaged whilst listening to poetry.

I am a bit nervous as I haven't read anything since like Febuary so feel a bit rusty!

I have selected four poems as requested:

The Break-Up

Summer Sales

Ana

The Markov Chains of Literature

Out of these only The Markov Chains of Literature has been read out at an event by me namely Tech Adventure earlier this year.

Not entirely sure what the secedule is for the night or how many of the four will be read but I will have on my nice red boots (I was going to wear my glittery heels but walking Jean to school has resulted in hurting shins and clicky pelvis so thought better of it - the boots are flat no heels!).

Knitting a Giant Poem (by sarah)

I found this interesting project run by the Poetry Society to knit a giant poem - this is so cool and fits straight into the mixing things, topics, mediums up all together and seeing what you get!

They still need people to knit the blanks squares.

Rainbow Flower Party Platter (by sarah)

Below is the picture of a paint oven that me and Alaric constructed out of tin foil and lamps with the old filiment bulbs in - I have improved it since he went to London and have invoked a fan heater too.

The reason is that I have made this rainbow flower party platter centre piece and want to use it for my friends 40th birthday celebration that is happening on Saturday!

It is made of papier mache and so was a bit soggy it is a lot less soggy now and I'm hoping will hold up during the party - it is going to be a portfolio piece for me as I want to go for guild membership.

Still the result of all this is that Dad has a new best friend called Foil

When I finially get round to it I will put how I made it onto Salaric Craft. I also want to vanish it etc...

Cloud Computing (by sarah)

Being surrounded by geeks and therefore zooming in on key words when on trains or in coffee shops I began to be puzzeled by the term Cloud Computing - it seemed to me that people ment different things when they used this term and recently it has become a buzz word.

I detected three distinct meaning that where never the less interconnected and to some extent nods of how people and businesses now use computers and the internet.

So I painted this picture to represent it.

All three 'cloud computing' meanings banded to and distinct from each other.

I'll be writing a post on what the three definitions are over on Web-Empire at some point too.