Stroud Site Festival Slam and Career-ness (by sarah)

Friday saw me in Stroud for my frist ever poetry slam - and I was so nervous. It was part of the Stroud Site Festival and was run by Marcus Moore and Sara-Jane Arbury.

Over the last few years I have done quiet alot of poetry readings including some performance stuff but not a slam. Not a situation where I felt I had to have the poem memorised. I did a Flash Fiction Slam in Oxford about two weeks ago but again I was reading from sheets of paper. My mother keeps saying it's the same as when I did acting but I was mostly back ground people and had a few words or sentences punctuated by other people which acted as prompts.

As a result I performed No Wage Slave as that was the one I am the strongest with having performed it so much recently. I also now have I Hate Race Week and Hopscotch (most the time) memorised. I am working on memorising more.

On top of that I've been looking at Science Communication courses but then found myself being asked if I could come in and give a talk to scientists about using art and crafts to help with thought patterns and communication. So am re-thinking this especially as there are only burseries for doing it full time which would defeat it being part of what I have already built up.

As it is I am pretty much booked up for the summer and now have a couple of events already in the calendar for the Autumn.

I am trying to learn to drive mainly as my main limitation at the moment is how to get home from performances and events etc... I would love to do more stage stuff, maybe some TV and radio too. Which was part of why I was looking at the Science Communication courses - its the work placements and the science writing I would like.

Not sure if I told everyone I now have a home page / hub for my various websites - it is not all that good at the moment but I am getting little time to work on it at the mo!

Also I now only need £15 for the sensory cave to be built but I am running out of time! So please sponsor me there are lots of fab things I am willing to send people who back my project and extra money goes towards a science-art exhibition in March next year that I am organising with a local art gallery.

Shy (by sarah)

Monday mornings are my child free time so that is when the main creativity activity occurs - this isn't the most creative time but more the time in which I can complete projects and bring ideas finally to bear fruit.

Yesterday I recorded what I envision as a sound track to a shot visual video - it is my first ever hammond organ piece of music and I have been working on it for weeks! Then there is my poem shy.

Alaric is chuffed with it as it means his prediction about what would happen if we got the organ has come to pass! He also says the effect is very surreal.

I can't get the embed to work at the moment so here is the link.

Cheltenham Poetry Festival 2012 (by sarah)

Last week saw the Cheltenham Poetry Festival.

I started off by going to see Domestic Cherry - so funny. It was Michael Scott and Hilda Sheechan in the personas of a Swidon Chav and a hyper kitch Housewife.

The I headed out to dinner with one of the stewards and then onto Slak Bar to see Mab Jones and her Welsh Rare Bits - these guys are amazing! Laughter until tears stream down your face. Unfortunatly I had to leave this event early due to illness.

The next morning saw me up bright and early and sitting in The Muffin Man sipping tea awaiting to share my poetry. I was part of the Poetry Cafe Showcase.

I then stayed on to watch The Stroud Pamphlet Poets.

Then I headed over to Waterstones to watch various poets there

Leeum did like a 20 minute show from memory that had the audience reeling (or in one case wanting to give him a hug).

The next day I had a workshop to run - the Monster Writing Game - it was supposed to be at The Brewery but the weather was just too bad so it was moved to Waterstones.

We stuck around for a Jean to take part in Joy-Amy Wigman's childrens workshop - also on monster 🙂

We stayed on for the Childrens Poetry showcase with Francis Axon - Jeany loves her poetry which she had heard at Christmas in the Brewery. The other poet unfortunatly couldn't attend so I ended up performing some of my childrens poems.

The next day saw me back out early for more childrens workshops - this time it was The Poetry Bees and Their Story Tree. My poor Dad had to walk through Cheltenham with a giant papier mache purple tree - only happens to people who know me 🙂

I then got ready for Occupy Poetry - the last night poetry party bonanza.

Alaric was once more forced to listen to poetry - but this time he had company 🙂

I took arty shots

Then the comedy started with Julie Psycho Jones and Josh plus the performance Poet Ash.

It was a brilliant but exhusting week and I wish I'd gotten to see more.

Monster Creation (by sarah)

I have made a short film about the creation of the Muse Monsters from my Monster Writing Game - they turn out to have a complex belief system - some of which is portrayed in this video. Also I like the effect I got with a bamboo flute I picked up a few years ago.

Video is up under Creative Commons Attribution which means as long as you say where you got the material from you can use it in your own creations 🙂

Communion Book Launch (by sarah)

Monday saw me and Alaric in a Chapel within the Campus of the University of Gloucestershire. We were going to the book launch of Communion a beautiful work of stark images and deeply bleak words.

My friend Anna Saunders had written those words and as always her work was hard hitting and brought forth those sirens of the id. The chapel was atmospheric set out with candles.

We watched a short film of the images and word with haunting music permeating the wonderful acoustics of the building. Then Anna read some of the poems from the book plus some new ones from a work in progress with the same artist.

The Artist Suze Adams images were the perfect accompaniment to Anna's words.

Here is my very poor photography of Anna reading

This was all followed by wine and a piano accordian player who's name I sadly can't remember.

Alaric as always sat stoically through the whole thing.

You can see larger images by clicking on the photos - I apologies the light levels were obviously very low and I'm still running with a cheap happy snappy!