Francesca Beard
My main motivators are wonder, rage and money, in no particular order. Describe yourself in 3 words… Poet, parent, improviser What inspires you? I’m constantly curious and questioning about everything but also mega lazy so it takes a lot to galvanise me into writing about anything – my main motivators are wonder, rage and money,…
Joelle Taylor: Poetry and Protest
How were we to know/ that when we were cleansing/ we were erasing our whole existence – CUNTO, Joelle Taylor My whole life has been a protest, and my body a political placard. My body has also been a battleground and a bar room, a tourist spot and a cemetery, a haunted house and a roadside…
DigiPoets British Council Cultural Exchange
DigiPoets British Council Cultural Exchange: Podcast and Poet Blog Between 19 and 23 March 2019, three artists from Botswana, Mozambique and Zambia visited the UK as part of the British Council’s Southern Africa Arts programme #SouthernAfricaArts. Hamilton Chambela, Kgotla Molefe, and Jordan Lusaka participated in a week of cultural and creative excursions including trips to…
Shagufta K. Iqbal
Shagufta K. Iqbal: In the Spotlight Interview A+S: Describe yourself in 3 words… Deluded. Stubborn. A believer What inspires you? My children, music, Autumn & Spring, tea & cake, walks in the rain; writing is a love. Tell us about your worst ever gig? One where, male poets will walk on to stage and disrupt…
No Word Unspoken: Be bold. Speak out.
No Word Unspoken means be bold, speak out, there is power in what you have to say. Poetry helps us make sense of the world. At weddings we read poetry to celebrate, at funerals it helps us to grieve. Tony Walsh’s This is the Place and Ben Okri’s poem Grenfell Tower, June, 2017 are recent…
Roger Robinson
Roger Robinson: In the Spotlight Interview A+S: Describe yourself in 3 words… RR: Curious, playful and arty A+S: What inspires you? RR: Creative Citizenship, Storytelling, Music A+S: Tell us about your worst ever gig? RR: It was at Express Excess when I was reading a really intense story for 18 mins and at the end…
POETIC THEATRE MAKERS: MEET THE POETS AND THE PROJECT
Banner image left to right: Somalia Seaton, Chris Thorpe, Casey Bailey, Lanaire Aderemi, Adaya Henry, Sujana Upadhyay, Jasmine Gardosi & Chris McLoughlin. “We are excited about how the richness of poetry and the narrative of theatre can work together to tell stories in new ways. The industry needs to enable new creative dialogues – we are…
THE NEED FOR SLAMFRESH IN NEWCASTLE: BY ROWAN MCCABE
Myself and fellow poet Don MacDonald started SlamFresh because we both feel that there are very few opportunities for under 18s to perform at poetry events. Often poetry slams and open mics happen in a pub or a bar, so the only chance young people get to perform their work is in a school setting,…
The Shanachie: Oakley Flanagan
Picking up where my grandmother left off Protest as we know it seems to be a vital & a necessary endeavour in the times in which we live for people to see they are not alone, further debate & instigate change. There is however something seemingly impervious about the singular vision it must require to…
Art as Therapy: Inua Ellams
My earliest memory of creation happened when I was 4/5 years old in Nigeria. I stuck four A4 sheets of paper together, planned an entire city and showed my father. He was so impressed, he gasped. Breath left his body. I caused a genuine physical reaction and he looked at me anew. I started drawing…
PROPER POETRY: CLASS AND SPOKEN WORD BY KIBRIYA MEHRBAN
…one of the reasons it all turned a bit weird was one of those guys saying ‘I don’t ever want to read [on stage] It’s such a vulgar thing to do.’ – Joolz Denby Despite what some people would have you believe, the history of poetry is an oral one, with a tradition going back…
Notes from the Midlands Aliyah Hasinah
Recent research via the Guardian found that £700 million is needed to give northern England (anywhere north of London) the same Arts Council funds and opportunities as those granted to London. The North South divide lives on but that doesn’t mean that all the work done isn’t impactful, it just means we need more and…
THE LIFE CHANGING POWER OF DISABILITY ARTS BY LISETTE AUTON
I am a writer, a poet, an actor and activist, a spoken word performer, a creative practitioner and facilitator, a feminist, a believer in human rights and kindness. I campaign and yell from roof tops. I decried the cuts and austerity which widened and widens the gap between haves and have nots to unassailable suicide…
INDEPENDENT PUBLISHING AND THE SMALL PRESS REVOLUTION BY KIT RAYNE
Poetry has been and still is a revolution. What else but revolution would cause such a drastic shift in a scene? A scene which is putting big name publishers to one side, more and more often choosing instead to support the small press, the independent, the noble amateur poet. My problem with saying revolution is…
Being an Artist in Residence for SPINE 2018: Amina Jama
“When I grow up, I want to be a Superhero Bubble-gum Trapper, and nobody can tell me otherwise” – Year 3 student I have always lived, studied and loved East London. For me, it is the single place on this island that I would ever consider home. I can easily distribute directions, name bus routes…
REDEMPTION SONGS AND ALTERNATIVE ANTHEMS: THE UNSOUND BARRIER BETWEEN POETRY AND MUSIC BY KIBRIYA MEHRBAN
If one of the main objectives of reading and writing poetry is to evoke emotion, then it’s no surprise that it would find a natural bedfellow in music. From bards of old to today’s most popular rappers, the intersections between music and poetry can be seen throughout history. For performance poetry, this is particularly significant….
CROSS DRESSING AND FLUID IDENTITIES: FITTING BY MATT MILLER
For this blog, rather than talk about the creative process of making, I wanted to talk about my experience of exploring cross dressing. It has, in many ways been a slow process of small steps. I remember being in clothes shop, Fatface in about 2014, not long back in Newcastle after graduating from Nottingham University,…
Silence, how to work with Historical texts: Rachel Rose Reid
For the last few months, I’ve been collaborating with a brilliant spoken word artist from Cornwall, whose work is timeless, full of rage, rhyme and satire. Their name is Heldris, and we have to work remotely because they’ve been dead for 700 years. Roman de Silence is Heldris’ epic 13th Century adventure which was lost…
Making a Scene by Kym Deyn
Creating a Spoken Word Community I like to joke sometimes that “Durham University Poetry Slam Team” sounds like an oxymoron. Durham Uni, as the little sibling of Oxford and Cambridge, has the same amount of ambition squashed into its over-priced and falling apart college accommodation and plays host to an inferiority complex I’ve occasionally witnessed…
There’s No Last Place by Sophie Sparham
The simple fact we often forget Success. The word has a different meaning to different people. In the poetry world, success can take shape in a number of different forms. To some people it’s getting up on stage and performing in front of a crowd, to others, it’s releasing their first collection. Some poets are…
Hunting in the Undergrowth: Oakley Flanagan
I came across a piece of social-history by mistake. I’d been researching the history of Battersea for Apples and Snakes’ show Rallying Cry when I discovered that Battersea Park used to be a notorious cruising ground for gay men & even as late as the 90s there were clashes with the queer community & the…
The Shanachie: Oakley Flanagan
Picking up where my grand-mother left off Protest as we know it seems to be a vital & a necessary endeavour in the times in which we live for people to see they are not alone, further debate & instigate change. There is however something seemingly impervious about the singular vision it must require to…
Accessibility and Awareness: Pete Hunter
Pete Hunter, Apples and Snakes’ South East Producer, shares advice to help ensure your spoken word night is inclusive and accessible. Spoken word is, or should be, for everyone. Whether an organiser or a performer, you have the responsibility of taking appropriate steps to make sure that the event is as accessible to as many…
The Power of Music: Aoife Mannix
‘The Walking Shadows’ is the first libretto I’ve ever written. It was performed at St Martin in the Fields on October 30th 2018 alongside Mozart’s Requiem, one of my favourite pieces of music. It was composed byStephen McNeff to mark the hundredth anniversary of the First World War. ‘For me, the sound of the words…
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