Monthly Archive for October, 2009

Alice Lenkiewicz: ‘Men Hate Blondes’. Poems and Drawings

AL-BookCoverAlice Lenkiewicz : Men Hate Blondes
coming soon!

Alice Lenkiewicz’s first collection of poems and drawings, ‘Men Hate Blondes’   ISBN 978-0-9562433-4-8  £8.00
or contact the author for a signed copy poetshideout@yahoo.com

Alice Lenkiewicz’s inaugural collection of poems, Men Hate Blondes, is  a tight exploration of the political as seen through the personal. Her frequent line enjambments, startling images and sometimes deceptively nonsensical-seeming word combinations will make this book a challenge for some readers, but what makes these poems worth reading is the author’s refreshing trust in her audience, that they do not need to be led by the hand.’   Joanne Merriam

‘Alice Lenkiewicz, a modern alchemist, effects the transmutation of lived experience via the intimate crucible of her rare, poetic imagination – informed by an artist’s visual sensibility. ‘  A C Evans

‘Men Hate Blondes is a kind of poetic bildungsroman, it offers up its insights in a savvy use of montage, dreamscapes, cityscapes and fantasias all matched with Lenkiewicz’s dispassionate itinerant observation; this is a refreshing, developing new voice testing out its boundaries in a world still forming and reforming around us.’  Chris Hamilton Emery

http://thesamsmith.webs.com/originalpluscollections.htm#463291876

Nathan Jones – Chapter and Verse PERFORMANCE line-up

Chapter and Verse PERFORMANCE line-up « Poet in Residence at the Bluecoat.

I am delighted to reveal the line-up for my show at the Chapter and Verse Literature Festival.  This is one of the most impressive list of performers I have ever had the pleasure of putting together.

The idea is that I’ll be able to present lots of different takes on what poetry is – for instance, the picture above is of Mark Greenwood beating a chicken to pieces – and what it means to be moved by a performance.  All the acts have revolutionary takes on their attitudes to poetry in performance – it should make for a thrilling night!

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REVOLUTIONS IN FORM

8.00pm – 10.30pm, Sunday 18th October.

Produced by Poet in Residence at the Bluecoat, Nathan Jones, specially for the Chapter & Verse Literature Festival, in partnership with Mercy, Revolutions in Form presents some of the most innovative writer/performers at work today, alongside artistic contemporaries and musicians… Redefining the territory for poetry in performance.

**Poetry & Performance from**
Lorena Rivero De Beer, Mark Greenwood, Kate Tempest, Ross Sutherland, Tim Clare and Nathan Jones

**Music from**
Lizzie Nunnery and guests from the Almanac folk collective

**Projections, Live Visuals & Music from**
Sketchybeast, Sam Meech, Neil Keeting and Markus Soukup

While the world of arts and literature has moved forward in perceptions of itself during the last century – through innovations in forms, definition, technologies and concepts of authorship, ownership and value – the perception of the poem in performance has changed very little since the days of Dada and the Beat ‘happening’.

However, revolutions of considerable ambition have been taking place beneath the hype-radar – typified by a tendency towards interdisciplinary production, re-editing and processing, and a distorting of the roles of performer and audience. Revolutions in Form is a showcase of these culturally important, entertaining and powerful works.

HIGHLIGHTS:

* special sets from Tim Clare and Ross Sutherland, whose work blurs the boundaries between poet, film-maker, animator, musician, lecturer and stand-up comic

* innovative new live-drawing commissions to accompany new poetry performances from poet in residence at the Bluecoat, Nathan Jones

*contemporary and traditional revolution songs from renowned playwright and songstress, Lizzie Nunnery

* an improvisation-based finale contrasting the whirlwind of rebellion and energy that is Kate Tempest against the visceral, unpredictable and often controversial work of Mark Greenwood.

Tickets £5/£3

Poetry news and events for October 2009

Poetry news for October 2009 from Sarah MacLennan of DGPS

* Wednesday 7th October @ 8pm: Dead Good Poets Society Open Floor. 24 slots of 5 mins for you to perform your own poetry. The 3rd Room, Everyman Bistro, Hope Street, Liverpool. £2/£1 pay on the door. A Dead Good welcome guaranteed!

* Thursday 8th October: 10 am – 5 pm National Poetry Day: Liverpool Poetry Marathon. For the 4th year running North End Writers, the creative writing charity serving the people of Liverpool, is holding an all day event on National Poetry Day. We are inviting the people and poets of Merseyside and the North West to come along to The Hornby Room in Liverpool Central Library to celebrate the theme, Heroes & Heroines.

For a reading slot of approximately 5 minutes please contact our organiser, Anna-Maria Parry, who will add you to our list of readers.

If you have a piece of work longer than 5 minutes and want to use this day as a show case please e-mail Anna with a brief outline including reading time and we’ll try and accommodate your work. Or just come to listen to the poetry! Audience members always welcome!Contact: Anna at info@northendwriters.co.uk

* Wednesday 14th October @ 7.30pm – The Return of the Superheroes of Slam. In celebration of Black History Month, Writing on the Wall, in association with Commonword, is hosting the Liverpool heat of the North West ‘Super Heroes of Slam’ competition – the quest for the ultimate ‘slam poet’. This exciting event takes place on at the Casa.
To enter, please contact Madeline Heneghan by email or telephone. There are a few places left but they’re going fast so don’t miss out! Tel: 0151 703 0020Email: info@writingonthewall.org.uk

* Thursday 15th October @ 7.30-8.30pm: Speed Date a Book. For this event, The Reader Organisation is asking you to come along with your favourite book or poem and all the reasons why you love it to see if you can find your perfect reading match. We’re acting as the matchmaker, hosting ‘Speed Date a Book’ to bring together literary lovers to share their favourite reads, meet fellow readers and perhaps find that all important perfect partner, be it in text or human form. Are you able to be there with your favourite read?
Join us in the bar at the Bluecoat, School Lane, Liverpool from 7.30pm, armed with your favourite read (be it poem or novel) and get ready to tell people why it’s so great (and hopefully find a perfect match).

* Sunday 18th October @ 7.30-8.30pm: The Reading Cure: Chapter and Verse at the Bluecoat, School Lane, Liverpool – free!
Join staff from The Reader Organisation for this free clinic, to solve your problems with the help of some of our greatest writers. Are you worried about your job? Are you always getting into relationships with ‘that man’ or ‘that woman’ who’s just no good for you? Are you desperate to share something joyful? Come along to The Reading Cure clinic and discover how fiction really can help reality.

* Wednesday 21st October@ 8pm. Dead Good Poets Society Guest Night: Angela France plus Open Floor.
Born in Cheltenham in 1955, Angela France feels a deep connection to the land and people of Gloucestershire, where she organised and now runs Cheltenham’s only regular live poetry event: “Buzzwords at The Beehive”.
She has had work accepted by a number of magazines including Iota, Acumen, The Frogmore Papers, Rain Dog, Obsessed with Pipework, Orbis and Envoi. Her poems have also appeared in the anthologies The White Car, When Pigs Chew Stones (Ragged Raven Press) and Mind Mutations (Sun Rising Books).
“Angela writes with passion and clarity; here is a meticulous sensuous imagination, richly structured and musical” – Penelope Shuttle

* * * Links * * *

* Chapter and Verse Literature Festival
From Wednesday, 14 October 2009 to Sunday, 18 October 2009: 10:00am – 10:00pm
www.thebluecoat.org.uk

* Sefton Celebrates Writing 2009
http://www.literaturenorthwest.co.uk/event/1444

* Kudos Writing Magazine
http://www.kudoswritingcompetitions.com/

* For literature opportunities – jobs, calls for submissions, competitions

http://www.literaturetraining.com/metadot/index.pl?id=2382

http://www.blankmediacollective.org/news/blankpages/

http://www.writeoutloud.net/public/index.php

SPECIAL EVENT!

A quick plug for a event that has been dear to Dead Good Poets’ hearts in the past. And a message direct from actor, writer and workshop leader Adam McGuigan:
“I am organising a small event to perform/exhibit/share some of the work from Zambia and show a short film documenting the experiences of 15 young Zambians as they travelled to Liverpool, Poland and Ireland for the first time last year. It’s beautifully truthful, innocent and full of fun, with first times on flights, escalators, trains and seeing the sea for the first time.
Since being in Liverpool, I have been joined by one of the Barefeet members from Zambia who has come over to be involved in the Hope Street apprenticeship programme. Mosten will be talking a little about his experiences whilst being here (ranging from being detained at Heathrow to visa problems to short skirts and a growing respect for Simon Cowell).
Please come along after work on Monday 19th October at 5:30pm in the Novas Centre, Greenland Street, Liverpool (bring a friend). It will be a short affair (no more than an hour) and will be a really lovely opportunity for me to share something very special in the middle of Africa and to show what I have been doing for the past 4 years.
It would be great if you could join us for a glass of wine afterwards, and a chance to say ‘twalamonana-see you soon’.”

National Poetry Day Events. 8 Oct 09

National Poetry Day Events. 8 Oct 09 | Liverpool Art and Culture Blog.

Get inspired … at the Walker – Poetry competition

What sort of paintings inspire you? Those with flame-haired Pre-Raphaelite muses or striking 20th century works? National Poetry Day is on Thursday 8 October 2009 and we want you to be involved. Get inspired by a painting at the Walker Art Gallery, write a poem about it and send it to us. We’ll publish a selection of them on the website and pick one winning poem. The winner can choose one poetry book from this selection:

•           ‘Rapture’ by Carol Ann Duffy (hardback)
•           ‘The Mersey Sound’ by Roger McGough, Brian Patten and Adrian Henri (paperback)
•           ‘Andraste’s Hair’ by Eleanor Rees (hardback)

The theme for this year’s National Poetry Day is ‘heroes and heroines’, so we have put together a selection of paintings that we think fit in with this idea on the website. So now it’s your turn to look through our paintings and get inspired!

How to enter:
•           Browse the paintings on the link below and find something that inspires you.
•           Write your poem.
•           Send it to us by Monday 2 November using the online form.

Full details online: http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/online/getinspired.aspx

And at the Bluecoat


Illustration of Nathan Jones

Date: Thursday, 08 October 2009 | 12:00pm – 4:00pm

Location: Various

Ticket Prices: Free
The Bluecoat’s  poet-in-residence explores the Bluecoat’s hidden poetry.
Come and be inspired by the beautiful surroundings.

The Return of the Superheroes of Slam. 14 Oct 09

2009-SHoS

The Return of the Superheroes of Slam

In celebration of Black History Month, Writing on the Wall, in association with Commonword, is hosting the Liverpool heat of the North West ‘Super Heroes of Slam’ competition – the quest for the ultimate ‘slam poet’. This exciting event takes place on 14th October 2009, at 19.30 at the Casa.  Entrants have three minutes to rock or shock the mike.  Judging is by audience response and by guest judges. The host for the night is the legendary Julian Daniel.

The winner of the Liverpool heat will go through to the final in Manchester’s Green Room on 21 October and will compete for cash prizes.

To enter, please contact Madeline by email: info@writingonthewall.org.uk or by telephone Tel: 0151 703 0020

There are a few places left but they’re going fast so don’t miss out!  All ages welcome.

Ticket price £5/£3 concessions on the door.