It’s Really Rock 'n' Roll and I Like It

Saturday 19th May 2012

It’s Really Rock 'n' Roll and I Like It

My only recollections of poetry from childhood are a primary school lesson in which I was asked to compose a limerick - using my own name in the first line - rhyming Stephen with pen, or hen or den  - and the phrase ‘drunk with fatigue’ from Wilfred Owen’s ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ from one afternoon in my early teens at Blackfyne Comprehensive.

   I was a dreamer and always wanted to be in a rock group, but couldn’t sing and never learnt to play an instrument. I was drawn more to the lyrics than the music. It wasn’t until I saw the self-published free verse of one American punk rocker, Henry Rollins, that I really engaged with anything resembling poetry besides the lyric sheets from my record collection. Not exactly literature, but it was a start. Then I picked up Holiday on Death Row by Roger McGough at the local library. The title intrigued me and echoed my own dark leanings, although the contents weren’t as bleak as I’d hoped.

   When I started scribbling in a diary towards my twenties the term flash fiction was unheard of. I was penning vignettes that were neither poems nor stories, I didn’t know what to do with them. It wasn’t until I read Charles Bukowski’s poems about rejection slips and small press magazines that I naively began chopping my texts into lines of verse. I’d send them to Iron, The North, The Echo Room, etc – and get rejection slips with ‘not quite what we’re looking for’ scrawled on them in return. It took me a few years to develop and have any success with poetry.

   The first time I read a poem in public was at the Rainbow Festival in York in 1996. Three days in a row I took to the stage and, with garbled introductions, nervously delivered my hard-won words.

   Five or six years later, Kevin Cadwallender, then Durham County Council poet-in-residence, was the first person to describe my efforts as performance poetry. Me, a poet? It took a lot of convincing.

   Two decades down the road, three books published and countless open mike and guest slots under my belt plus multiple slam wins, I don’t care what people call my stuff – poetry, monologue, ranting neurosis – I just love doing it. And now instead of stacking shelves for a living, I get to introduce others to the benefits of writing.

   I haven’t got the patience for novels; I prefer the emotional weight of lived experience compressed into the form of poetry. Concise rhythmical communication and the uniqueness of the individual put under a spotlight.

   I like poetry and performance for cathartic reasons; I want to dig deep and find something - and I want to share it. I like reading poetry; I like listening to poets and watching them because it’s genuinely exhilarating to be in the presence of a wordsmith holding an audience in the palm of their hand. Poetry slams, in my opinion, are the most exciting live literature events – a logical progression from the adulation of rock stars at concerts in my teens. Only now, I get to be onstage and encourage others to do likewise. Poetry, for me, really is the new rock 'n' roll.

Sunday 20th June 2012

Not the best of days. I passed out doing a stand-up relaxation exercise in Matt Cummin’s performance workshop at Scratch Tyne this afternoon – broke my glasses, cut my face and will probably have a nice big shiner of a black eye in the morning. Sat out the rest of the session. Poor Jenni said she felt sick as well. I’m not really enjoying all this physical emphasis on poetry; I really think the words are what count. It’s good to deliver from memory with eye contact – but it’s not ‘acting’. It’s not theatre for me; I’m a bit disillusioned with it being portrayed as such.

I managed to do a pretty good delivery of ‘Coming Back to This’ at Scratch Tyne performance evening. Another gig on the calendar. Oh well… 11.27pm.

Monday 21st May 2012

I’m in bed, in Moorside, there’s a trickle of water in the cistern and the whirr of the computer booting up and I don’t know if my tumble yesterday has left me with a real shiner of a left eye but will see when I visit the mirror.

It’s the Lamplight Poetry Slam this evening. We have a dozen poets from across the region coming down to Stanley town to throw us some lyrical verse, some rants and stories in hopes of winning the trophy.

I’m in bed, in Moorside, there’s pains in my neck and my left elbow where I hit the fucking floor. I’m going out to the library and optician's this morning. Hope my glasses don’t take much mending.

Picking my nose and wondering where the wild wind blows. And is it a blue sky day or grey. I have a workshop to prep for Waddy. It’s supposed to be on voice and ASBO characters. I’m pretty tired today, think I’ve burnt myself out again. Need a long break from it all. But that’s not going to happen. Got a set to prep for Friday – Laid Bare in Hartlepool.

Tuesday 22nd May 2012

We had quite a crowd in for the slam. 13 poets, five judges scoring four rounds of poems, two hosts, one winner*. A good mix of page and stage poems. Some memorized, some read. It was interesting that the winner was a newcomer to the scene, read everything from the page. Good to see some traditional forms in play. Quiet, loud, ranty, funny, poignant, ridiculous – joke narratives, lists, something for everyone, I thought. A good mix. I kind of got a bit irate trying to read tiny scores from big sheets, would’ve preferred the judges to be more scattered about the room but no matter. No matter, it worked. Generous prizes from Leisureworks and a nice trophy from Talking Pen.

* Arabella Arnott

Wednesday 23rd May 2012

Eye not so weepy this morning. I’ll be in at Waddy for a Writing half-marathon. Need some good prompts. I have a big pile of them  that I’ll just read through on the bus. Steven Berkoff memoir arrived yesterday. The title is Diary of a Juvenile Delinquent but there’s no real diary format to it. Will probably have a go at it on the bus to Newton Aycliffe on Friday. Got my Toyah cd as well; won’t get to play that for a while. Still waiting on a Mission box set and an Attila the Stockbroker poetry collection. But other than Chrissie Wellington autobiography and local author launches, that’s my lot for books this year.

Weather is set to be fine over the next few days. I might go out in the garden and get the grass cut this afternoon. Can’t really leave it much longer or it’ll be another paid visit from the kids with petrol strimmers.

Wonder how bad my eye is in the mirror. It’s not going to look great on Friday night in Hartlepool. I could do with a week at home to catch up on things. Starting to feel a bit swamped by it all. I won’t be needing a coat today. 7.04 am.

LATER: Morning Waddy session informal mini-marathon. Got through nine rounds of writing. Pretty pleased with some of my stuff, particularly the piece in the guise of a pensioner ranting on kids of today. Going to work that one up and use it on stage. 7.34pm.

Thursday 24th May 2012

Quarter to seven in the morning and the room is way too hot. Desperate for the toilet I run with my page and sit on the loo, keeping the words flowing – this is how obsessive you get about morning pages, once you start you keep it going. Eyes sticky and my back is hot. Sun shining and I will be working in less than an hour I reckon. Then food shopping, cut the grass, put a set together for Hartlepool, do a Poetry Jam flyer and type a load of journal entries…

Quarter to seven on a Thursday evening and the bus is an oven. Or a greenhouse. Or a bit of both. It’s 19c today and that’s too hot for me. I didn’t put clothes on till six coz it’s a waste of time; they’ll be damp and stinking before leaving the house. I’m on the top deck of the X70 to Newcastle. On my way to the Cumberland Arms in Byker. Jenni is guest hosting this month’s Take Ten. So it’s Jibba Takes Ten.  I wish the temperature would drop a bit. It’s only May, and already I’m totally fucking sick of it. No happy medium - either barbecue your brain or sit freezing. Hard to believe I cycled last summer. I’m staying indoors if it’s going to be like this again tomorrow.  Can’t – I’m out from 20 past eight in the morning till after midnight.  Two ten minute sets at The Studio Laid Bare in Hartlepool. It’s going to be ‘best-of’, I reckon. Under no circumstances am I doing Chocolate Onion. I’ll open one set with Jumping Jack and the other with Eyes. 7.10 pm.

Friday 25th May 2012

Back at Waddy after Shake the Dust session. Was a bit harassed this morning coz the bus was fifteen minutes late. Luckily, Kate waited at the bus stop in Newton Aycliffe for me, otherwise I’d need a taxi coz I don’t think my connecting bus would get me to Greenfield by eleven thirty. Have spent about an hour rehearsing set for tonight. Really pleased with it. Starting to get a bit of a stress headache. Been awake since half six, didn’t go to bed till after midnight. Hope things go okay this evening. Just read a really good piece taking the piss out of the Bible and ‘God’s Word’ being sacrosanct. 21st century - you’d think people would have grown out of that shit by now. 4.29pm.