Favourite blogs for another sunny day

Resurrection

Dearest, well, you,

I have been lazy, although not entirely. I have been struggling over the last six months to write. It is not exactly out of laziness. I have been working hard on my degree and reading a plethora of exciting things. I have performed poetry and enjoyed pretending I can make music too. Yet it was all recycled stuff. I'd run out of new and interesting things to say, or even uninteresting things to say in an interesting way. I was full of cliche and lacklustre language. Poetry was a struggle and for a short while (forgive me poetry), I fell out of love with it.

This spell is over however, and I endeavour to return to this little slice of the web to regurgitate rhymes.

It's all quite intimidating watching friends get banking internships and Spring Weeks and post-grad jobs, and I think part of my silence was worry that my future is looking empty. I began to think practically and logically, something that does not come naturally to me and that generally makes me feel quite sick.

Farewell practicality. You do my nerves no good.

: 02 Apr 2011 14:09 |  Tags: Journal |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Haiku and task

Motion, Andrew ill.

Seminar disappointment

Flu immoveable.

Andrew Motion can't make it to our seminar today and I haven't got time for the additional task for ICW (write the 'other other inanimate' perspective on the other story) so here's a bad Haiku. Not happy with the imagery but the mandatory pun was fun.

: 27 Jan 2011 11:35 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

ICW Week 3 Task

Writing about shoe–induced mania from another sunny day

This weeks ICW task is a short narrative from the 'other' perspective. The original perspective was lifted from Rebecca Payne's blog. How's that for intertextuality?

Annette seemed bent on bleeding the last watery saps of our anaemic conversations and taking them with tea. The Yoga class had been physically unbearable; my hips aching and my back involuntarily twitching throughout the lotus-to-half-moon-sunshine move that was supposed to engage my brain, soul and pelvic floor muscles in one invasive movement, but which actually consisted of me squirming around on a bed-mat like an armless prostitute trying to hold out a hand for payment, and even the simple moves were wracked with the guilt of trying to suppress and quietly filter digestive wind. Despite this, Annette’s conversation represented a new low. A patchwork of pointless memories and comments on our surroundings, she managed to bridge the gap between directionless and inarticulate. I could only pray that she would have no access to a conversational-source like television or, worse, the internet during our arduous rendezvous, as I assumed these would provide her with inexhaustible observational material and ultimately drive me to suicide.

Coming through her own front door she tripped on the mat. Attempting to impress upon her the importance of my schedule, and beginning to suffer from the effects of a caffeine and Ritalin binge I had engaged in in order to stick to this schedule, I talked quickly; pre-empting her, knocking off the last few words, literally talking over her until she stopped. Somehow, she kept on trying to talk, inanely, until I had swallowed her entire conversational repertoire and effectively communicated the fact that I was not much of a listener.

But instead of encouraging me to leave, she just went quiet. This left me standing, rattling away like an engine, talking about things I really didn’t give a damn about like schools, the Middle East and Yoghurt. I began to wonder whether she was in some way deficient when she got down on her knees and began staring into the fireplace, mumbling ‘my father... twisted ... to start ... to firestarters. hmm. lovely.’ Terrified that her new fireplace, which even I could tell was a cheap electric without a chimney and necessitated no firestarters, was resurfacing repressed memories of father-daughter fire abuse, and worried that I was about to be their first victim since some techno-induced spate in the early nineties (when at least most houses actually had chimneys), I turned my attention to the carpet. ‘Is this new, Annette?’, I said, my eyes wide with terror.

“What Jean? Sorry? No, no that came with the house.” She trailed back-off into what I could only imagine was a reverie about a Ceilidh in a barn that she had doused with petrol and lit with the cigarette-lighter from her arsonist Dad’s Ford Escort.

“It’s so plush, Annette.”

Come back to me Annette, you were boring before but now you’re too much to handle.

Annette mumbled something about Peppermints and wandered out to the kitchen. I remained standing.

: 25 Jan 2011 12:33 |  Tags: Creative Flash Fiction Introduction To Creative Writing Short Stories Writing |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The double–bill and the de–brief

I usually feel like there's a remainder from a show that's swept away on the last night with the set and the piles of dust and dirt that somehow makes it into those sterile studio spaces. Giving notes after the last performance is unnecessary, undoubtedly, and a director who tells you that you fluffed a line when you're opening the first can of the after-show isn't particularly popular. But here are my own debrief notes.

Seeing Discords alongside Diary of a Madman, a piece based on the works of Gogol, suddenly made so much sense for me. The evening became about watching a descent into madness, then about being mad. As a theatre-goer, you evaluate what you see in relation to the oeuvre of theatre that you've seen before. So to be confronted with a sequence of heads reciting Shakespeare's lines, shredded and repeated, which you've almost certainly heard before but never like this, becomes your own madness; as you constantly try and lace together a narrative from the shards of past conceptions, never quite pulling one together. It's a torture and a breakdown, not for the heads themselves but for the contemporary theatre-goer, and the double-bill created that connection.

This brought to my attention the idea of the double bill in general: I suddenly found myself trying to think of what two plays would go together in a challenging way. With Discords and Diary, entirely new interpretations were opened up (not necessarily deliberately). Adding the second knot to the rope defines a new space to examine; to fray; to peel away; to eventually sever. Andrea Dunbar's Rita, Sue and Bob too alongside the verbatim piece A State Affair is an excellent example of a double-bill that challenges and fractures both plays, creating a whole new discourse between them.

Perhaps all plays should be performed as part of a provocative and challenging double-bill. Or perhaps its just a search for the polyvocal, the second perspective, the contradiction in everything. As a head in Discords, each night I stared out into the audience or down at the floor and could see nothing but blackness. You can't always count on things that are there being there. The truth about all of these interpretations is that there isn't a true one; where others are hidden, more light up. The most important thing I've taken from this process is not to assume that there is nothing to be gained from having to put a lot of imagination into interpreting other people's works, regardless of how much they've put in.

: 25 Jan 2011 00:18 |  Tags: Discords Fail Better Theatre |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Introduction to Creative Writing T2W1 Task!

The first of our ICW tasks. Here is the exceptionally generic text I generated in class:

A: You weren’t supposed to see that.

B: No. I didn’t...

A: You didn’t see it?

B: No, I didn’t mean /to

A: You didn’t mean to see it.

B: No.

A: Sorry.

B: No.

A: No I mean I’m sorry that I...

B: That you wrote it down?

A: That I did it.

B: Right.

A: Right. I certainly shouldn’t have left it in the bin...

B: Why would you write that down?

A: I don’t know

B: No.

A: It won’t happen again! Ha.

B: No.

A: It certainly wasn’t that I was proud of it or thought it was Ok to do that...

B: No I shouldn’t think so.

A: Right.

And here is my first draft of it translated into a third person narrative (and a lift.)

As A entered the lift, the predictable unpredictable happened. A gust of shaft wind, or an air conditioner's first gust, or the butterfly’s wings beating blew the piece of paper into the air. That despicable and ill thought-out note, written as an attempt to work out whether shame was really warranted, which it most certainly was, flicked in unpredictable wisps around the air of the lift, until the doors closed and the atmosphere stabilised and the paper tamely floated into the open hot drink, discernible by its smell as some bastard form of coffee, a fruitymachimoccalatte or something, of the only other person in the lift. B, a tall and pale but slight-figured girl, peeled it slowly from the liquid, pushing the flecks of shredded fruit from the now sepia paper, and ingesting the six words scratched onto it.

Ill advisedly but understandably, A did not snatch the paper from the fruity bastard drink immediately, thinking that perhaps there was still time to deny association. Realising that this was no longer possible, the paper having clearly originated from his breast pocket in the freak gust, A tried to explain himself.

You weren’t supposed to see that.

No. I didn’t...

You didn’t see it?

No, I didn’t mean to see it.

You didn’t mean to see it.

No.

A short pause naturally occurred, neither perceiving anything further to be gained from the conversation but neither able to bear the silence.

Sorry.

No.

The No seemed sharper than before. Perhaps B had become more sure of her personal indignation towards the new information she was privy to, A thought.

I mean I’m sorry that I...

This time she sliced through the sentence, quite uncharacteristically for someone so tall-yet-slight.

That you wrote it down?

That I did it.

Right.

Right.

Right.

Each time the word got longer, like dragging a whip before a lash.

I certainly shouldn’t have left it in my front pocket, vulnerable to freak gusts.

A thought that he’d thought that, but actually found that he’d said it.

Why would you write that down? And what’s wrong with this lift, why is it taking so long?

Pouncing upon an opportunity to express self-disgust and distance himself from his perversion, and confusing the answer of two questions into one, A loaded his next sentence with all the pathetic self-deprecation he could load three words with.

I don’t know!

The line became so overly emphasised that the lift shook and the exclamation mark took on its own sound. It actually only made A seem more maniacal. B responded in a manner she was beginning to perfect.

No.

It won’t happen again. Ha!

A brief burst of horrific, echoing laughter that spilt some of B’s still-open-topped drink.

No.

It certainly wasn’t because I was proud of it...

No.

Sliced again.

Riiight.

The lift doors didn’t open.

More groundbreaking literature and tired irony to come.

: 20 Jan 2011 00:31 |  Tags: Creative Introduction To Writing |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The erosion of Shakespeare and Beckett

In British theatre, Shakespeare and Beckett have cult hero status. Shakespeare is frequently seen as the source of all archetypal narratives in theatre, and arguably Beckett has done the same thing for the theatrical form. Jonny Heron’s script for Discords remains loyal to Shakespeare’s characters but slices lines from Macbeth and King Lear into a deliberate, poetical order, but without any clear narrative intention. I believe he does this very well; to the extent that a Shakespearean scholar could recognise each line and its source and still not be distracted from the performance in front of him. Lines are repeated, the sense is deliberately drained from them. New characters are created from these lines, ghosts of the old.

This has two results. The seemingly invincible stigma wrapped around Shakespeare’s characters – almost every modern day character can be seen as derivative – begins to leak. We also become very aware, as an audience, that the characters we have so aggrandized in our minds are derived by readers and actors from their text. They are not the characters of a novel; they are assumed and interpreted from what they say. Now, the interesting part of this is that it is almost exactly the same for the plot of Shakespeare’s plays. His stage directions are sparse, and we generally get all our inspiration for movement from the words of his characters. These words, the words that the ghosts in Discords speak, contain as much of Shakespeare’s plots as they do of the characters.

Discords detaches the language from these plots to create a new piece. By doing this, for me, Shakespeare’s characters are deconstructed; they become the sum of their parts, slaves to their own voices and words. Here, again, Beckett starts to re-appear. Instead of real people, Discords takes Shakespeare’s characters and shows them as slaves to their bodies; but this time, they are slaves to their embodiment in a theatrical space.

To turn Discords into a piece of meta-theatre, the machine we reside in is perhaps ‘language’, viewed from the 4^th dimension, as an embodiment in space rather than just in time. Hopefully that bit of interpretation is too convoluted to allow Discords to be written off there. There certainly seems to be more in it for me.

: 14 Jan 2011 20:12 |  Tags: Discords Fail Better Theatre |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Theatrical Scales

Brecht and Stanislavski have created a sort of theatrical spectrum for any director approaching contemporary theatre. Alienation, the erosion of character and transparency in the theatrical mechanics of a show are all Brechtian notions; if you don’t want this, then you make character central to the play and search for 'truth'. Popular theatre is seen as aiming for the latter, Stanislavski’s legacy. Experimental theatre tends to be seen as the progeny of Brecht.

Trying to avoid these stereotypes, to create a new theatre, has caused some stagnation in the minds of the theatre world. Every device experimented with is shunted into a category and reduced to a point on a Brecht-Stanislavski spectrum. Escaping this spectrum seems impossible. Though I don’t believe that this is true for many theatre practitioners active at the moment, theatre critics have been handed a helpful lens which has proved limiting in perspective for many.

Discords, the play I’m currently rehearsing in, seems to have one solution: it embraces limitation. Thanks to Nomi Wallace’s set, we are given only our neck and head movement, our entrances and exits, and the nine positions in the set to play with. Jonny Heron has been working with us using Laban for actors, a three dimensional spectrum developed to describe any movement using three modes – put simply, speed, force and directness. The form of the play, like the Beckett that influences it, is hugely reductive. I am constantly aware that I am acting, and being evaluated, using these scales. I cannot escape them if I want to be part of the performance.

It is a deliberately scientific approach to theatre. I become part of a machine, with certain limitations, designed to fulfil a function. The machine can be tweaked through Jonny’s direction – the Laban modes – and his re-structuring of his script. But I am also part of an experiment, in which the variables have been fixed, hoping to work out what a theatrical experience is fundamentally based upon. I am sure that the audience will go away confused, as I did. And perhaps that says that theatre cannot be confined to spectrums or scales. Or perhaps it says that theatre is confined to these spectrums, but meaning is not.

: 14 Jan 2011 20:10 |  Tags: Discords Fail Better Theatre |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Discords; or an actor’s meta–experience

Though I had the privilege of seeing Discords, Fail Better’s re-interpretation of Shakespeare through a Beckettian lens, nothing has been explained to me. I entered the machine for its second incarnation at the Warwick Arts Centre Studio as part of a recasting, and feel as if some transcendental logic, now unspeakable, has passed between the original cast. I am currently trying to catch up; I am floundering. As an actor, I am currently only emulating the rest of the cast. I have started this blog to help myself try and find the logic behind the piece, and hopefully discuss some  ideas about contemporary theatre in the meantime.

Approaching a play having originally been in the audience, particularly a devised piece in which the entirety of the cast were present and active in its formation, has been a slightly surreal experience. Many of the actors I know on a personal level, and yet I enter rehearsals and see them comfortable and un-self-conscious in the most bizarre of exercises. Perhaps here I should explain the form of Discords. Two huge structures with 9 head-sized doors face each other. The audience enters and watches as the doors open to reveal the heads, which speak lines from Shakespeare’s plays. Various tones, speeds and meanings are drawn out from the lines by the actors. The heads go back behind their doors. Then the audience leaves.

When I saw Discords, I was constantly sensing the beginning of a narrative, a relationship between two characters or even an emotion. But each time, this was subverted, snatched away from me. I came away believing it to be a powerful piece of theatre, purely for its subversion of language; it’s drain of meaning. All of the theatrical commodities theatre-practitioners of the 20^th Century defined and interpreted were explored almost scientifically – space, character, time, voice and so on. Yet I was completely removed from the creative process of how an audience gets these impressions, and aware that what I was interpreting was the tip of a creative iceberg.

On entering rehearsals, I see actors doing a variety of bizarre exercises that are treated as essential. My friends are making absurd faces, sounds and shapes, dragging lines into frankly hilarious voices and deliberately making their meanings stupid. Yet no one laughs. I wonder if they’ve all lost their sense of humour, or whether it’s a competition to see who can stay stony faced for longest. I corpse continually. And yet this seems to be part of the process – when I do, I am told to keep my head ‘on stage’ to see what it brings. Suddenly I am trapped in the machine, laughing unstoppably out of fear and unable to leave. This is for me, at this stage in the rehearsals, what the piece is about. It’s not a new idea; being trapped by bodily functions was an idea that Beckett revolutionised. But it’s one of many ideas that I think Discords is trying to shed new light on in relation to Shakespeare, language and the theatre itself.

: 14 Jan 2011 20:06 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Filling up this awful empty

So we were told to start a blog for our ICW module. The problem was, I'd just started an abortive blog somewhere else to document some things I'd been thinking about Discords, Fail Better's ensemble piece at the arts centre next week. Feeling bad about the waste of internet space (I hear the internet is almost full), I decided to copy them here. They really were only a few days old.

Following this, I'll start on some 'real' stuff.

: 14 Jan 2011 20:00 |  Tags: Discords Fail Better Fleshing Out With Old Entries |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Forcing Myself…

So I have lost my writing ability of late. The ink has run dry and I am forcing myself to cough up words like the last of my bronchitis phlegm. With it being a new year, I shall endeavour to write more in hope it will unblock the well of inspiration. Thus far, I am still experiencing a drought.

You wrote of me
on old pub doors, chipping at the paint
with a yellowed index finger
stiff with arthritis,
toxic dandruff falling into the denim around your ankles,

You wrote of me
in hometown shades of canal brown,
and Spider park grey.

Of me, you blasphemed,
churned my name
until I was lemon curd in your mouth.

“4ever” glittered in spilt blood
across sodden bar tables,
wet with whiskey rings and strippers knickers.

: 06 Jan 2011 19:09 |  Tags: Poetry |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Blake

DISCLAIMER: This is not a short story. This actually happened and I had to write it down before I forgot. Please don't think me mentally disturbed, I found it weird too.

Last night I had a dream. Now, I know this is nothing unusual, especially since I dream every night and always remember them vividily. I think this means I don't sleep well or have a nervous disposition or have a secret desire to be an elephant. Something to that effect.

Anyway. Last night was different. In my dream (which was actually this morning more than last night), I gave birth. It hurt in my dream, and it was very real. Then I had a beautiful baby boy, who I felt love for, I actually felt unbelievable, chest-shattering love. My heart swelled and crushed me from inside out. I was impossibly happy. I left university, and sat around the dinner table in my parent's home, writing lists of possible eternal damnation for the little piece of me I rocked in my arms.

May I remind you, or simply myself, this was just a dream, because even now, a weird love is bubbling in my stomach.

I toyed with Zachary for ages. It is a name I have never considered (no, I am nowhere near birth, but we've all thought about it). "Zachary, yes maybe," I'd thought, but the name didn't fit. I looked down at my boy, my diluted and yet complete, perfect genes, and knew Zachary wasn't right. Now I am awake, I think it is a marvellous name, and have added it to my own mental list (which only contained Molly and Florence for a girl and Oliver for a boy, I'm pretty picky.)

"Blake."

It just fit. He wore it like a comfort blanket I'd knitted with my own fingers, which I then realised, within my dream, that I couldn't knit, and that I'd have to learn. When I awoke, I genuinely swore to myself I will learn to knit before I have a child.

I don't quite remember how it all ended, fizzling into 8am. That weird moment when you try to cling on to a dream, radio static that just keeps missing the station you want, and you know morning is coming, but just one more minute please.

Yet these minutes were years, my baby was 3, and I was teaching Blake to read in a shopping centre with a massive balcony, almost like the inside of Westfields, and Mr. Luck, my A Level Geography teacher was there, and I kept trying to blink him away because he made it less real. Stupidity was slipping in, stupidity in the shape of reality as the beckoning morning taunted me, and my distressed mind tried to clutch at anything from the factual cardboard boxes of my dusty brain, in the shape of a distorted shopping centre and a much adorded teacher. But Blake was as real as ever, as momentarily real as ever, beautiful.

I woke up and cried, not knowing at first why. I went downstairs and as soon as I put the kettle on the phone rang. It was my Mum at work, telling me they needed me to come in to do some odd jobs. I actually cried for the next 15 minutes. I was trying to convince myself all day it was because I was tired and didn't want to go to work and maybe it was just hayfever...

I actually missed a baby that didn't exist, I felt like I'd lost him and I was all to blame. I am highly concerned for my own well-being and well write a story about this soon.

: 09 Jul 2010 23:47 |  Tags: Journal |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

To Do List

- Crawl into a large hole

- Crawl into that hole laden down with books

- Stay sober in that hole

OR

- Take enough supplies to be so intoxicated I don't remember ever being in said hole.

: 07 Jul 2010 01:03 |  Tags: Journal |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

A Seasoned Non–Traveller

My aunt has never left the country, growing
crazy in her old age in Somerset, the final, slowing
days of her being spent in one room of her home,
a glass prison, a snow globe shaped dome.

Her conservatory is besieged by globes and maps
where she plots her plans and takes her naps,
as aeroplanes score the sky, surgical instruments
cutting into deathly grey flesh, futile attempts,

To revive something of lost life. Guide books her bible,
planning her epiphany in Europe, dreaming of tribal
dances and poverty, crying in African villages,
like the celebrities on fame-hungry pilgrimages.

She is childless, husbandless, and her heart beats
for Greek columns, tapas, cobbled French streets.
My aunt lives beneath an English sky, wishing
for more, like a puzzle with the sky missing.

: 02 Jul 2010 22:38 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The Waiting Game

The Waiting Game

1

Childbirth smells like anti-septic,
and tastes, for some
like gin and tonic.

Her nails pierce the mattress,
her mouth fills with saliva.

“Push, yes that’s it...”

She’d always been so terribly punctual
(terribly, because it was ruining her life,
hours wasted being early)
and it was so typical
for her first child
to keep her waiting.

2

“She’s stupid, I’ve given birth to a stupid child...”

Truly, she didn’t mean it,
but she found it unlikely
the repetition of “Dodo”
was the first sign
of her daughters penchant for zoology.

She offered her an apology
in the shape of chocolate yoghurt.
The smears never came out of the carpet,
tears a futile stain-remover.

“Say something... please, say something for mummy.”

A quizzical look,
and tiny fingers wipe away saline outbursts
and offer dessert in the crater of a petite palm.

“Yoh-urt Mummy?”

3

The sound of heels in the porch
was as joyous as that first wail
from newly-born lungs.

She conceals her happiness however
behind the yells.

“It’s 3am, where the hell have you been?”

The worst thoughts had tormented her sleep,
the worst possible conclusions,
not even worth mentioning.

Yet innocence prevails
in that apologetic, yet nonchalant smile,
before innocence vomits across hallway tiles.

4

Twelve cups of tea
made waiting for the bathroom
slightly difficult.

It was the nerves,
curtain-twitching, nail-biting, postman-scorning
nerves.

The metal clatter of the letter box,
footsteps down the stairs,
crying... blissful crying.

A place, to study veterinary science
(not zoology)
at university.

Two hundred miles away.

“I’m so proud of you, but wait before you accept...”

Eighteen years waiting to not to be a parent
came too soon
landing on the doormat
as though out of the blue,
as though it wasn’t expected
as though there was a God
who answered Mother’s pleas

“Don’t let her pass...”

5

“It’s just cold feet, he’ll be here baby, I promise”

Tears in a chapel,
the photographer yawning,
pictures of the happy couple
looking less and less likely.

“Your Father was nervous too!”

“He left you on your honeymoon!”

She takes the punch to her pride
as daughterly love,
screams as the car pulls up
and sobs the whole way through the ceremony.

Push-pineapple-up-a-tree,
a Grease medley,
made bearable for the chance
to stand on her son-in-law’s foot
when he offers his new Mother a dance.

6

The hospital years:
baby scans and miscarriages.
A redundant womb waiting to be a Mother,
a Mother waiting to be a Granny,
interrupted by out of date magazines,
“It will never happen to me”
and a room full of coughing OAPS.

A daughter thinking
“Is Mum really that old? She can’t be.”

A letter from the hospital
confirms the wretched news,
“It will never happen to me”
swallowed like a bitter pill.

7

Waiting for the curtain to touch in the middle,
she tries to stand up and rip them down
but the little girl next to her holds her hand.

“Will I never see Grandma?”

She doesn’t answer
but nods
and cries
and smiles,
knowing she will,
but it will be a long wait yet.

: 20 Jun 2010 22:54 |  Tags: Poetry |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Question 9, Part B

Love hearts in biro stain your weak efforts
Already sealed and stamped with a large ‘F’
Shakespeare mocks you and Einstein simply points,
Naked likes in an exam hall fool you.
You regurgitate equations and toast.
Your education starts to taste sour
And everyone stares with red pen in hand
Legs are shaking – anticipate the grade.
Your failure of a Mother downs her fifth
And the babies scream out for some comfort.
A hundred teenage pores drip with worry.
Life is an essay awaiting judgement,
Why bother? No one marks it anyway.

: 20 Jun 2010 22:21 |  Tags: Poetry |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Sermon on the Mount: Harrow–on–the–hill

Radio Play: The Revolution

Luke – teenage boy, fairly well-spoken
Eve – teenage girl, strong London accent
Teenage preacher – London accent
Matt – teenage boy

[Background laughter and screaming of teenage kids]

[Luke, panting slightly as he is walking]:
We could all feel the movement coming; perhaps it was the knock-off cider diluting our blood, making every step up the hill just slightly more purposeful, or that just one week before a kid from Whitmore had been stabbed outside the bus station. I could see Matt, eagerly trying to make it to the top first, in all his intoxicated glory, tripping over tree stumps and abandoned wine bottles.

[Sound of glass smashing and boy yelling OW!]

The sun was flickering into nothingness, like a cigarette being feverishly puffed, lungs determined not to miss a single dose of nicotine.

[Sound of lighter being flicked numerous times until cigarette is lit and voice inhales]

We all anticipated the blue lights of the law illuminating Hillspur Road soon, to take the underage stoners back home. I was surprised to see such an impressive crowd forming, a hundred flies on a carcass. I immediately wanted to leave, made anxious by the presence of some of the Whitmore kids who were a little more rough and ready that the Queensmead and Field End lot.

[Eve]:
I dunt even know why we came though yeah!? Look at these freaks. It’s like some kind of juvenile asylums broke loose yeah.

[Luke]:
Yet something made me stay. Something was in the air, something of a revolution. I so badly didn’t want to be part of it, not another sheep in that crowd of blurred faces... but I stayed. That’s when I heard him speaking.

[Teen Preacher]:
Don’t hate on the poor, for their currency is the air we breathe, their pennies are experience and they will not succumb to the dictator that is capitalism.

Bless those whose brothers have fallen, they did not hold the knife but it cut them the deepest, and we will do all we can to prevent such reckless violence. Our respect goes out to the Whitmore crowd that is here tonight.

[3 Seconds silence]

[Luke]:
Everyone bowed their heads, some even took off their baseball caps and a few of the girls could be seen crying. There was some laughter, at the ridiculousness of it all, but a few of the more intimidating lads shot vicious looks at those of us who dared to mock them.

[Teenage Preacher]:
Celebrate the sober, for their livers are probably in a fitter state that our Father’s, and theirs are the paths we follow home (in the back of Ford KAs that have no road tax).

Thank God for the peacemakers, who endeavour to make sure we only return home with one black eye and not two, and prevent us from jumping to ludicrous conclusions (sorry John, could have sworn I saw you getting off with my ex Mary that time).

[Luke]:
The tension broke, and we dared to laugh, some of us even called out in agreement.

[Teenage Preacher]:
And what would we do without those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, who take bullets for us in the court because they just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and “owed us one.”

[Eve]:
Yeah like James man! Stabbed just cos of his postcode yeah? It ain’t right man.

[Teenage Preacher]:
I hear you sister! And it’s people like James we owe our lives to. They are the light of our world, the matches that ignite our cigarettes, the flame that burnt down the science block.

[Cheers from the Field End crowd]

So forgive each other your wrong-doings, forgive the boy who stole your girlfriend, forgive the friend who never answers your texts, forgive the parents who didn’t send you to private school and have thus dashed your hopes of a future, forgive the drunk Uncle and the mentally ill Aunt.

[Matt]:
Don’t forget my slag of a sister!

[Laughter]

[Teenage Preacher]:
And your slag of a sister of course Matt, we all know here well.

[Matt]:
Oi! Too far!

[Teenage Preacher]:
And do not be led into a life of temptation; resist the evils of this world. We shall not fight with knives or guns; we shall fight with words, with the sacred dictionary.
[Cheering]
Do not judge or you shall be judged in return, and we’re all self-medicated or slipped anxiety pills by our Mothers.

[The sound of police sirens begin quietly in the background, growing louder]

And we will not be jealous of each other! You can also get a girl as hot as your mate! Girls, you are worthy of a boy with brains and brawn (I’m single by the way ladies), and you can get that job, you will buy those Topshop jeans, because you are incredibly special and no one has such impeccable taste as you.

Turn the other cheek, but if you can’t, outwit them with your words and not your fists.

And love your neighbour! Enough of the postcode wars yeah guys?!

[Cheering and applause, sirens very loud now]

[Luke]:
That’s when we ran, free into the night, knowing we had heard it first, that we were the revolution. Some got arrested, others beaten by their Mother’s for being home late but we all knew it had been worth it. It had begun

: 15 Jun 2010 13:41 |  Tags: Script |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Red–heads

If I’d have known you liked red-heads
I’d have never dyed my hair brunette
And I would have shown you photographs
Of my Mother when she was young,
Auburn locks burning bright like magnesium,
And maybe you would have thought that
She was beautiful, and you’d realise,
maybe, I was beautiful too.

: 27 May 2010 16:55 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Idiot

We knew it was the end, the moment
He told me “You’re far too poetic”,
so I hurled my copy of Byron at him
crying, “why can’t you just accept it?”

Then to annoy him more, quoted Hamlet
“Well, I hope Milton makes you happy”
“That was Shakespeare, not Milton.”
“Well, your poetry, it’s, it’s crappy!”

: 02 May 2010 23:08 |  Tags: Poetry |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Ambitious

I fear it is far too ambitous to try and write 4000 words of poetry, near enough from scratch, in about 3 weeks. However, it is marvellously self-indulgant and justifies afternoon trips to the pub for 'poetic' inspiration. Alas, my liver disagrees.

: 28 Apr 2010 14:20 |  Tags: Journal |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Sharing

Sharing

We shared 204 microwaveable dinners
but never a fish pie,
I’m much thinner now you left me
the best thing about heartbreak
is the loss of appetite,
my waist 4inchs slimmer.

We shared 38 verbal fights
(and 2 with fists)
I don’t condone violence,
let alone that time I threw the iron at you
(but seriously, clothes belong on hangers
not the floor, I told you it was the last straw
if I had to pick up one more lip-stick stained collar
and you’d be out the door).

We shared 2 beds,
a single, which was cosy,
then a double.
The trouble was we didn’t share the covers,
you were always cold,
hogging them,
you were an unaffectionate lover with poor circulation
(if you know what I mean...)

We shared 13 photo frames
smiling half-heartedly on our walls
to fool other couples at pretentious dinner parties
that we were in love.

We shared 251 bottles of red wine
(please note, this was more than microwaveable dinners)
but it was the antidote to the arguments.
I’m doing the drinking for the both of us now.
I’ll even drink rosé, but who knows hey?
Maybe I’ll go t-total somehow.
Prove you wrong.

We shared 23 ice creams,
and 6 holidays,
a getaway
from the suburban everyday
and then I’d find out you booked
self-catered
and I was your waiter for the week
because “seafood didn’t sit well with you.”
Then you’d announced in front of honeymoon couples
“go to hell! I’m not paying extra just to eat at a restaurant that just happens to be on the seafront.”

Oh you old romantic you,
taking me across the Atlantic
just to frantically serve you tea and toast
whilst you roasted in the sun,
and boasted that you looked brilliant with a tan
and that I looked like a lobster.

No, seafood really didn’t sit well with you,
but you still managed to give me crabs in Ibiza,
and you confessed over pizza in Rome
that you think we should just stay at home next year.

We shared everything,
1034 days, 9 dark secrets, 212 lies,
just to find, our traits didn’t match.
So I can eat my crayfish
and you can soak up the rays with another floozy.

Now we share nothing,
and I eat prawn sandwiches alone
in what was our home...
And I doubt you ever think of me...
and what we shared,
unless you walk past the chippy.

: 26 Apr 2010 00:25 |  Tags: Poetry |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Neglect

Oh I do apologise dearest cyberspace for the lack of attention I have given you over Easter. It began well, with a very productive week in Warwick library, even using the moving shelves at the risk of my death. I got two essays complete. Marvellous, bravo me.

Then I came home and went into my funny "I'm not leaving my bed, ever" moods. I watched 3 series of Lost on megavideo and spent the remainder of my loan on ebay. It was a sad a lonely two weeks of turning down plans just to wallow in pointless misery. Why do I do that!? But to summarise, I got threats from my bank and only left my bed to frantically try and lose weight on my exercise bike and answer the door to collect my pointless deliveries.

But, then I got sick of living in my own filth and got back on with living which was wonderful. I spent a lovely few days in Liverpool shopping in Quiggins which is this beautiful vintage place and writing some poetry on the train. I was breathing and moving again, but also The Fear wa slowly setting in and I knew I would soon have to return home to revise.

Thus, today I am back to working (and writing)... I will post some more stuff up soon. It's been too long!

: 19 Apr 2010 18:21 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

I have cut my leg open

and when I mean open, I mean very open. The odd thing is, I am very unsure how I have acheived this. I do confess, I was ever so slightly intoxicated tonight, but that is no excuse for this massive assault upon my thigh.

I'm sorry I have not spoken in 10 days but, life has been a cruel mistress, resulting in the following findings:

1) Really do never judge a book by a cover, even for good reasons, like believing someone is lovely, because they will still lie to you whilst you cry, and you will soon find out they lied, and you'll want to cry some more... and now I feel like a bitch for holding a grudge.

2) Go with gut feelings, I don't even know where my gut is, but I know it's right in comparison to some of the decisions of both my heart and my head recently.

3) When you wish to write, even if this is after 48 hours lack of sleep, write. When inspiration comes, milk it for all it is worth. I lost something yesterday, and I have a horrible feeling it is brilliant.

4) Self discipline is a wonderful thing, in all walks of life.

5) Dance more, alone, with a locked door and open windows, at 6am, to songs you would not normally dance to. It is a more glorious feeling than ice cream dribbling down... well, it is a glorious feeling.

: 28 Mar 2010 07:07 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

A Howling Work in Progress

I saw the worst minds of my generation
try to quote Ginsberg like they knew what the fuck he was going on about,
like they too, could feel the beat from lecture hall seats
before hesitating,
to eat packed lunches their Mother’s had made,
ungratefully scorning her over-zealous application of butter,
before returning to pretend that they related
to poems about cocaine and gutters.

I saw the worst minds of my generation
idolise Oscar Wilde and tattoo his oh so quote-able brain
across their backs,
and proceed to talk about crack,
riding in their Daddy’s cars, who bought them the insurance,
hoping no one caught them, washing it for tenner in the alley
so they could go and watch French films they didn’t understand at the cinema.

I saw the worst minds of my generation
discussing capitalism in Starbucks,
drinking mocha-crapa-cinos,
calling knock-off bottles of pinot grigio “Vino”
throwing out their Nike trainers
because they saw some programme
where a kid called Teeno worked for 10pence an hour in a sweat shop.

I saw the worst minds of my generation
diagnose themselves as depressed,
as they undressed for anyone who bought them a drink,
coughing up lungs in nightclub sinks,
writing diaries that they thought rivalled Anne Frank’s misery,
bitterly putting “KEEP OUT” signs on bedroom doors
but who never ignored their parents calling “dinner” from the stairs.

I saw the worst minds of my generation
looking shady whilst buying records in HMV
even though they didn’t own a gramophone,
and moaning how unbelievably alone they are in their partiality for
post-Marxist-afro-cuban-experimental-nintendocore
because the lyrics really reveal the existentialism of their inner Hades.

And I saw the worst minds of my generation
trying to write poetry,
trying to rhyme words for the sake of it,
trying to make it look like they could take a word and match it with another,
and if they were really good,
it would only rhyme a little,
reading Philip Larkin just because “they fuck you up, your mum and dad”
and then standing in front of you guys,
with a complex and a with a poetic creation,
as if they really were any better
than the worst minds of their generation.

: 18 Mar 2010 20:26 |  Tags: Poetry |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

INK Magazine

It may only be a small Warwick based arts issue, but I am having a poem published in Term 3 Week 1 in INK. It's on this blog somewhere, called Visiting the Hospital.

It's a fabulous oppurtunity, the campus is certainly in need of more arts based publications promoting new writing, poetry, prose and the general lamb stew of imagination we have steaming on the Warwick campus.

Copies are 50p, I suggest everyone buys one to support our creative community as well as encouraging other such publications on campus.

(Also, I'm going to be in it, so of course you should buy a copy!)

: 16 Mar 2010 11:18 |  Tags: Journal |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Performance @ Curiositea, Warwick campus

Follow-up to To be performed. from emily's coffee cups & poetry.

[media] [/media]

: 14 Mar 2010 22:27 |  Tags: Poetry |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem