DIY Poets

With the weather warming up, it felt as if spring was finally with us at last, poets jumping and the cotton high. A simply perfick scenario for another selection of verse from the eclectic collective that is DIY Poets.

Doors opened at 8:00 on Thursday 15th May, 2014 and a trickle of punters made their way into the Maze. At eight thirty, DIY Poets’ founder member and compere, Frank McMahon leapt on stage to inform us that, due to the delayed arrival of a couple of poets, the running order was to be changed. Seasoned campaigner John Humphries stepped into the breach. John is well known for lengthy intros to his poems and tonight was no different. He regaled us all with a tale of a recent visit to Speech Therapy, a regular poetry night in Nottingham. On that particular occasion, he told us he’d gone down there with the intention of delivering the darkest and most doom-laden verse he could, but as the evening progressed his plan was undone by the other poets delivering verse so dark he thought he must have fallen down a manhole. Not to be deterred, he upped the ante by prowling around the audience area of the venue reading his lines of verse directly into people’s faces and ended up rolling around on the floor, gibbering into a microphone whilst thrashing around like a one man literary apocalypse. It sounded amazing and I only wished I’d seen it at first hand. John opened his set with ‘Homespun’, a neatly sculpted piece about longing for a less complicated life. A great poem, which I’ve also had the privilege of seeing on the page – its simplicity belies the cleverness of its ‘hidden rhymes’ and countersunk wordplay. A great opening, thought-provoking as always.

He set the scene for what was to come . . .

Joel is a recent newcomer to the collective. His material was themed around borders and occupied a political space in very much a personal sense. It was a confident and compelling debut, with a short set delivering constructions which clicked together like the pieces of a brand new lego set. There was a fragility, combined with heartfelt honesty, and Joel’s performance was well-received, a terrific first appearance.

A Sole opened his set with a terrace style chant of his own name, and then kicked off with a selection of poems from yet another newly published poetry collection. Sole simply has to be the most prolific poet on the planet in a publishing sense. His verse skewers deep into the heart of the paradoxes and absurdities of present day life. He read with power and precision and was, as ever, uncompromisingly direct at times.  I was reminded of a discussion we were involved in at the last DIY Poets meeting when I was attempting to explain and justify a veiled reference to testicles in one of my pieces – Sole commented, ‘I’m always writing about my balls, man.’ Check out A Sole’s website for his published works.

Orla’s selection, delivered with fiery intensity and clinical precision resulted in an almost surgical experience as poems with titles like ‘Hate Filled Poem’ and ‘Bike Brakes’ cut through the candle-lit, leather sofa clad atmosphere of a venue where an audience sat enthralled. She drops lyrical bombs.

Well, the cat flap was pushed open early when Lytisha arrived onstage to entrance an audience already held captive by the, at times, unhinged range of rhythmic recital already read out. Her elegant feline purr flowed, always voluptuous. With poems such as ‘Swans Have Been Seen on Radar at 21ooo Feet’ in her repertoire, there was always an intrigue.

‘A Lefty Must Do What a Lefty Must Do’ insisted Martin Grey (aka @towelintherain), and proceeded to pour forth on the pains experienced by people who are left hand dominant, with plenty of support from a smattering of left handers in the audience. Martin’s delivery punched with the weight of a Carl Froch left jab – always hitting the target. The audience lapped it up, and the injections of comedy between rounds of lyrical sparring made for a heavyweight performance. He concluded his set by dipping into some extended punnery with ‘That’s Enough of That’. A top performance, fresh towels please!

Fully aware that not everyone is a football fan, I nonetheless opened my set with ‘Kevin Keegan Perm’ and ‘When the Sheepskin Coat Was King’, reminiscences of days gone by. Then, I diverged into my current commentary on the Ukraine crisis with ‘Olympians Ski Down Russian Slopes While Kyiv Burns’, concluding with ‘Vladimir Putin Sings Eurovision’. Certainly a cathartic evening for me!

A ‘Grey Squirrel’ appeared to keep the cats company, as Clare Stewart dug out several silvery sweet nuts for the audience to chew on. A commanding presence, Clare’s voice is always compelling, her material thoughtful. She concluded with a ‘found’ poem, an overheard exchange between a mother and child:’I DON’T CARE! I DON’T CARE! I DON’T CARE!’

North Korean dictators never ever attend DIY Poets performances, but Frank McMahon does his best to represent them, mainly by over-obsessing over his bike lights, making sure they’re in his jacket pocket when he arrives on stage. The bike lights are used to signal when a poet has reached the end of his/her allotted time on stage – the ‘White Light of Enlightenment’ signals a minute to go, and the ‘Red Light of Shame’ needs no further explanation. Frank’s set focussed on music and included poems about Syd Barrett, Slade and the Pogues, plenty of social commentary and observations delivered in his usual understated tones. Excellent.

As the featured poet, Jim Willis played it loose, certainly from the point of view of locations – we woke up in Venice, and also found ourselves needing sustenance in ‘Cafe Ingles’. We got lucky in the sense that Jim’s promise to recite poems about cats came alive, but unfortunately not nine times. We heard ‘Snow Cats’ and ‘Rock Cats’, but there was something more . . . Jim revealed  a plan: to release a collection of cat poems entitled ‘Furry Tales’. Jim even managed to engage the audience towards the end of his set, we all sang along to the chorus of ‘Wet Welly Weather No Cricket Blues’. A grand performance.

The evening was concluded with music from Jezz Hall. Mellow grooves.

 

 

Oh, the verse flowed like vino, as DIY Poets hosted another of their quarterly shows, on the day before Valentine’s Day. First up on stage was A Sole, or Artisidol Sole in full, unashamedly opening his set with a plug for his new book, ‘The Speed Chronicles’. Artisidol explores the heart of darkness and light, pouring out a kaleidoscopic tumble of insane images, with droll observations on everyday existence. A quality opening.

An evening of poetry couldn’t possibly be complete without a good helping of melancholy gloom, and Jim Willis opened his set by asking the audience whether they had a good Christmas. The enthusiastic cries of yes were soon squashed when he (correctly) observed that not everyone can be happy at Christmas, and then we got ‘Mulled Wine Sunset’ – a journey through a rocky Christmas landscape, that ended on a note of hope. Jim’s set was a polished collection of neatly constructed poetry.

Lytysha fully embraced the (pre) Valentine’s Day theme, delivering a set oozing with erotic imagery, and recited with an elegant purr. Ooh, it were bloody saucy! Fans of soft erotica take note, it was worth the entrance money alone to hear this collection.

The right honourable Martin Grey, aka towelintherain, arrived next on stage, expressing his disappointment that the birth of chip and pin, which was launched on February 14th 2006, is not celebrated with anywhere near the same gusto as Valentine’s Day. Martin read with typical passion and verve, and showcased a new poem ‘I Met You in the Pound Shop’. The poem was constructed using a set of prompts provided by a fellow poet, Orla Shortall, and it was a challenging exercise which Martin navigated in the manner of a top-of-the-range M&S bath towel, soaking up a deluge of applause as he walked off stage.

Orla was the next poet to read, and delivered a range of poems, some of them her own composition and others selected. She tackled themes of immigrant experience, expressing rage for the traumas of her Irish ancestors. And she also completed the same exercise as Martin, constructing a poem from  a set of keywords provided by him. It took the form of a dream, involved a monkey, and a soup made of spoons. I have to say, Martin’s selection was definitely trickier – the end result was a surreal vista of crazy characters engaging in strange conversations that somehow held together and a narrative was born.

The first interval arrived and the audience was treated to music by Nick Cave. Happy days.

John Humphreys opened the second half seemingly determined to pour more misery on the proceedings. He was proper grumpy the poetry to that point had been too cheerful. Then, in something of a paradox, he threatened to recite ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ by Queen. The audience remained ambivalent. John delivered a terrific set, ending with a poem about his dad, touching and poignant.

Yours truly got up next. I debuted two new pieces, ‘Lenin Lost His Head’, and ‘A Riot Shield for Christmas’, both referring to the recent unrest in Ukraine. Only a few very minor blips in my set, and afterwards, an audience member commented on the loudness of the delivery. If I was booming in the style of Brian Blessed, or thereabouts, I can only swell with pride. I came away knowing that further edits are needed, but only a few.

Frank McMahon then took the stage and informed the audience of his half-bottle-of-wine hangover which apparently kicked in at lunch time. He’d cautiously endeavoured to resolve this problem by drinking a pint of water as a chaser, after each pint of beer. Six pints later (combined), bloating occurred, and Frank speculated he may not eat for three days, because of an overwhelming ‘feeling full’ sensation. He also read some poems. Frank introduced a couple of new themes in his set, alcohol and Marvel/DC superheroes, although not at the same time. As ever, Frank’s poetry was entertaining and thought-provoking.

Finally, a fine evening of spoken word was concluded by the featured poet, Clare Stewart. She opened with clear intent – to kill your phone. At the conclusion of that piece, several audience members played their ring tones. Clare will need to take each one of those phones out, one by one. Clare’s poems reflect her journey as a mother, but before that, from experiences working in care homes with the elderly. The people who reside in her poems come alive, her vignettes capturing the vulnerability of a population whose faces are marked by the lines of history. She also captures the banality and absurdity of 21st century Britain in sharp definition. She concluded her set with a ‘found poem’, a list of TV programmes from the Dave channel, one of my favourites and very funny.

The evening was completed by the addition of Fun With Numbers, a trio of electric guitar, bass and a vocalist with a sweet voice. Great sounds!