Hello again! A very different post today from yesterday’s … During National Poetry Writing Month (#NaPoWriMo) in April I was working on a major arts funding application (should learn the outcome soon, so fingers crossed!). When it came time to write a poem one evening, the only language I had in my head was the … Continue reading New video: “This Poem Will Be Funded”
Category: Writing
Live-streamed Gig Tomorrow! & #NaPoWriMo Loudcasts
Hello all! Hope you're coping OK through this stressful time. Tomorrow (Saturday, 2nd May) evening I'm delighted to be performing in Quarantine Cabaret! This is a fantastic initiative showcasing Scottish musicians, poets, and comedians through live-streamed online gigs. They're streaming over Instagram Live every Saturday evening at 7:30pm GMT. Tomorrow I'll be performing some brand-new … Continue reading Live-streamed Gig Tomorrow! & #NaPoWriMo Loudcasts
New Poetry! NaPoWrimo & Return to Form
Hello again everyone, Hope you’re keeping safe and healthy in these scary times. I’m writing today to share some brand new poetry! One of the ways I’ve been surviving this crisis is by creating new work. This April, the I Am Loud productions team are doing National Poetry Writing Month (#NaPoWriMo), in which people challenge … Continue reading New Poetry! NaPoWrimo & Return to Form
Writing Collaborative Performance Poems
One of my hopes for the new year was to try out new ways of writing and performing, and the start of 2016 has happily involved just that: I've been composing and performing lots of collaborative poems! Before this year I'd never written collaboratively before. Writing poetry had always been an intensely solitary event for me, involving … Continue reading Writing Collaborative Performance Poems
Why ‘Slam Poetry’ Is Not a Genre
My last post responded to the way media sources were misconstruing Sarah Palin's endorsement speech for Donald Trump as "slam poetry." I gave several reasons why I consider that use of that term to be inaccurate and rather rude, including that the use of 'slam poetry' as shorthand for rambling, incoherent utterances misrepresents a field of poetry … Continue reading Why ‘Slam Poetry’ Is Not a Genre
Starting the PhD: Another Journey Begins!
Now I'm back to the academic schedule, however, and delighted to announce that this October I'm beginning my PhD in English at the University of Strathclyde! I will be researching the way spoken word poetry is used in the U.K. for the expression of marginalised identities. I have many questions I'll be investigating, includin
Launching my Kickstarter!
A different kind of post on the website this week . . . I have a major announcement about my own creative work. As I wrote last week, performance poetry allows fantastic engagement with a live audience, but few tangible products for the audience to purchase after the show. The poet might perform a brilliant set, … Continue reading Launching my Kickstarter!
Is it OK to perform another slam poet’s work?
Recently a friend asked me an excellent, difficult question concerning reproductions of spoken word poems and the ethics of performing someone else's poem. Her query is below: I enjoyed watching the videos of you performing your poems. It got me thinking (I know you wrote a blog post about the difference between writing poetry specifically for … Continue reading Is it OK to perform another slam poet’s work?
“Swallow”: When Poems are Misinterpreted
One of the first slam poems I wrote is a two-minute piece called "Swallow" which concerns the nuances of female fertility, sterility, and contraception (the poem can be watched here). In the autobiographical piece I express my sadness over the unfairness inherent in a situation in which I, as a young, presumably fertile woman, have the ability … Continue reading “Swallow”: When Poems are Misinterpreted
Artistic Crossovers: How Dance Helps with Performance Poetry
Although today I identify chiefly as a poet, dance has always been a fundamental element of how I define myself artistically. I began training in classical ballet at the age of five and continued through university, getting a degree in Dance and choreography in the modern style ('contemporary' in British terminology). I’m grateful for this training for … Continue reading Artistic Crossovers: How Dance Helps with Performance Poetry
