Monday 30 April 2012

Three Things I'm Doing On Thursday May 3rd

1. Voting For This Guy

















2. Coaching Young Poets For This (amazing) Project

















Scroobius Pip
3. Going to The Macbeth in Hoxton to see...
The Kings Will

Tuesday 24 April 2012

Chill Pill @ Soho Theatre Featuring Salena Godden & Adam Kammerling (plus band)

Book Tickets Online - https://sohotheatre.ticketsolve.com/mobile/shows/126516029/events
"IMAGINE IF YOU HAD TO LICK IT!"
Jamaican and British poet 'Salena 'Saliva' Godden' joins us on the Chill Pill rug at Soho Theatre on May 7th. She has a new pamphlet of poems published by Nasty Little Press and has regularly made appearances on BBC Radio and at Literature Festivals across the world. She's the producer and host of Book Club Boutique which is a Literary and music night worth checking out. Expect stories and poems written after sex in bed with a bottle of Rum and lots of cigarettes.


"There is no escape from cake"

Adam Kammerling is the 2012 National Hammer & Tongue Champion. He made his debt appearance at Chill Pill last year. This year he's back with his band to prove poets are the rock stars of the 21st Century. His poems are full of quirky observational narratives from working as a baker in New York to living between Brighton and London. Expect charm, wit and humour which always hints at a darker side.

Other acts on the night - Poet and story teller Mrst Morrison heading up from Birmingham as well as London based J.J Bola, recently back from his travels in Burkina Faso and of course the Chill Pill poets - Mista Gee, Deanna Rodger, Simon Mole and Raymond Antrobus.

Doors - 7.30pm - 9.30pm
(£5) Tickets BOX OFFICE  
020 7478 0100 

Monday 23 April 2012

NaPoWriMo Day 23 Poem 18 Dog

Laura calls me a dog, she says 
I make her feel like a bone 
I'm trying to bury. 

Laura, I'm still a child, and
running away is my way of finding myself.


sorry for being so good at putting you down.

your voice was in my walls 
and they wouldn't close their mouths.

Our conversations were ghost trains,
I never knew where we were going with them
but I knew something was going to leap out.

At least we weren't moving too fast.

My intentions weren't disguises
I knew I didn't know what they were.

Laura I am a dog.

Throw your stick
but don't expect me back.

Saturday 21 April 2012

NaPoWriMo Day 21 Poem 15 Dear...


Dear Procrastination
                                     You’ve kept me in one spot for so long I can’t tell where or if I’m going.

Dear Home
                     Stop changing your address.

Dear Father’s footsteps
                                         Why would I follow you where he’s already been?

Dear Black Paint
                              Never darken my door again.

Dear Shoreditch
                             You’re trying too hard to have a good time.

Dear Weather
                         Do you have a complaints department?

Dear Sony Erickson
                                  I’m partly deaf, I need a better vibrator.

Dear Stolen Ideas
                                Shhhhhhh.

Dear Sexy Librarian
                                  Can I check you out?

Dear Sadness
                         J

Dear Poetry
                      Make me famous and anonymous at the same time.

Dear Red Light
                           GO!

Chill Pill & One Taste Present New York Poet - Jon Sands (Video)

Thursday 19 April 2012

Disabled Children & Abortion (After Working In Nursing Homes & With The Severely Disabled)

I just watched Louie Theroux's new documentary on children with Autism and it bought back memories of the children and the parents I met while working in a Nursing Home in Cape Town, South Africa and a Holiday Camp in America, Ohio. I tried to write about this a few times but it's difficult.

People who live with these conditions are shielded away from public view, they're the freaks that show up in horror films like Deliverance and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The day I walked into a ward where 18 children with cerebral palsy moaned loudly, waved their arms around, screamed, cried and salivated on themselves I couldn't help but think of zombies. This is why it's difficult to write this...

The only preparation I was given before walking into that ward was "not to feel sorry for the children, pity will not benefit them, make friends and be fun". After I spoon fed porridge to a few children in wheelchairs, after I wheeled them to their bed sides, after I walked through a ward with babies born with cerebral palsy, after I saw a little girl screaming and pounding her head into the floor, after I tried to make friends with a child who wanted to hold my hand just because I told him I was 25, after I sat in a room with two children, one of them watching a Football game on the TV and the other looking out the window and both of them competing to see what was more exciting - the window (that looked out onto swings in the middle of a green grass field) or the football game... after all that I walked outside to the car park and cried uncontrollably, the kind of cry where you squeal and dribble and look really pathetic. I then wiped my tears looked at my hands, looked down at my feet and then looked at my face in the reflection of a window before walking back to the ward.

"They're ok" I'd say to myself "they don't know any better" then I began to wonder what it is these children see, in what colour, in what intensity, they must have a very different internal life to those of us that are functioning "normally".

There was a girl there who was 19 years old, she was wheelchair bound, her neck twisted to the side so her chin rested on her shoulder, her mouth hung open but she only seemed capable of two emotions - ecstatic joy - where her mouth opened up a smile that was so wide her cheeks balled up as she giggled whooped and hollered - but in an instant her face would distort, the smile gone but the cheeks, still balled up but with sudden sadness and distress as she wailed and dribbled. You are given no time to anticipate either emotion, it just seems to slide back and forth inside her.

I did not feel sorry for her, I've heard it said that joy is sorrow turned upside down, so the further you fall into either state the more you're able to experience within them. I agree with this little beautiful and tragic sentiment.

Gareth is 25 years old, we're the same age, he was put in the Nursing Home when he was 10. Every day Gareth wants to tell you what day it is, "It's Tuesday!"and you'd have to say "That's right Gareth" then he'd say "Tomorrow is Wednesday" and you'd say "Yeah, Gareth it is". Gareth always had something to look forward to and he only needed a few things a week. He'd say "I'm going to get candles on Thursday!" or "I'm going to dress up on Saturday!". Gareth is the only patient who acknowledges you in a way you don't need to prepare for. He takes pride in the few things he can do for himself - like eat and wheel himself to his own bedside.

One of the nurses told me why Gareth talks about the days -


one day I told Gareth, I don't want to hear any more sad stories in this ward, please no more sad stories, then Gareth asked what day it was and I smiled and said "it's Monday Gareth"and he said "Yes! and tomorrow is Tuesday" and I just hugged him and he never shut up about the days since.


I met many of the parents of these children and I praise and admire them but its hard not to find yourself asking the question "If I knew my child would end up this way, having to be nursed 24/7 in a home would I keep the child?

This is not an exaggeration but every parent I came across kept their child believing it was a message/lesson God was giving them. They felt blessed to have children who only need one thing to survive and that's the love and care of their family. This was the same response I got from the parents of children with Autism and Epilepsy in America.

There were however cases where the parents of some children deserted them in the home, ashamed and unable to cope.

Obviously most parents don't know they're carrying a disabled child until the birth but some parents are told by doctors of the high chances and some can be diagnosed in the womb. Again, I know my mum was told there was a moderate possibility I'd be born with down syndrome but she still had me.

Some of the parents felt you shouldn't be allowed to have sex if you can't take responsibility for whatever you produce.

I spent a week with two physiotherapists who's job it was to massage the children who spend all their time on their wheelchair without proper exercise or physical stimulation. Watching them go from ward to ward having to strap down some of the children to stretch out their limbs as they scream and fight, DON'T TOUCH DON'T TOUCH!" for some of the children this is the only situation they show any animation about their lives "

That was it for me, that was the moment I said to myself "no I wouldn't keep my child if it was to end up this way". I remember my own mother kicking me out the house when I was 16 and saying "I was not born to have you!" I hated her for a long time after that but she's right, she has her own life, she was not born to have me, no one is born to have children. I believe we are here for one conscious life only. I already feel myself to be a good, tolerant, empathetic and caring person so bringing up a profoundly disabled child won't be seen by me as a lesson or a gift from God.

On the other hand, the most beautiful thing I've ever seen is a mother, tired from work, run into the ward, straight over to her son, lift him out of his wheelchair, hold him tightly in her arms and whisper in his ears "I will always love you... no matter what".

Tuesday 17 April 2012

NaPoWriMo day 17 Poem 12 Philosophy At Weatherspoons

Weatherspoons on a Monday morning is like a retirement home,
people drink for hours, sitting at the bar,
no one takes off their jacket,
they won’t admit how comfortable they are
where the air is anxious with the smell of cigarettes and clammy microwave heat

I walked past men at the fruit machines and sat at a table behind an old man in a black flat cap, gold rings on four fingers, his dark skin shiny, his face, aged, I guessed he’s Caribbean, in his fifties, he had the hands of mechanics, hands I imagined in a factory or a side` street garage. 
He asked if I was going to the bar, I said I was, he said order me a double whisky then he leaned in and whispered fill the glass with lemonade its 10am and I don't want people to think I got problems.

when I came back with his drink, he spoke about his life, I sat and listened

 he said

I'm too honest sometimes, it's hard to be honest in the same country you do your taxes. I really want to go to Russia, I understand Russian, it’s easy, all you got to do is stand in the snow with a bottle of Vodka. I'd drink until I feel the things I'd rather feel, you can only numb yourself for so long... I'm only joking about wanting to go to Russia, what the hell would a black man do in Russia? I'd find no bit of music about me there. Then again I could've said the same about England when I was young. Home is complicated now because I know too many places that it might be and not all of them exist. They call me "salt penis" because I have one foot on one island and the other foot on another while my penis dangles in the ocean. If the sun is a therapist then the one in England is shit.  I’m broke, I left my wife years ago, it’s hard to love someone when you know them too well, but my heart knows that failure is the worst thing that could happen to it and I have not failed and that’s the only reason I’m still alive, drinking lemonade on a day and a place like this.

That Time Elton John Told Me To Fuck Off

Did I tell you about the time Elton John told me to fuck off? – No, well, here’s a short version of that story. I’m not proud of it but I worked for the paparazzi for a week. It was June 2009 and I had just quit my job as a personal trainer. Nothing was coming out of poetry gigs but free drink tokens. I was doing some event photography at that time and the paparazzi job was suggested to me by a mate who had a link.

I decided to give it a go and went to meet two men (one looked to be about 25 and the other looked to be in his 50’s) “you can make anything from £100 – £20,000” says the older man, “when Nicole Kidman got pregnant she tried to hide it from the press but we managed to sneak into her garden and get shots of her baby bump, we made at least £5,000 a shot, then she had to come out and admit her pregnancy”.

They explained the process to me “you've got to have your own equipment and camera, as soon as you snap a celebrity you upload the pictures where they’re sent to a small room filled with a representative of each newspaper in the UK. A bidding war begins and you get 60% of what they pay, the rest goes to us as your agent”   

They told me the most valuable shots you can get are celebrities showing wrinkles, scars, wedding rings, bruises, grey hair or any kind of deformity.

They invited me to their next job which was in Mayfair. They got a tip off that Peter Andre was in the area. We waited outside the Hilton Hotel for an hour until he arrived. When Peter was spotted he had a child with him, he didn’t want to be spotted and hurried inside. We needed a shot of Peter’s face but with him hurrying away and his back to us one of the paparazzi photographers determined to get the shot shouted “PETER! FUCK YOUR KIDS!” Peter turned around and his screw face was snapped up. We got the picture and it appeared in News Of The World the next day with the headline “Peter Andre distressed over Jordan break up”

The next job was Elton John’s birthday party. We drove all the way to Winsor one sunny afternoon and parked as close as we could to his house hoping to get shots of celebrities driving in. There was about eight paparazzi photographers who would run out in the middle of the road every time a fancy car drove by. Victoria Beckham, Ronnie Wood, Matt Lucas were all spotted.

This is the part I’ll never forget... The black Cadillac that drove by and us photographers crowding around it in the road to see who it might be. I was in perfect position as the window rolled down and slowly Elton John’s face emerged... he was wearing tinted sunglasses and a white suit... then his middle finger stuck right into my face as he shouted “FUCK OFF!”

That was my last day as a paparazzi photographer.

Every now and then my mind pulls up this image of angry Elton John in his white suit telling me to fuck off.

What happened to the photos? - well the computer they were on crashed and I lost them all. Most of the photos were of my own reflection in tinted Cadillac windows - there was no value in them anyway.


Monday 16 April 2012

UK National Slam Champion Adam Kammerling *Video* NEXT Soho Chill Pill announced - May 7th



oddball Adam Kammerling (Rapper, Storyteller, Poet & UK Hammer & Tongue Slam Champion 2012) will be at the next Soho Theatre Chill Pill.  May 7th with his band.

Saturday 14 April 2012

NaPoWriMo Day 14 Poem 11 Status

when you find out your dad had a heart attack,
you wonder if you should update your facebook.
You wonder if one parent less should be your status.

Do you expect people to like your status?
who’s attention do you actually want?            

Maybe you should change your profile picture,
put up the one of you in your dads arms as a baby, wrapped in white cotton
while your dad, younger, happier, smiles into your black newborn eyes.

People will like that. 
It will make your relationship look like the kind you wanted,
like he always knew how to hold you.

Like how he held your handle bars on the bike you wanted that he bought 
and you wobbled through London Fields and he said peddle faster as he ran, 
ran beside you, and you screamed don’t let go, don’t let go 
and he said you’ll be fine and you wanted to believe him and then he let go and you rode, rode 
and he threw his arms in the air and bellowed that’s my boy, that’s my boy!   

But that isn’t true, that’s not what happened.

Somewhere in your mind it’s what was meant to have happened.

But why would that matter to anyone else?

UK Hip-Hop Legend Mystro - Video At London Spoken Word Showcase 'Chill Pill'



Next show at Soho Theatre on May 7th and back at The Albany on May 29th. WATCH OUT NOW!

Friday 13 April 2012

Recommendation : Black T Shirt Collection At The National Theatre By Inua Ellams

Yep, here's some London based poets checking out Inua Ellam's new show 'Black T Shirt Collection' at The National Theatre. If you liked 13th Tale & Untitled (Inua's first two shows) you'll get with this. GO SEE IT! 


John Agard - Spoken Word - An Expert On Palm Trees

NaPoWriMo Day 13 Poem 10 Deptford

Outside a chicken shop in Deptford
a short fat man, 
looking like a giant egg in a brown shirt
asked if I collect coins.
I told him I don't, 
he scooped all the pennies
out his pocket and held them 
in his cupped hands and said
I want to give these to you

I wish I asked why
instead, I let him pour
his pennies into my hands
forming a small bronze mountain.

He smiled as he walked away
shouting a word that spun around the street

"LIGHTER!" he said

"I'M LIGHTER!"

Monday 9 April 2012

NaPoWriMo Day 9 Poem 8 Words With Grandma

as time goes on reality becomes history -

I’ll never forget walking into church
days after war ended.

Everyone held this smile on their face that said
fire burned down my house but I’m glad it’s out.

I’ll never forget the teeth
how black and dented  they were
and how many were missing
after what they’d bitten into.

The whole country knew what it was
to lose something that wasn't coming back.
It put this compassion in everyone
everywhere like the air itself, from the
man in a soup kitchen to the House Of Commons.

I’ll never forget walking into church
the week they set up the NHS .

the sight of those old ladies
white teeth, upright,
complete smiles
a show of what can be fixed.

Saturday 7 April 2012

NaPoWriMo Day 7 Poem 7 Poet Problem Page

I have broken my molecule
  I pencil chew
                      until I'm lead poisoned

O! I have lost my favorite pen
                                               write?
I cannot. I am too unremarkable
                                             and drunk! 
employed by the pen
                                         that I have lost
                          to be
                                  Bukowski
is not
         to think as much
                                   and still be
                                                    profound
  in an American way
                                     (not mine)
today
          I didn't meet a single intellectual

I found nothing
                        to compare myself to

not a single image
 
but I did write a very poetic weather report

I realise now, that nothing ever comes of my problems
           except wander
                                       and wonder.

Friday 6 April 2012

NaPoWriMo Poem 6 Day 6 No Room For Racism in the met

Having read today that ten racist allegations have been brought against the metropolitan police I heard Craig Mackey (deputy police commissioner) say “there is no room for racism in the met”

I figured how many times I’ve heard that statement word for word.. no room... this has been a response to  past racist allegations. I thought what do the police actually mean by room? – there is a room! we’ve all seen it... Here’s a freewrite.

There is no room for racism in the met -

It’s not quite a white room. We don’t
know how often it’s cleaned or by whom.

Those walls must keep what they know.

Maybe it’s not a room at all, it’s a train
carriage where you look out the window
and all you see is a window. You listen to
an old white women tell brown passengers
to get off in their own country. This train is
not a ghost - if you don’t believe in it then
it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. But we’ve seen
all its pixels recorded on iphone, video
audio, undeniable as these words say  –  
the thing with being a nigger is that you’ll always
                                 be a nigger. 

Thursday 5 April 2012

NaPoWriMo Day 5. Poem 5 __________

Today I sat down and looked through my South Africa travel journal notes. There is about three pages of things I wrote while tripping on magic mushrooms. I remember feeling like I'd written gold... then I sobered up and read it back with great disappointment. I took some lines and played around with it. Here's the result.

I have no words for the sky tonight
                      or the moon
                                              but it is there
 the colour blue
                         bites me
                                               it has no teeth
                                        but it has the biggest mouth
my stomach is not colour proof
                                                          it is a bazooka
a fire worker                                  a happy volcano
               I am high on yellow electric
                        this frequency jitter
you have waited for the world to tune in
                                                                        WE’RE HERE!
ME IN ALL MY VINEGAR!
                    I would call this beautiful
                                                                     but I see U in the middle of the word
and there are mirrors to look at            looks like 
                                                                          we have things to fix
                         how about I ask all this ground 
                                                                        if it wants to be walked on
                 
if I said all this under water    would you get along with the bubbles?
                                  are you swimming in gibberish?
every day – same shit in the same colour
                                                  ya'know                                               
          England is a rain machine                         
    it made me a brick of hard butter
                                          nothing looks like pancakes
not even the full moon

Wednesday 4 April 2012

NaPoWriMo. Day 4 Poem 4 Tangent Practice 1 (after Kenneth Koch)

In poetry the skill to concentrate on themes/objects and tie them neatly together is beyond me at times. Ted Hughes says he took up fishing to help him master this. The way my mind works naturally (and I believe most people's) is it just goes off in tangents. Here's a poem I started writing attempting to stick to a theme but break into a tangent if  it comes naturally. Here's the result.

after Kenneth Koch

The Metro says  a young Asian girl has been shot
she is now spending her life as a cripple
                                                                        I wonder where she wants to go.

I wonder where I would want to go if I couldn’t go anywhere.

The Metro says she was dancing in the aisle of a corner shop
when she was shot down by three black guys.

The newspaper asks – is this the kind of place we live in?

They should have gone to a museum –                                       
                                                                      could you see that?
                                   The little brown Asian girl and these three black guys
at The National Portrait Gallery (for example)
                                                                     Happy and out of trouble
                                                         had they ever considered that?
 We’ve had weeks of sun       they could have even gone to Brighton beach
 I can see all four of them sitting in deckchairs
                                                                                     on the pebbles  wearing sunhats
 but apparently it’s not the kind of place we live in.          
                              
                           Me
  I’ve been pulled in so many directions –
Jamaica
                                      Germany
                              South Africa
       
The idea of staying in London does not have much voltage.
I want to go and land
                                      somewhere

I want to have something inside me electrocuted.
                                                                              new places                                                                                          
                                                                                      make sense and no sense at the same time.

As for my city 

                     I can deal with a bad cloud  but I’m brown

                                                                            It’s not my style.



what am I missing if I’m not where I want to be?
                                                                                       
  MY MIND HAS BEEN EVERYWHERE!                                 
                                                                   wait          
                                                                            is my head still above my neck?
OK, London
                            I have hoisted a sail
                                                                    How about some        wind?

NaPoWriMo. Day 4. Poem 3. A Man In The Pub Remembers His Friend Gerald





The bookmaker shop on Broadway market
reminds me of Gerald, my friend from Jamaica.

Gerald came to England to work 
in his fathers Butcher shop.

He was here one month and got arrested,
caught with a bag of weed.

In jail a police officer put his head down a toilet, 
said he wanted to see if he could flush niggers.

Weeks later, outside that bookmaker shop 
I saw Gerald again, covered in blood.

He shrugged when I asked him what happened.
said he’d slaughtered some pig.

Found out later he’d murdered a police officer,
same one that flushed him.

Gerald saw the officer on the street and swung a butcher’s
knife into his neck,

half his head hung off like a sliced coconut.

After four days in prison 
Gerald was hung in his cell.

I'll never forget the sight of Gerald’s father
going crazy in the street shouting

THEY KILLED MY SON  THEY KILLED MY SON!


Lots of dead meat about those days.

Tuesday 3 April 2012

NaPoWriMo Day 3 Poem 2 Women & Broken Poems

This is a new draft of the second poem I wrote for last years NaPoWriMo.


Women & Broken Poems

Women. Hold my writing hand
Help me write the things
I can’t say to you. I trust you.
Women. I sit alone with you.

You brush your fingers
along my tattooed arms, 
and ask if I have a condom.
You are smarter than me.

This is the universe where
I would take my hand and marry my words
if I was sure they were right.
  Like, I always feel something missing

but never know what it is. Women,
 I feel love is a type of clean, and
I’m too dark for it.

 If there was a licence for love,
I’d have points for speeding,
so I caution you.

I am not the ride
If you don’t want to crash

 I’m a love child, so
everything about me is an accident
or a broken poem
or a good idea that doesn’t work.

But if I write about you, women
I always try to do it well.

Monday 2 April 2012

NaPoWriMo Day 2 Poem 1 One Night At Zula Bar In Cape Town

 NaPoWriMo is National Poetry Writing Month. 


I'll try to write and post a poem a day throughout April. 

This is a new draft of a poem I wrote in Cape Town last December.

One Night at Zula Bar in Cape Town


I’m dancing,
I'm dancing more
I’m dancing more than I ever did,
dancing more than I did at my cousin’s wedding,
more        than I danced on my  21st Birthday,
 I drink Milk Stout beer
 at the Zula Bar
and dance with girls I won’t take home.

I haven’t slept  in two weeks,
    But I’m still doing the shuffle   with the 3am crowd,
It doesn’t matter how much I miss my sister
        even though    we’ve never danced in the same room

            doesn’t matter that my dad won’t be alive by the time
    I understand him,
                            doesn’t matter if I’m talking to my Grandma’s gravestone
         by the time I’m home,
 doesn’t matter that my entire family think I’m strange
  and I think they are normal,
                 doesn’t matter that I should have told Sophie the truth,
that I didn’t want another person in my life that I could lose,
                                                              doesn’t matter that it’s 4am now

             and behind me a girl is yelling
This music is so good it hurts!

                                     and I’m dancing, dancing
                                                                                like dancing is a kind of pain,
                                               and all I can do is
shake.

Sunday 1 April 2012

REVIEWS - Raymond Antrobus Poetry Performance at Petersfield Right Angle/Chill Pill At The Albany


RAY LIGHTS UP WRITE ANGLE

Having recently returned from South Africa, Ray Antrobus started with what it was like,  'No one wants you to get too comfortable' and in 'Conversation with a South African Taxi Driver', in dialect, - 'Africa is a woman. Only women have that much colour in their fury'. And,  'I will pick you up 9.15 African time.... You might call it 11'. The audience laughed....'so I will see you 9.15'.

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Ray's timing, his powerful voice, presence and penetrating eyes, ranging from sensitive to poignant to humour, projecting in his stories and poems, held the audience spellbound. From 'Conversations with my Grandma', - 'kissing a man without a moustache is like eating an egg without salt' to a journal of his dreams, from which he extracted  ideas for poems. 'A man called Thursday lives in the weekend', 'The best poets live in ambulances', 'Snow has put the confetti company out of business', 'The best suits are tailored for astronauts.

He doesn't know why but different kinds of transportation appear in his dreams – not necessary, since he 'teleports'. He described a particular road which, when it appears, tells him he's in a dream. Described in great detail,  he watches it from the upper level of a double decker bus. His sentences are short and sharp. There's a train station on which a woman with wrinkles 'as thick as lightning bolts stuck in the sky'...He speaks of his vices, 'Women and Broken Poems', 'I feel like love is a type of clean and I'm too dark for it'. 'I'm a love child so everything about me is an accident or a broken poem'. Ray switches quickly from one idea to another, keeping his work stimulating and exciting. He seems to share so much of himself and what he passionately  believes..'Nothing is more universal than love'.  'She saw all the flaws in the way I tried to hide them.'.and, be a perfectionist but know you're not the moon because you cannot shine every night'.

'I would take my hand and marry my words if I was sure they were right'. 'My mother didn't die. She just stopped running. She walked out the house for a cigarette and never came back'. (There's an anger there). On 'difficult relationships' – 'My poems don't understand me. They get jealous when I look at other poems in magazines. They accused me of cheating on them with music'. 'I would never do that - Yes I would!' Typical poems!' Lastly, 'Sometimes conversation is a hard act to follow. No one assumes he didn't hear them. Instead it's assumed he's stupid'. Ray speaking of Ray. He left school at 16. He talked of having hearing aids in both ears without which he cannot hear and how people responded to that. How they spoke to him as if he was 'stupid' and his resentment is apparent. When Ray isn't travelling all over and performing, he works with children with special needs. He never wanted to learn sign language. He wanted to be like everyone else. (We don't think Ray will ever be like anyone else! He made the evening a very special one!

Chill Pill At The Albany Featuring Rachel Rose Reid & The REC Chior & UK HipHop Legend Mystro

Action. Drama. Romance. Comedy: The key ingredients I seek when I'm reviewing a Bollywood Blockbuster. Little did I know I could get the same filmi fix from a poetry night. Chill Pill is the best showcase of poetry and spoken word in London...(if not the UK?) I know, I know...there are infinite poetry nights nationwide, all with captivating hosts, brilliant headliners and rising stars of the future on the Open Mic...but add in a passionate and intelligent group of curators, a full masala of themes, a magic rug and a friendly intimate crowd, and you get 'Best' with a capital B.