Shapes And Disfigurements Of Raymond Antrobus

Travelling Alone - When It Gets Lonely.

2012-01-26T08:20:00.000-08:00

Bus Fare

I am sitting on a minibus driving along the green African hillsidesof the Wild Coast, heading towards Durban. I am squeezed between a very largeAfrican woman and three scrawny African men in beards and vests. There is asign by the window that reads ‘fourteen seated persons only’ and I have justcounted nineteen people around me including one baby and three children.

Thereis also three large baskets of fruit and vegetables, an old African lady wearingpale orange face paint (I thought it was skin bleach but actually it means she’sbeing treated by a witchdoctor), a small cage with two clucking chickens, twobarrel sized sacks of rice and a wheel barrow. The radio is on full blast! 'DearMama' by Tupac has just come on and all the children are clapping. The afternoonsun is high and the smell of petrol and greasy chicken has taken overeverything. The woman in front of me is very round and keeps leaning back, squashingmy knees with her seat.

My god why doesshe have to be so fat? I think to myself. What excuse is there? Why isn't anyone in her lifegiving her this feedback!? – Five hours into the journey and pain hasarrived in my left buttock and my lower back as well as the fizzing blood in mylegs – my legs are going numb! Fuck! How can that woman not know her fat iscrushing me! Of course she knows! Shejust doesn’t care! Fat fuck! She’s eaten a whole box of chicken! She’s sobloody fat and incon-fucking-siderate! Ihave eaten all my food (two packets of Biltong, a banana, a Power Nut barand a 1.5 litre bottle of water).

Actually, think! This is perfect, all of the deepestreflective moments in my life happen on cheap, uncomfortable, long haul journeys.Yes, who do I miss right now? Who would understand my rage against the fat-chicken-in-a-boxeating fuck! Who would listen to me talk about how surreal the landscape ishere with the hills, the cows and the beaches? Who would sit next to me right nowand laugh about how ridiculous the word “baboon” is... BABOON! Are you kiddingme? Shout the word “BABOON” and keep astraight face!

I've been on the road alone for over a week now and havemet many people and other travellers at backpacker hostels but not reallyanyone else as alone as me right now. You have this part of you that always has to be openwhen wanting to meet new people but that gets tiring. You have to keep provingto people how interesting and intelligent you are and sometimes you just wantto make some dumb joke that only someone who knows you will take the right way.

I know I’m ok on my own but right now I would be so muchbetter with company.

The Coloured Experience

2012-01-24T03:28:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer: This is a recording of my own personal experience. I know the issues are so much more complicated than I have expressed here (no tribal, religious, sexuality, gender conflicts, employment issues mentioned) but I didn't want to read other theories or essays on South African politics and write a historically accurate thesis - This is more of a report. The writing here came from being present in South Africa between November 2011 - January 2012 and talking to the people living there.

On my first day in South Africa I got into a conversation with a Taxi Driver (not the one I’ve already written about) – this taxi driver would be seen as a black Arab/Asian in the UK.

Me – So, what do you think of South Africa?

Taxi Driver – It’s great but the blacks are fucking it up!

I didn’t know how to respond to this. I’d just arrived. I wondered how he’s labelled me and how he expects me to react. I didn't get offended I just felt confusion and it prepared me for much confusion to come.

I know Londoners aren’t comfortable referring to race. We like to think we’re too educated and civilised to let race define anyone's status or situation but South Africa is a country built on racial politics (i.e. how much Vitamin D your skin can absorb).

Talk Radio is popular in Cape Town and it seems all the discussions centred around race.

"GOOD MORNING! Welcome to Good Hope Radio! A teacher was fired today because she's coloured, a man was arrested today because he's black, a woman was rewarded because she's white"

It's 2012 and white South Africans (Afrikaans/British descended South Africans) make up 12% of thecountry and own 90% of the countries businesses.

The gap between rich and pooris striking.

I walked past speed boats, hummer trucks, quad bikes etc all parked indriveways and garages behind (mostly white owned) gated mansions. After workingin a primary school with children (all black or coloured) some of whom couldn't affordschool dinner, it's hard not to feel repulsed by this display of excessive wealth.

Apartheid is still a wound that needs tending. The white familiesthat benefited from, well... being white are of course still going to be rich. They aren’t going to turn around and give reparations to Africans any time soon. Whites feel they've worked for all they have. Being white yougot top education and top assistance from a government who wanted to help itsown and exclude the rest but still, success wasn't handed to them, it was just made easier for them. The whites worked and feel entitled to their privileges.

I heard there is onewhite township. I was told about it by a guy from Zimbabwe who lives in CapeTown.

“The media like to talk about this white township but come on, to get by (duringapartheid) all you had to be was white and they fucked it up! They’re thelowest of the low for sure!”

There is also this white guilt; history knows what colonialwarmongering history we Europeans have and we inherit that and apologise for itbut I don’t really know how useful that guilt is to anyone. Maybe it has createda sensitivity that has geared many young middle class white people towardshuman rights campaigning and activism which of course is cute.

I did speak to a young white British/South African who said "the blacks were oppressed for a long time by whites in South Africa and now they're getting their own back"

Here's a 15 minute documentary about "Poor Whites" in South Africa from 2006.

There is so much anger in South Africa about its history. You'll often hear people still complain about the white government as if they are still there and then complain about the black government in the same breath.

I went on a tour of the caves in the Devils Peak. The group was made up of mostly Brazilian, Dutch & American students. The tour itself was led by a English/Xhosa speaking guide. After two hours of a guided walk and talk about how the Dutch came and discovered all the caves I managed to speak to him one on one afterwards. He went into this rant about how he has to give all the credit to the Dutch settlers and promote white supremacy to all the people that come here to visit but it's his job and he's got a family to feed.

Much of the conversations I had with “coloured people”(political name for people of Mixed-Race, Asian, Cape Malayan, Khoisan) were about this quest for their own identity. Ispoke to a coloured guy from the Eastern Cape about this.

“Black Africans knowabout their tribes and their ancient traditions, whites know about theirEuropean roots but we (coloured people) are caught up between the two - We arelost in having a whole identity”.

A lot of mixed race people go through this “who am I andwhere do I belong?” crises. I also came though this tunnel but I think I had aneasier time going through it in London and being British. In London we’re not wholly defined by our skincolour like it’s our passport, also our multiculturalism is celebrated (becauseit’s politically correct to celebrate it).

I met a Kiwi guy in a backpacker hostel and we went to a bartogether. The people there were all white Afrikaans. He got talking to some ofthem but they completely ignored me. It was a strange experience and I wantedto humour it. I thought about my Dad’s stories about being Jamaican in London inthe 50’s. Ultimately though, I got angrier the longer I was there. Somehow I got talking to a young white woman, after only five minutes three white guyscame over and escorted her away from me saying “no, no, no”. It was a strange experience.

There were places where my colour blended me in. Iwent to a few coloured townships and wasn't looked at twice. I was welcomedinto people’s family homes, introduced to their children and grandparents. Theycooked for me and showed me around their neighbourhoods.

There was one coloured guy I met who was an ex-ambulance driver who told me things were better during apartheid.

"I had a great team of paramedics but they fired all the white ones and replaced them with these under-qualified black ones. I'll never forget showing up at the scene of a road accident and the new black guy I was with had no idea how to handle any of the equipment. He couldn't even operate the radio. I quit my job after that, I wouldn't be able to save any more lives. Things weren't that bad during apartheid - it just meant we had to live with segregation. We couldn't go in some areas because they were white - whatever! I didn't want to go there anyway! My house has been robbed three times since Apartheid ended and more people from other parts of Africa came in - The last guy to rob my house was a man from Kenya posing as a TV repairman. Came in and ran off with the DVD Player and TV set... stole some plates and cutlery that were in the kitchen too!"

I spent New Years Eve at a party in Cape Town. It was about five minutes into the New Year and a black woman chose to have an intense conversation with me about "how white Cape Town is" and how racist the Afrikaans people are, how the black government are corrupt because they're trying to live like white people etc. The fact she couldn't let it go for one night as we went into a New Year made a sad statement.

Apartheid isn't just a political fight, it's a psychological one.

Sometimes Conversation Is A Hard Act To Follow

2012-01-20T15:37:00.000-08:00

Lots of things can get lost when hiking up a mountain.

As you probably know I wear hearing aids and when wind blows into them you can't hear anything but whooshing.

Here’s an extract from a conversation as I heard it while climbing South Africa's Table TopMountain with a friend called Irfaan.

Irfaan – Did I tell you about what happened?-------------------------------------------grabbed hisarm------------------------punched in the face---------------I said HEY! DON’T YOU DO THAT! --------------------------------- and then I said I’d put my fistthrough his face and that was it-------------------------------amazing story eh? ----------------------------------- Christmas.

Me – Christmas?

Irfaan - Yeah. Well, what?

Me – What what?

Irfaan – Christmas.

Me – I’m guessing you are asking what I’m doing forChristmas?

Irfaan – Erm, ok. What are you doing for Christmas?

Me –I don’t know.

Irfaan – Well, do you eat kittens?

Me – Kittens? ... Like cats?

Irfaan – What?

Ray – I don’t eat kittens’ man.

Irfaan – No Ray, CHICKEN!

Ray – Oh’. Haha, yeahI do. I’m kind of hungry actually.

Irfaan – I got a sandwich you can have some if you want?

Ray – Sure what’s in it?

Irfaan – Feta cheese, honey and feet.

Ray – Erm... what?

Irfaan – You know what figs are? Those little...

Ray – OH’! FIGS! FIGS! Haha, yes... Not feet.

Irfaan – What the fuck is wrong with you man?

Ray – Yeah, a lot of wind is blowing in my ears.

Irfaan – OK.. So, you been into town yet?

Ray – Yeah.

Irfaan – Was it fertile?

Ray – I know you’re not asking me if the town was fertile.

Irfaan – WORTHWHILE RAY! WAS IT WORTHWHILE!?

We didn’t say anything to each other for a while after that.

Later I was at Irfaan’s house sitting at a table with hislittle cousins when a man walks into the room wearing black overalls and aMuslim prayer hat.

Irfaan – Ray meet fuck me.

Ray – What’s his name?

Irfaan – Fuck me.

Ray – Erm...

Fuck Me – Hi, I’m Fuck me.

Ray – Hello Fuck me.

Fuck me - ...

Irfaan – There are children here man!

Ray – erm... what’s his name again?

Irfaan – FUCK ME!

Ray – Oh'...OK.

I never did find out his name... probably Funky or Totsi orCutney or Chucky or something...

It takes a while to adjust to new accents when you travel aboard. I was asking South African people often to repeat themselves (more the first month than the second). I always considered myself as someone articulate in speech but I often had to repeat myself too. I was often thought to be a "coloured guy from Cape Town" until I opened my mouth. The look of confusion when a South African greeted me in Afrikaans or "howzit me'brew?" and I responded without flattening the vowels in my speech - "hey, I'm good thanks, how are you?".

Zulu Kings & German Girls

2012-01-17T17:14:00.000-08:00

Many German girls can be seen backpacking and enrolling in voluntary programmes across South Africa. I don’t know why but girls from Germany are everywhere like many-germs (pun credited to Chi-Town poet ‘Dan Sully!’).

Here’s a little story involving one of those many germs and a Zulu King.

On the road I took a tour bus through the garden route and met Brazilian girls (which I’ve already spoken about) but I also met a tall, blonde, hot-pant wearing twenty year old girl from Germany. We sat together on the bus and I kept making sexual euphuisms about her favourite chocolate bar (‘POWER NUTS!’).

So we sat, flirted, made silly jokes and I thought about my chances of getting me one of those power nuts. She told me about her break ups and her Porsche driving father. She told me she hasn't been single since she was fourteen and she wants to be free for a while. She told me she’s in love with a married man and he was going to leave his wife for her. They made plans to meet at the airport and fly somewhere closer to the sun but he didn’t show up. A bit like the ending of a romantic novel in the 10p box of your local charity shop.

Pick N’Pay is the South African equivalent of Tesco’s. Every now and then the bus stops there so we can stock up on snacks for the road. We got off the bus and went into separate food aisles; I got my usual - twenty rand pieces of chicken, a bottle of water and a small box of fruit salad.

I got back on the bus and waited a while before she came back. When she finally emerged she was glowing with renewed excitement. The first thing she wanted me to know was that she’d taken a guys number in Pick N’Pay. She wanted me to know how much he made her laugh, how he made jokes about cats and she loves jokes about cats, she’s cats about jokes about cats. Most importantly she told me he’s a Zulu King!

The bus left and I had to sit and listen to her on the phone to the Zulu King and his stupid cat jokes! Yes, I was jealous! Who wouldn't be? Zulu Kings must be fearless warriors and freedom fighters, men of people, respected and celebrated. A Nation will mourn his death. They will build great golden monuments of his goat skin shield, raising a spear to the sky and the words “ONE ZULU NATION!” carved into a marble pedestal... yes, you cannot compete with a Zulu King.

I was trying not to listen to their conversation but it was clear they were making plans. Eventually she hung up the phone and asked the bus driver to stop. “He’s driving behind the bus, he’s going to pick me up and I’ll stay on his farm and we’ll go sky diving” “wow” I said “sky diving with a Zulu King, that’s a once in the life time opportunity!”.

The bus stopped and she climbed off and disappeared... I never saw her again.

The following week I stayed in a Zulu village myself and told the story of the Zulu King and the German girl.

I was with two Zulu guys who were dressed in shorts, T-Shirt, no socks and Nike trainers. We all sat in a hut under nostril assault.- The smell of a slaughtered goat rotting in the corner and waiting to be skinned.

The guys laughed and told me there is only one Zulu King. He is in his seventies; they also told me the chances of him being in Pick N’Pay and following a tour bus eighty miles to pick up a German girl were highly unlikely as in his village he has seventeen wives and has access to any other woman he wants.

They went on to tell me it is known that German women are gullible and many African men exploit them for power nuts.

Obviously, there is no such thing as an accurate generalisation so I hope this doesn’t make you think any less of the Germans you meet in your life. Whoever you meet and whatever you do to impress a potential mate it always helps to be a king... a Zulu King.

No One Does Skies Like Africa

2012-01-14T03:43:00.000-08:00

South Africa has been amazing. I've had such an incredible time getting to know the country.

Upon returning home I expect to have to answer a lot of questions about my trip but sometimes after a long and eventful time away you don't want to talk about it too much. It's fresh, its sitting in you as you slowly adjust back to life as you know it.

When asked about my trip I'll say "yeah, South Africa was great, amazing, stunning", I'll smile and look off into the distance until I'm asked if I'm alright, then I might cry and let it all out...

I'll talk about how I stayed at the Valley Of A Thousand Hills in a Zulu Village and the Xhosa family I met along the coastal Eastern Cape. I'll talk about the Muslim family I stayed with and the wedding I went to in their local Mosque. I'll think back to the christmas I spent in a township with a Christian family eating seafood after attending sunday morning service. How I stayed with a white gay couple who adopted and are raising a black South African daughter. I'll mention the white lesbian couple I stayed with who are raising a mixed race son. I'll talk about the work I did with orphaned children, severely disabled (wheelchair bound) children, the mountains I climbed, the lone travelling across the wild coast via public transport (something I was advised not to do because of common road accidents & muggings) I'll get animated as I recall the smells in the mini buses, trains and taxis, how I was crammed next to chickens and big boned African women with babies and baskets of fruits and veg. I'll talk about what it's like to sky dive, to go kayaking by waterfalls, to drive an old school Piaggio scooter across Cape Town in the city heat. Where I was when I spotted my first whale and how I lost count of all the seals and penguins I saw. I'll say I survived a shark cage dive, how I walked with elephants and baboons, ate crocodiles and ostriches, raved at underground hip-hop spots, watched b-boys break, graffiti artists paint and skaters skate. The writers, poets, teachers and activists I met, how I felt their hunger, their anger, their idealistic visions of the future, how tormented they are by their own history and how intensely I listened to their struggle with African identity. I had conversations about apartheid, African politics, European-ism, Pan-African-ism. I had the kind of conversations you walk away from feeling enriched and uplifted. I met people who made me laugh until I cried, people who annoyed the fuck out of me, people with stories, incredible stories. I'll look very serious as I talk about how I almost got robbed on a mini bus and had to fight my way out. I'll tell about the morning someone broke into my flat while I was asleep and stole my watch and cash - how I had to go to the police station and confront the guy in his jail cell. I'll hold eye contact as I talk about the people I met going through grief, divorces, people who just got married, just had babies, just bought their first house, just lost their job. I'll go on to talk excitedly about how I crawled through caves, swam in the Indian and Atlantic Ocean, sat on a grassy hill watching a sunset surrounded by cows and smoked weed grown in the gardens next to pumpkins and strawberries. I'll grin as I talk about all the colours I sank into during a mushroom trip sitting next to a river and the laughing fits, bless the laughing fits! I'll recall the candle lit jazz bars and poetry readings and the books I finished and how I wrote at least five love poems about the sky. I'll recommend a range of new African authors, poets and musicians (currently reading Half A Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie), I'll say how I realized I like eating olives, I like hiking, I like Milk Stout beer and South African wine and cheese. I like dancing, I really like dancing... I danced more than I have in my entire life. I'll look at my feet as I tell you I realised how hard I am on myself, how much my relationship with my mother and sister has matured these past few years - I missed them in a way I never have. I thought about past relationships and best friends I've moved away from. I thought about my compatibility with my city, other cities, ambitions, dreams, business.

I am growing and I have grown through all of this, I can feel it already... I'll wipe my eyes and say I am in love, in love with everything... all the beautiful things and their shadows.

Bridges & Marriages

2012-01-09T01:21:00.000-08:00

I saw the bridge. I saw the man get ready to jump, and thenI saw him plummet two hundred and sixteen meters towards the ground; why, why would you do that? It’s all Icould say as the rope pulled him back up. He dangled at least fifty metersbelow the bridge and hung there upside down and waited to be pulled backtowards the ledge.

The bungee jump is potential suicide but I had some strangeinner madness that wanted to do it but I needed encouragement.

There was a man standing behind me also watching the peoplejump. He looked to be in his early forties. I turned to him.

Me - You going to do it?

Man – Yes, I’ve come across the world to do it.

Me – oh’, you’ve come across the world for this kind ofdeath sport, why?

Man – I’m going through a divorce.

After he said that he walked off towards the bridge. Ialready imagined him at the ledge, looking down towards the rocks in the greenriver below. I imagined how much of the world he’d put into his lungs before steppingover the edge and free falling over a hundred miles an hour, completely alone, completelyalone.

District 6 (The film District 9 is based on this history)

2012-01-02T07:35:00.000-08:00

District 6 is an area in Cape Town where 60,000 people were forcedto leave their homes in the sixties after the white government declared thedistrict a “white group area”. When South Africa became a democracy in 1994 theoriginal residents were given the option to move back.

Conversation With A District 6 evictee.

They told us we could go back, back to what? I knew if my avocado pear tree was notstanding up in the garden I would not go. As a boy I’d climb that tree, eat theavocado pears and throw the pips at passers by. My neighbor kept homing pigeons and he lost them all afterhis removal. He was sent to live in a township shack and couldn’t make hisbirds follow. Guess you can’t shit on pigeons. Some of the residents did fightbut they only stayed in their homes to watch the colour of the district palearound them. Its seventeen years into democracy and people can’t forward move.There is still so much anger here because of apartheid. Even my old neighbor tothis day will not forgive the white government, but now he’s as angry at theblack government. Since 94’ not one president has served a full term. They getinto office and exploit and cause corruption for their own financial gain,knowing they won’t be in power for long. Most of the coloured people will tellyou the white government were less corrupt and people lived better with officialdivision. The coloured people feel this because when the whites were rulingthey favored the coloured (including the lighter skinned blacks). Generallythey got better jobs and education so when the blacks took power the colouredpeople couldn’t believe it. They had tried so hard to disassociate themselveswith the blacks and then they ended up ruling the country. If we are a rainbownation every colour is still living behind its own fence. It’s a shame we are anation of people defined solely by the colour of our skin before our SouthAfrican nationality. But I will say there are also great people here doinggreat things to ensure South Africa becomes one of the driving forces for aunited Africa, an Africa that is always home.

2012 Noticeboard Resolutions/2011 Accomplishments

2011-12-29T00:20:00.000-08:00

NYE Noticeboard Resolutions 2012

1. Think about this - Maybe I shouldn't eat meat every day?

2. Walk how you walk. Find your pace - There is such thing as success coming too early.

3. Deal with my "I left school at sixteen and have no higher education" insecurity.

4. Remember this - Indecisiveness has lost me more opportunities than its gained.

5. You can learn more from people who do things/think differently to you than those that do.

6. Improve smell. I smell ok for a guy who is allergic to antiperspirant but I could be better.

7. Be involved in more collaboration projects. (another reason for improving my smell)

8. I now know there is such thing as reading too much poetry. Read more prose/novels/theatre.

9. Complete & publish the Shapes & Disfigurements journal (Will be sold at gigs/online)

10. Complete at least two poetry tours (National/International)

2011 accomplishments

1. ChillPill consecutively selling out Soho Theatre & becoming official associatesof The Albany Theatre, Soho Theatre & The Arcola Theatre.

2. TouringChicago & meeting Dan Sullivan, Tim Stafford, Robbie Q Telfer, Rodger Bonaire-Agard, Laura Yes Yes, Emily Rose, JW Baz and other great minds/people/poets.

3. Working as co-creative director of the Keats House Poets Forum project. Working with the great poets in the forum & Simon Mole & Paul Shez from City Of London.

4. Completinga youth theatre project with Half Moon & Apples & Snakes.

5. ReleasingSpeed Camera Shy (with Jim Whelan) via a US based record label - Audio Gradient. (We're mentioned in The Guardian) - http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2011/dec/30/rise-of-poetronica?fb=optOut

6. Spendingthree months working/travelling in South Africa. (on going)

7. getting these videos made.

Have You Heard? from Adam Docker on Vimeo.

8. Performing nationwide & alongside many inspirational names such as Margrat Atwood, Benjamin Zephaniah, DerrickBrown, Polarbear, Dizraeli etc.

9. Getting even better at being myself.

From The Travel Journal (14th Dec Entry & Brazilian Girls)

2011-12-27T11:34:00.000-08:00

Travel Journal Entry 14th Dec 2011

I sat in an ice cream parlor on a high street in Cape Townwatching an old couple (about seventy plus) order ice cream. It was a four pmheat outside, (a perfect orange heat maintained by a cool breeze). The oldwoman wore a yellow sunhat and a white summer dress; the old man wore a lightblue nylon suit. They ordered one scoop of strawberry ice cream in a sugar cone. They stood by the counter pinching each other’s cheeks and smiling like theycouldn’t believe they were alive at the same time. Its one of the mostbeautiful things I have ever seen and I wish you saw it; it would have burstyour heart wide open.

The Garden Route & Brazilian Girls

On the 16^th – 21^st December I leftCape Town and took a tour bus along the Garden Route. The scenery was every bitas gorgeous as the name suggests; bridges over water, pebble paths throughmountains, white houses on hill sides, S-Roads by forests, rivers, rock cliffs,white sand beaches all along side the warm Indian Ocean.

It is perfect for the backpackercrews, lots of young European and North American twenty-something’s looking fora safe little African experience.

It was a direct contrast to my time spent inAthlone Townships, Primary Schools and Nursing Homes (which, to be honest Ineeded time away from).

On the busI met five Brazilian girls (no, I didn’t sleep with them, I’m just not thatsmooth) I did however learn some things from being around them and had fun laughing atall the advances from European guys trying to get their fantasies played out.

Here is a short guide toEuropean men who want to handle themselves properly around Brazilian women.

1. Do not ask for sex.

The Brazilian term for douche bagis “mala sem alca” and to them you will be just another dick chasing pussy ifyou have conversations like this…

Hey where are you from?

Brazil.

Really!? Do you want to have sexwith me and my friends?

That is an actual word for word quote. Come on buddy, what would your grandma say?

2. Do not start a conversation by talking about howmuch Brazilian pornography you watch. Your taste in porn says more about youthan it does about them.

3. Brazil is a deeply superstitious country so you may meet people who do not believe in sex before marriage.

4. They speak Portuguese not Spanish. Come correct.

5. If you become a buddy you will be expected togreet like this (see below)

High Five/ Fist Bump

6. No one wants to be a novelty so only wanting to be with a Brazilian because they're Brazilian will earn you no Brazil Nuts.

7. apparently in Brazil it's not polite to walk around in your underwear when sharing a dorm with five girls.

Interesting Facts

In Brazil, Sponge Bob is called Bob Sponge.

Brazil has become the sixth largest economy inthe world over-taking the UK.

Lots of racism in Brazil ("you have black Brazilians then you have Brazilians")

A Brazilian poet & writer called Machado De Assis is apparently the shit.

Conversation With An 8 Year Old/ What A Cave Can Teach You

2011-12-09T04:14:00.001-08:00

Girl - Do you have a wife?

Me – No

Girl – So you sleep on your own?

Me – Yes.

Girl – I don’t like to sleep onmy own, it makes me think of snakes.

Me – Why?

Girl – Because I’m scared of them.

Me – … So are you scared ofsnakes or loneliness?

Girl – Snakes because lonelinessdoesn’t have a head with those big teeth in it.

Me – hmm… I’m going to write thatdown.

Girl – Why?

Me – Because I like what you said.

Girl – Why?

Me – (Ignores question andgets notebook out of bag)

Girl – You know what I like?

Me – What?

Girl – Balloons.

Me – OK, what else do you like?

Girl – Dogs, dogs that can dance.I want Balloons, a dog that can dance and a gun.

Me – What? Why a gun?

Her – in case I see snakes...snakes that can dance.

What A CaveCan Teach You

It’s a one hour hike up themountain at KalkBay. I went with aninternational hiking group (mainly Germans). I’d made new friends and gotinvited along, not quite knowing what I’d agreed to. The mountains got steepnear the top so we were literally rock climbing.

Looking outward from themountain you see all the ocean beyond you, all the yellow, the green and earth,its an incredibly overwhelming display of beauty.

When I got near the top there wasa cave. I’m told the cave was discovered by the Dutch when they arrived in the1600’s. We took out torches and crawled on our stomachs through the blackminiature corridors. They get narrower the further you go in.

After an hour ofworming through the tunnels, my shoulders were too wide to fit into the holesahead of me. There were five of us that made it this far, a Dutch guy, anAmerican and two German girls. I turned back alone as they tried to push deeperinto the caves.

Now is when my mind turnedagainst me...

It was sobeautiful outside, why are you doing this? Why would anyone do this? You’veburied yourself alive. You’re an idiot. Didn’t you hear something about Scorpionson the way here? Big shiny black scorpions, fuckers with venom shots loaded intheir tail? You’ll be dead, killed, alone in this cave. Why? Why? Why?

My knees got sore and I’d cut myelbow on some sharp rocks. I started to feel a slight panic. It started in myintestines, I thought of them as electric eels, voltage increasing by theminute, opening sparks and then fire trails though the central wires of mynervous system.

Its ok, itsok, I’m fine I’m fine I’m going to get out, yes. Oh’ why? Don’t black stand upcomedians joke about stupid situations white people put themselves in? This isone of them right? Suffocating to death in a cave I willingly crawled into? Noits fine, Mustafa and Trevor are black… no wait, they didn’t come this far!Fuck!

When I saw my hope, the streaminglight through a tiny crack, my stomach turned on a different kind ofelectricity – one that heats Jacuzzis.

Yes, yes,yes. Oh’ the light, the relief.. yes.

There were ten other hikersoutside. One man was sitting on a rock smiling to himself. I caught hiseye as I stumbled towards him. “howzit?” (He’s South African) he waves me over,“sit here and watch the faces as they come out the cave”. I sit with him andafter a few minutes one of the German girls appears from the cave, her faceinstalling new colour, her head in the sky, her heavy breath winding down. Theman I was next to turns to me and says “That’s exactly what relief looks like”

I then made sense of this cavecrawling insanity as a kind of 'appreciation for life' exercise.

Lastweek I took a Grade six class (11-12 year olds) at the Primary School. I askedthe class (thirty five boys and girls) to write about their nightmares, Iwanted to see how ugly their minds can get. I asked for details, the breathingunder the bed, the blood on the walls, the funeral in the rain.

I noticed afterten minutes there was a boy (let’s call him Nathan)who hadn’t written anything. I approached him and tried to help but he satthere silent. Suddenly he scrunched up the paper on his desk and threw it onthe floor, storming out the classroom. I was stunned, unsure if I should leavethe rest of the class to go after him. Later I told the Principal about Nathan,I could tell by the pause before she spoke she was about to tell me somethingheavy.

“Nathan lives in a home” she said“his parents drank themselves to death. You’ve asked a twelve year old to writeabout a nightmare he is essentially living"

See, I can crawl into some caveand be lost and full of panic, I can think about my intestines as electriceels, I can cut my elbows on rocks and bleed a little but what do I really knowabout caves and how to survive in them?

Some Things Are Just Beautiful

2011-12-03T23:55:00.001-08:00

Extract from the Travel Journal.

It’s hot, very hot. It’s called South Africa in December. I’m walking down the street, past houses that look like giant shoe boxes. They are painted colours that glow in the sun – cream white, peach yellow, red toffee. I am on my own, imagining how she would look beside me, what she’d wear on a day like this, how we would look to the rest of the world. (Brazilian supermodels maybe? You know, nudist beach material). I would be walking closer to the road, I would sound like royalty as I tell her “the gentleman always walks closer to the road”, she would laugh but I would laugh harder (yes, I’m one of those laugh at your own joke types). She would point out my farmers tan; she would tell me my body has nothing to hide. It is a beautiful body, it belongs in the sun. I would not pretend I’m not thinking about sex, she is not telling me her father has Alzheimer’s and she has a younger brother who is afraid of loneliness. No, we would not talk, would not need to as our mouths open on each other… now I don’t know why I’m thinking this… why I feel so happy right now but feel the happiness enhanced by the imaginary presence of her. Isn’t this freedom? Complete freedom? Walking alone, down the street under an African summer? I could be thinking about swimming with penguins, hiking into caves, diving into the sky but here I am, holding strings and trying to attach them to things that have already disappeared.

Some Things Are Just Beautiful.

No Pictures (Journal Entry on Cape Town Trains)

2011-11-30T10:43:00.001-08:00

Everyone has told me the stories about the tourists being robbed on the trains. The robbers and the knives. The robbers are kids or young African men. They are desperate wolves, street savages, city junkies, they eat without forks, just knives and knives. Tendon cutting, wound gushing knives! I should not take my camera. If I had a hunger pain, one so deep it stuck its jagged malnourished fingernails into me and I saw a camera as a cure, a meal or something that picks me up and takes me somewhere with brighter colour and happier settings, what would I do? There’s no telling.

Should I take my Camera? I picture a knife at the warmest vein on my neck. A man, clothes ripped, shredded, he must fight lions, the kings of jungles. No, he is a lion. I am an antelope, a curious deer, a trained dog on the wild city trains. Should I take my camera?

But Ray, the stories of these robberies, they are not yours. You are not a twenty one year old white woman from Germany, or a white teethed American student with blonde surfer hair and a backpack full of prized goods. You don’t wear black tinted sunglasses that are too big for your face. No Ray, until you open your mouth people think you are from here, South Africa, beautiful South Africa. Take your camera.

Now I picture being asked a question by the man with shredded, ripped clothes. I don’t want to respond but I have to... in some way. I shrug my shoulders, he takes it as a sign of a challenge. He will not be brushed off, shooed away. He is not a fly I can swat, he is a king! I say something.. something short, in one quick breath but I sound too unsure of myself. He smells a weakness; he sees a worried goat, a wounded bird. The claws in his eyes reach for me, or should I say knife, yeah, his knife, his rusty life-ending knife. My blood is sauce, hot sauce from Europe, it will be on his knife.. I will bleed to death, right there.. on the train... and on my birthday...

I will not take my camera.

South Africa - Lunchtime Prose/ Apartheid / For Miss Able & Township Shots.

2011-11-25T00:47:00.001-08:00

Lunchtime prose in the staff room

Looking out the window I see a man sweepingthe street. He has made a pile of bright yellow and green leaves, fallen fromthe trees. Another man, dressed in all black looks like a shadow with clotheson. He is scooping the leaves into a black bin bag. There are two bags alreadyfilled and sealed with a knot. The bags are in the shade of an almost nakedtree. The tree looks sad having lost the colours that made it happy.

Conversation about Apartheid

I am having a discussion about Apartheidwith a (coloured) man in the street. He is in his late fifties and tells methings are worse now.

Theblack government is more corrupt than the white one. They steal most the moneythat goes into our economy and apartheid is now reversed by giving all the jobsto the blacks even though in general they aren't as skilled. The black SouthAfrican’s don’t even want to work.

He points across the road at two mensitting on the pavement. One of them is holding a beer bottle; his body looksthirty years younger than his face. The other man is barefoot; the skin on hisfeet is flaky and dry. I thought at first he was wearing grey socks.

Lookat them! Lazing around drunk at thistime (it’s about 2pm).

I ask the (coloured) man what he thinksthose men would say if we asked them why they’re sitting around in the streetdrunk early in the day? He suggests we go and ask them.

We walk over and ask if they mind beingasked a question. Only the man I thought was wearing grey socks responds. Hedoesn’t look at me, he just shrugs his shoulders.

This is his response.

Whereyou from? England? … and you want to understand me? Your mind cannot beanything like mine. I am African. No European mind can be like an African. NowI don’t want to talk. Talking English makes me want to get drunk.

For Miss Able (The School Principal) -

To know the weight of your sky is to knowthe clouds are heavier than they look.

In The Township (Unedited Pictures)

Grade 6 (Notebook version)

2011-11-21T10:55:00.001-08:00

Imagine, you're in an African countryyou’ve never been in before and you have just walked into your first everclassroom as a teacher. The Principal introduces you to thirty five wild eyedchildren as a young man from England.

A boy, sitting at the back of the roomwith small hazel eyes like a lion cub throws his voice at you. His accent issomething you’ve never had in your ear.

It seems he wants you to know he is aManchester United supporter. You’re not into football any more but you attemptto find common ground by telling the class you are an Arsenal fan.

The whole class jeers at you and you secretlycongratulate yourself for turning the whole class against you already.

When the class settles you are pulledaside by the Principal who has this to say...

See that girl sitting with her head onher desk?

Her mother died of Aids when she wasborn.

She has it too. Some of the childrenknow.

Every day those children ask her why sheisn’t bleeding.

They don’t understand how she has Aids

and still looks like them. She’s asweet little girl.

Matthew, the boy who sits two rows fromthe back,

He broke two of the seventeen windows

that were smashed here last week.

His mother came to school with a batthat day.

This is a Primary School, Shane andMalik are fourteen years old,

repeated the sixth grade three times.

Malik is from the home,

His father had three wives before he hada stroke.

The boy can’t sit still. He feels hiswhole life in his stomach,

we all have to pretend he isn’t ill.

You’ve got to talk to David. He’s theboy by the window.

He’s from the Congo. You’ll see himclimbing trees in the playground.

His mother said he takes all theblankets at home and sleeps on the roof.

His world has its own sky.

Some children have torn holes in theirshirts,

holes is what they fall into when oureyes don’t have the arms

to show them something better.

The girl with the pink hair band, that’sKim.

She never does her work, she just wantsto draw.

See drew all the mountains on the wall,

She won’t get that far if it’s all shecan do.

A career path is not a cartoon,

but it is a picture you put yourself into.

This week the children have been drawingdiagrams of our solar system
Show them Teacher Ray, show them how tocolour in their planet.

South Africa. The First Shots.

2011-11-17T11:26:00.001-08:00

Conversation With A South African Taxi Driver

2011-11-08T10:12:00.000-08:00

Traffic Lights? My friend, youare in Africa. They are called Robots. When they turn green, still you cannottrust. No road in Cape Town wants you to get too comfortable. There are drunkdrivers and many deaths, mostly pedestrians. Life eh? Cross one road badly andyour whole life knocked away. Look out on your left. See how the waves rise outthe sea like white horses and crash to the yellow rocks? That says Africa is awoman, only women have that much colour in their fury. I am Muslim, a goodMuslim. I do not drink. Many Muslims learn Islam through other idealisticMuslims instead of Islam itself. Like the women who are not allowed to drive inSaudi Arabia, I do not know where that comes from but it's not from Islam. Islamis not a strict religion, it offers many choices. You’re an atheist? Is thatthe name of your God? OK, we're here. Great to meet you today Ray, here take mynumber. I can come when the morning gets up tomorrow. Call it nine fifteen,Africa time, you might call it 11. OK Ray? See you at nine fifteen.

South Africa/ NHS/ Autumn Photography

2011-11-03T00:00:00.000-07:00

I was packing for my trip to South Africaand decided not to pack any music, just basic clothes, camera and books. Irealised a lot of my memories abroad involve me walking around strange placeswith headphones. I can’t tell you the sound of these places but it definitelyisn’t soft rock or indie rap.

South Africa – Where, What& Why?

From November fifth I’ll be living and workingin the outskirts of Cape Town in a place called Belthom. I’m going to beassisting teachers in a Primary School, using poetry to help teach English.I’ll also be working at The Woodside Special Care Centre working with orphansand children with disabilities.

One of the best things I’ve done with mylife so far has been working with children in special needs camps in Ohio, USA,followed by road tripping across North America on my own. I met many people indifferent cities and suburbs, I felt how different states are like differentcountries, I understood how so many great people have come out of a countrythat represents freedom to its people and imperialism, slavery or Hollywood tothe rest of the world.

I’ve been eager to experience somethinglike this again and chose South Africa because of my own curiosities of theculture and political history. I’ve read and heard about the Dutch and Britishcolonization, the Zulu wars, the spice trade, the Boer Wars, Apartheid andNelson Mandela’s long walk to freedom. I’ve met many white South Africans inLondon and listened to their rants about the inequity of blacks against whitesand how the political transition from Apartheid processed too hastily. They’vetold me this has created new tensions between “black, white and colouredpeople”.

In many ways we should all change the waywe think about Africa, its history began thousands of years before Europeaninvasion yet it seems to be where we all start with our understanding. Myselfincluded. Why is this important you may ask? Well, we all came from Africa sowe’d be more in touch with our origins as human beings. The exploitation ofAfrica has made many European Empires and has now helped make China perhaps themost powerful country in the new century.

On Race

I’m curious to see how people willrespond to me in a country with such high (on-going) racial tensions. Assomeone of mixed heritage (Caribbean/British if you want the box) I feel Irepresent the togetherness of two very different cultures. The identitycrises/confusion that comes with the mixed race experience is somethinginflicted by a culture that can’t get rid of its colour lines. People all overthe world give you different labels (white, black, mixed race, bi-racial,coloured etc) so the confusion of other people is inflicted onto you.

I struggled with this throughout my school yearsbut meeting other mixed race people and discussing the experience with them helped me to make sense of it. I nowcelebrate the ambiguity of my appearance and I want to invite thewhole world to the party!  

Conversation With A Doctor

I went to the travel Clinic after the NHS told me I had to book sixweeks in advance for free treatment. At the clinic I paid £75 for threeinjections to keep me protected in Africa (Hepatitis A, Typhoid Fever &Polio).

The doctor who gave me the jabs ranted to me about the NHS cuts and thenew procedures that are being phased in.

I’ve been a doctor thirty years, so I’mglad I’m coming to the end of my career. It’s terrible now. The new doctors andGPs are being trained to prescribe the lowest costing medicine as opposed tothe most effective, it’s a disgrace. You’re my eleventh patient today, you seemore people travelling from the UK are getting Malaria and Yellow Fever becausethe dangers aren’t emphasised enough and people are inconvenienced in gettingtreated…

Five minutes after he’d injected my upper left arm I passed out in themiddle of this conversation. My vision went a fuzzy pale grey then completelyblack. I came though and I was on the floor with the doctor’s panic stricken faceover me. I had no idea what happened. It was like when you skip a scene on aDVD and you know you’ve missed something so you ask someone to fill you in.

Me - Woah. What happened?

Doctor - You passed out buddy; Ican feel you’re burning up! I’ll get you water. NURSE!

I found out later that because I have low blood pressure I should alwaysbe laying down when receiving injections.

Autumn Photography (Shadow Experiments)

In the UK the season is changing from Autumn into Winter. South Africa is coming into its summer so that's another reason for me to to jet pack. For you people staying put there is beauty in the cold seasons. The first picture below was taken by myself in London Fields on a late monday afternoon and the picture below that was taken on Tottenham Court Road one cold November night.

Farewell London.

Performance at Brizzlemania (On Loneliness)

2011-10-30T05:18:00.000-07:00

This is a poem I wrote one night while on tour in Chicago. I was trying to figure out if I was feeling lonely or if I was feeling sorry for myself. After a conversation about this I realised how reluctant I was to allow myself to feel lonely so I just let it be and wrote this.

(Excuse the sound of the waitress walking around the room collecting empty glasses off the tables)

Do not ask me if I'm lonely,

I will not know how to answer.

Mum says I came out her womb,
screaming like I was wounded
until I was put in her arms.

Do not ask me if I'm lonely.

Writers talk about owning their own loneliness,
but I think its just something they say to the walls.

I get mad at time, at times
because it can't give me any more of my childhood.

At times,
all I can taste are the spaces
sore between my broken teeth,

at times,
I see old lovers under falling snow
in yellow summer dresses,
looking like a warm place to escape to.

Grandma says
its amazing what we keep in our brains,
some we want, some we don't want.

This is the darkest place inside me,
I walk in, turn on the night and watch what disappears,
do not ask me if I'm lonely.

I do not know if loneliness is an injury.

I was afraid to learn this poem by heart
because of what it might do to my heart.

I sit with my loneliness and we both agree,
we like each others company,
but only when we know what to do,
with each other.

Breaking Silence by Jacob Sam La Rose & Strange Light by Derrick Brown

2011-10-29T04:54:00.000-07:00

This is Jacob Sam La Rose's first full collection believe it or not but it's worth the wait as its published by the leading publisher of poetry, 'Blood Axe'. Jacob is a key figure in the UK poetry world as a performer and writer. I caught up with him for a chat about his thoughts on Slam Poetry and why there is a divide between poetry on the page and poetry on the stage.

Listen Here

This is the forth collection of poetry from US poet Derrick Brown. Derrick Brown is an ex-weatherman, failed magician and paratrooper turned poet. He runs his own publishing house (Write Bloody) and is a key figure in bringing some of the biggest names in performance poetry (such as Buddy Wakefield, Anis Mojgani, Andrea Gibson etc) to the page. I caught up with him in Boardway Market, Hackney for a Boar Burger and a chat about travelling, performing and getting older.

Listen Here

These interviews are episodes from 'The Punch & Gumption Podcast', run by myself and William Stopha.

Subscribe to hear more from UK poets such as Polarbear, Hollie Mcnish, Inua Ellams, US poets such as Emily Rose, Robb Q Telfer and German poets such as Sebastian 23 & Lars Rupple etc.

Here's a video of Derrick at last months Keats House Forum run by myself and Simon Mole.

Operation : You

2011-10-27T18:31:00.000-07:00

A thousand miniature versions of me are wearing masks of your face.

They stand at machines behind dirty factory walls,

listening to your telephone voice on the PA system.

Film Recommendations & A Week In Pictures.

2011-10-25T03:51:00.000-07:00

Dizraeli's mind-blowing set at Chill Pill.

A woman shows me her favourite poems at The Stratford Unitarian Church.

We showed up & rocked Royal Holloway Uni until I collapsed with Flu Symptoms.

Poeticat also rocked Chill Pill.

I can now brag about my ability to cook a traditional Jamaican dish of Ackee & Salt Fish.

Apparently you should know this.

Lastly you should check out these films.

A Capitalist At Dinner by Claude Mckay

2011-10-18T11:54:00.000-07:00

Inhonor of all the people who are currently occupying London’s Stock Exchange,Wall Street and other significant locations in Rome, Vancouver, Oslo , Sydney, Tokyo, Brussels, Amsterdam, Madrid, Athens, Frankfurt, Stockholm, Hong Kong, Seoul, Taipei, Zurich etc.

As part of the Occupy Movement/Protests I give youthis poem by Jamaican poet Claude Mckay.

Anugly figure, heavy, overfed,

-Settlesuneasily into a chair;

Nervouslyhe mops his pimply pink bald head

Frownsat the fawning waiter standing near

Theentire service tries its best to please

Thisoverpampered piece of broken health

Whosits there thoughtlees, querulous, and obese

Wrappedin his sordid visions of vast wealth

GreatGod! if creatures like this money-fool

Whohold the service of mankind so cheap,

Overthe people must forever rule,

Drivingthem at their will like helpless sheep-

Thenlet proud mothers cease from giving birth;

Let human beings perish from the earth.

This poem was written in 1919.

Oct 13th Dream Journal Entry / Conversation With A Woman At A Train Station

2011-10-14T07:24:00.000-07:00

There is a particular road that keeps showing up in my dreams. It’s on the side of a hill and it swirls around it. The road is paved with cream colour stones. A row of red bricked houses runs along both sides of the road but I’ve never seen any people. I always pass the road on a double-decker bus. I sit on the left hand side on the top deck and peer out the window onto it.

As soon as I see this road I know I’m dreaming.

Most of my dreams involve some form of transportation. I’ve steered a huge wooden ship through a sleepy ocean, I’ve been a passenger on a plane (in-aisle-eight) and I’ve gone on road trips across deserts with talking coffee cups. But usually I’m either on a train or waiting for one.

I wonder why there are so many transportation services in my dreams when I have the ability to teleport.

Last night I dreamt I was on a platform of an old fashioned train station. The railway tracks were made of rusted steel and thick brown wood which ran across a sea of black pebbles.

I sat on the gravel floor of the platform next to an old woman in a baggy red coat. We were the only people around. The wrinkles in her face were thick like lightning bolts stuck in the sky. We started talking but every time I asked for either her name or what she does for a living her voice and the weather would distort.

This is what she said.

Should’da got a taxi. My father drove a taxi. He used to grow peppermint in the front seat and apricots in the back. He loved nature but hated cyclists. The sky kept falling into his hair. He was full of electricity and if it came with a bill my mother was paying it. The world could have turned off and my mother would have stayed on. She didn’t die, she just stopped running. She walked out of her body for a cigarette and didn’t come back. At the funeral my father said we were sharing a house with too much fire. I only wore red from then on; I was trying to show my father what it felt like to look like him. That’s why I didn’t get a taxi I guess, I might have had to sit in the back seat with apricots.

A Londoner In Worcester (Oct 7th 2011)

2011-10-09T15:44:00.000-07:00

Last night I performed a set of poems at the Parole Parlour in Worcester. I was specially happy about my new poems going down well. That night I slept at the local Travelodge.

My train back to London was at noon the next day. I checked out of my hotel at ten and went for a walk around town. The sky was red that morning. A red sky is meant to be a sign of rain but the sun stayed out.

Walking past a medieval Cathedral and then a M&S supermarket, I noted the queue for the self service check out and then the free wifi sign outside the coffee shop next door. I wondered how I’d explain this to someone living seven hundred years ago. I pictured myself standing there holding an i-phone and showing it to a man in a black gown and an iron mask.

Outside London people talk to you in the street; this takes some getting used to. I was sitting on a bench and a woman with a face like a rotten carrot came up and sat beside me. Her arm was in a sling and she reeked of alcohol. The conversation went like this.

Her - Hello, you have great teeth.

Me - Oh’, thanks, was I smiling? I didn’t notice.

Her - What do you do?

I thought about this for a moment before answering the question.

Me - I’m a poet.

Her - A poet? How’d ya do that then?

Me - I write poems and travel places to perform them.

She looks at me blankly.

Me - Even I think it’s weird.

Her- Oh’. I never met a living poet before. Do all poets have teeth like that?

Me - I don’t know... some of them wear capes though.

She doesn’t laugh.

Her- How can I find out more about your poetry?

Me - The Internet... look up Raymond Antrobus.

Her – Don’t know nothing about the internet.

Me – I rarely meet a person who knows nothing about the internet. Well, unless I tell you a poem now you may never get to know.

I opened my notebook and read a poem I’m currently working on.

Afterwards she smiles and I notice she has about five teeth in her mouth. They look like yellow dices.

Her – I like the bit about not being able to stand on top of a mountain without feeling like a cloud is shitting on ya. I’m a bit like that. If I could sing or write poems I’d enjoy my own company a bit more.

A man comes over with a face like a rotten potato. He reeked of alcohol.

Man – Careful mate, she fancies you.

Woman – oh’ shut up!

I check my watch.

Me – Alright, I’ve got to catch my train now.

I got to the station half an hour early and start writing this into my journal.
Disclaimer: All people in Worcester DO NOT look like rotten vegetables.

Upcoming Shows (last of the year before flying to South Africa)

October 11th : Royal Holloway Students Union w/ Simon Mole, Deanna Rodger, Tshaka Campbell, Anthony Anaxagorou, The Ruby Kid, Poeticat

October 14th : Rail Road Cafe' (Hackney) w/ Captain Of The Rant & Rachel Rose ReidOctober 15th : Little Lamp (Brighton) w/ Richard Tyrone Jones

October 16th: Stratford Unitarian Church

October 19th : Gallery Cafe' w/ Adam Kammerling & Anthony Anaxagorou

October 20th : Chill Pill @ The
Albany w/ Dizraeli, Simon Mole, Deanna Rodger, Poetikat, Mr.T

October 21st : Mixed Messages @ Mekan w/ El Crises

October 25th : Passing Clouds w/ Rafeef Ziadah

October 23rd : Keats House Poets Present... (Keats House) w/ Bohdan Piasecki

October 27th: The Horse and Groom (Shoreditch) w/ The Ruby Kid plus Guests

October 28th : Open The Gate, Reel Rebel Radio w/ Inua Ellams, Malika Booker, AnthonyAnaxagorou etc
October 29th : Keats House w/ Benjamin Zephaniah, Patience Agbabi and Jordan Westcar

Pictures vs Words Q&A w/ Brighton Based Rapper/Poet Adam Kammerling

2011-10-07T09:02:00.000-07:00

Been gigging quite a bit with Adam recently, every time I hear his name I'm heard shouting "I LOVE THAT GUY!" and this mini interview hopefully shows why.

What does your writing desk look like?

I don't really use a desk for writing. I write anywhere with a seat that serves tea. And sometimes even where they don't serve tea. Like on buses. I edit my stuff at a desk. It's got piles of envelopes and books on it, a map of paris and three ash and fag encrusted ashtrays adapted from gu pudding pots. And some dirty cups.

What is on your to do list?

Send Sam promo stuff. Ticked.

Send Ray interview and photo response. Soon to have a big tick next to it.

Practice new stuff.

Book trains.

Then I have an infinite mental to do list that includes things like save money, be a better person, read the classics, eat vegetables, quit job, get gigs, watch films, get cleverer etc etc

I feel like my actual to do list is super boring. I'm doing other things today, they're just not on the list. OK?

What's more important, talking or listening?

Listening I reckon. If you don't listen, very little you say will be worth hearing. There's an ancient chinese soundbite in there. Daniel San, one must first listen, only then will he be worth listening to.

Having said that, I am a chatterbox.

What makes a better story pictures or words?

Well I'm gonna have to say words because I'm biased. However, I am constantly envious of the instancy of visual communication. Pictures are more primal, requiring an effort to disengage as opposed to words which demand an effort to engage with. However words give you control. This answer could get really long. I'll curtail it there.

Respond to this photo

Where walls and board char

the same beige shades,

and baking tins are beaten flat

with bricks

by deranged cake-haters,

what else to do but dump rubbish?

But, as no one coos for the baby

in the 'If Found, Return To Pub' onesie,

No one wants to use a bin

With shit Street-Art on it.

Conversation With A Copper In Dalston

2011-10-01T02:57:00.000-07:00

What happened? Kids with guns probably. That’s what keeps happening anyway. Some estates round herehire guns. It’s organised. Young lads go into the estates and can hire a gunwithout bullets for twenty quid. Scare other kids off. It’s in levels. Next levelup is buying a gun with bullets but if the gun is used they have to bring itback within twenty four hours to give time to circulate the gun to an estate in anotherpart of the country. It’s hired out again somewhere else while its just beingreported here. Clever eh? Meanwhile, we're onto anothergroup of kids. Each of them is named after a type of brick. They gettogether and form a wall. While we’ve got our heads banging against otherthings these kids are making up the streets. Muggings are up so there’s alot of goods’ being sold through a hole. A tight network of bikethieves operate here too. They peddle more than a lot of the drugdealers. Ah well...

Pictures Vs Words Q&A w/ Birmingham Based Poet Jodi Ann Bickley

2011-09-27T16:42:00.000-07:00

Jodi Ann Bickley is from Birmingham. Yes, her poems are as cute as she is.

What does your writing desk look like?

I don't have a desk, my room is the tiniest of places. I usually end up writing on the bus, on my bed or on the coach/train up and down to shows. I never know when I'm going to write because with my two jobs covering day and night there isn't usually a spare hour or two to dedicate to it. I just carry a notebook on me all the time, plus I'm moving into a room like.. 10x the size of my one right now on Saturday so maybe I'll make a little writing corner or something.

What is on your to do list?

Music, I'm involved in a couple of projects at the moment I'm pretty excited about. My biggest, most massive goal is to write for Adele. I'd like to headline a stage at somepoint. I want to learn how to sew, cook and face paint. The face paint ambition started at Bestival this year - having a face full of colour genuinally makes your day a little bit better. I'd like to do a one man show, get a little book published. I want to go back to Tokyo, see New York, Barcelona, Boston - I want to go and see the Northern Lights. I really want to go to Iceland too. I want to write better, just be better generally. I want to worry less, see my best friends more. Get to the point where I can work a little less. Drink more water, go down a dress size or two. Or get to the point where silly things like that are just irrelevant.

What's more important, talking or listening?

Ah.. I'd say.. Listening. I think, it may change tomorrow.

What makes a better story - pictures or words?

Words. Some of the most lovely pictures I've seen have been strung together by sentences. Maybe that is because I can't draw though..

Respond to this photo.

I remember in primary school when one pupil in my class called another pupil a "bastard" and suddenly every kid in class became potty mouthed. Our whole class would have to do lines in the hall during playtime, even though me and my friends hadn't said anything but were way too scared to defend our cause to our year six teacher who threated to kill himself and us all way more than a year 6 teacher should. Anyway, the first thing that came into my head when I saw this picture was what the girls in school would say when someone would call them a "bitch" - "A bitch is a dog, a dog barks, bark is a tree, tree is nature and nature is beautiful - thanks for the compliment".

Pictures vs. Words Q&A w/ Bristol Based Poet Byron Vincent

2011-09-24T14:46:00.000-07:00

I have sent a set of questions and one of my photographs to six poets around the country and asked them to respond.

First up its a poet from Bristol. Cynical, satirical, witty and generally, a nice bloke Byron Vincent. He's won nine poetry slams including Shambala, Secret Garden and the BBC Manchester Literary Festival.

Q. What does your writing desk look like?

Byron: It’s got a heart shaped ashtray on it which contains a mountain of festering roll up butts. I refuse to see any symbolism or irony in this.

Q. What is on your to do list?

Byron: I currently have faux Essex girl and literary homunculus*, Molly Naylor visiting me. This morning my to do list read:

Phone calls
Invoices

When I returned from the bathroom it read:

Phone calls
Invoices
Improve face
Develop ability to grow beard
Don’t go all mental
Feed Molly
Iron doilies
Write shit
Lunge
Explain what wall paper is
Given the input of a second author, I don’t know if this still technically qualifies as MY to do list?

Q. What's more important, talking or listening?

Byron: Well that entirely depends on who’s doing the talking. If Slavoj Žižek was in full flow, I’d be all ears, but if Richard Littlejohn was flapping his gob, I’d probably feel the urge to interject.

Q. What makes a better story - pictures or words?

Byron: Again, that would depend on the perceived qualities of the picture or piece of writing and the imagination and sensibilities of the person experiencing them. If like me you’re undecided, read an Allen Moore comic, they render partisan decisions on this issue unnecessary. Also, reading comics makes you sexy. Yes it does. Shut up.

*Don’t feel sorry for her, she’s called me MUCH worse.

Q. Lastly, respond to this photo

Byron: ADORN RAINY LIFE

Poem Upon Reflection Of Black History Minute

2011-09-22T11:17:00.000-07:00

Black History Minute is upon us and I've agreed to (indirectly) acknowledge it via a poem about me'old man.

He arrived in England, 1950s;

tore knuckle on Teddy Boys that pelted him in streets

with bananas and rocks. Small town kids nudged him and ran off;

they called it luck to touch the black man.

Squared up in pubs with the Irish, drunk in arms afterwards.

A father five times to three women because man is meant to multiply

but my dad has expectations of me that look like sensible versions of him.

They wear suits, they’re sober, they have day jobs,
they are novelists not poets.

I was born in England, 86,

I live in this night and day London,
the black and white boy who can blend into anything.

Chill Pill's Soho Theatre Oct 4th Line Up Confirmed

2011-09-11T16:34:00.000-07:00

Anthony Anaxagorou @ The Gallery Cafe from Sweet Potato Pictures on Vimeo.

I've done a few shows with Anthony Anaxagorou this year including this rather brilliant sell out show featured in the video above.

Anthony will be featuring with his band at the next Chill Pill at Soho Theatre on Oct 3rd alongside myself, Sabrina Mahfouz (her one woman show Dry Ice got rave reviews at this years Edinburgh Fringe Festival) . Also more from the Chill Pill Poets (Mista Gee, Simon Mole, Deanna Rodger) and poems from respected emerging London poets Sonority Turner and Anna Le (organiser of the brilliant poetry show 'Sage & Time).

Conversation With An Ex-Hackney Resident On Broadway Market

2011-09-10T04:45:00.000-07:00

It’s a catwalk thisplace. You come here just to beseen here. I mean, look at that knob with the feathers and the top hat; he’swearing bloody high heels. And them gals that walk around with them rollers in theirhair and rags tied around their head, looking like my nan cleaning the house. Blimey, if I see another handlebar moustache I’m gonna throwsome bricks! There was a bloke who owned a shop here called Spirit, he’s RastaI think, sold west Indian foods. He got run out the area by these propertydevelopers. I mean, his name was fucking spirit, that’s a metaphor if there wasever one! That pub on the corner, I used to drink there with a bunch of cockneysand some Jamaican mates. Sometimes Irish blokes would walk in and wanna fightya, we’d knuckle out and they’d wanna buy you a drink afterwards. Nowadays thatpub is selling crab burgers and lobster soup to poofs with handlebarmoustaches! Funny how this place felt more like home when there was a chanceI’d get robbed in the street. Living in Tottenham now... someone might rob me there instead.

Poetry Workshop with US Poet/Author/ Publisher Derrick Brown 21st Sep (GET INVOLVED)

2011-09-05T04:01:00.000-07:00

US poet/Author/ founder of Write Bloody Publishing is heading to London on the 23rd September to run a poetry workshop. It will take place at 5.30pm at the Free Word Centre. There are twenty places and its £20 to participate. To sign up please email me and I'll put you on the register.

If you can't make it and would like the chance to catch Derrick Brown perform a set of his own poetry at The Keats House Poets Forum as part of his European tour then head down to Keats House Museum on Sunday 25th September at 2pm. There is even an open mic (arrive early for sign up) Also this event is FREE! so there's no excuses to miss one of the worlds most renowned performance poets while he's in town.
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Also, in case you were wondering the next Chill Pill is at Soho Theatre on the 3rd October
7.30pm.

Other Upcoming Shows

September 24th : A Poetry Roast at Keats House w/ Benjamin Zephaniah

October 6th : Worcester Literature Festival

October 11th : Royal Holloway Students Union w/ Simon Mole, Deanna Rodger, Tshaka Campbell, Anthony Anaxagorou, The Ruby Kid

October 14th : Rail Road Cafe' (Hackney) w/ Captain Of The Rant & Rachel Rose Reid

October 15th : Little Lamp (Brighton) w/ Richard Tyrone Jones

October 20th : Chill Pill @ The Albany w/ Dizraeli, Simon Mole, Deanna Rodger, Poetikat, Mark Mr.T Thompson

October 23rd : Keats House Poets Present... (Keats House) w/ Bohdan Piasecki

October 27th: The Horse and Groom (Shoreditch) w/ The Ruby Kid plus Guests

October 29th : Keats House w/ Benjamin Zephaniah, Patience Agbabi and Jordan Westcarr

Conversation With Grandma

2011-09-02T08:25:00.000-07:00

She tells me Mark is coming over. He’s my gardener. He’s deaf and dumb.

I look at her as if she might be talking about me.

Well, he lip reads and responds to everything with his thumbs up. He can laugh though, he laughs all the time. I’m quite fond of him. Anyway, he’s coming to dig a grave for Hollie in the garden. She was put down this morning; she had a good life. Have you ever dug a grave? Hard work that. Makes you really respect gravediggers.

I never feel like a poet around Grandma, I rarely know what to say.

I can’t lie, I’ve been crying all night. I’m going to miss Hollie. Hope I don’t get too many lonely moments without her. I ate chicken earlier and couldn’t help but feel strange to be mourning Hollie while eating a dead animal. You get to be old as me and life still surprises you. I hope when I get to heaven I get my young body back. See that picture of me on the mantelpiece? That’s me at 22. I was in love with a man called Keith. He was so handsome, taller than you. Always wore grey jackets and trimmed his moustache. I’d say kissing a man without a moustache is like eating a boiled egg without salt. He took that photo, I’m smiling because he asked me a naughty question, I shan’t repeat it. You don’t appreciate beauty when you’ve got it. You shouldn’t put so much pride into things that fade. Life is full of sad things and happy things. The sad things are important; they give you compassion, which in the end gives you more to be happy about. Everyone I went to school with is dead. I’m at the age where every day is a bonus. You get those phone calls, oh’ Mavis died, oh’ Elizabeth died and you just sit there with your life behind you. I believe in a spirit world though, a place for the good and a place for the bad. I can’t see Hitler’s spirit in the same place as my friends. Then again, if Germany wasn’t on the brink of starvation after the First World War it wouldn’t have bred such evil. That’s just my opinion though. How’s your poetry going?

I tell her it’s ok.

Don’t you find the more you talk to people the more you realise how important words are? I used to be part of an organisation called Talking Books. We’d read books to blind people. Each book took a while to read out loud but it did so much for them. One man I read to told me, when you live in the dark your only light is a good story. Are you hungry?

I tell her I am.

Do you want to finish the chicken?

I say I’m ok, thanks.

Midnight Run With Inua Ellams This Saturday (GET INVOLVED!)

2011-08-30T10:15:00.000-07:00

Midnight Run News // 16/08/2011

Hey Hey HEY! Welcome to the 3nd MNrun Newsletter. I hope you are well. It looks like the weather will hold out, so on possibly the last weekend of summer, the MNrun will be on! {phaze05.com/themidnightrun}
3 News Items // WHERE TO MEET // WHAT TO BRING // THE ARTISTS //

WHERE TO MEET // 3rd - 4th Sept
FIRSTLY, IF YOU INTEND TO COME TO THE RUN, PLEASE SEND ME AN EMAIL, IMMEDIATELY, I NEED TO KNOW NUMBERS. THANKS. Now, after much hushed wondering, we have a location. Please gather at the main entrance of The Tate Britain (Millbank, London, SW1P 4RG) at 5.45pm this Saturday, because at 6pm sharp, we will move! // Closest Stations: Pimlico & Vauxhall // Buses: 2, 36, 85, 436, 77 - & lots more.

WHAT TO BRING //
1) *A healthy sense of fun. 2) A pen and a notebook.
3) One ripe Banana. 4) Roughly £20 pounds for food etc.
5) Please wear comfortable shoes; we will be walking lots.
6) Please come dressed for the weather. //

THE ARTISTS //
To each Midnight Run, 5 artists are invited. Their task is to entertain within the MNrun, and also to capture instance of the run in their individual art forms. Here they are:

PHOTOGRAPHER: Raymond Antrobus is a spoken word artist, poet, writer and a photographer. He is an accomplished young one, has performed alongside authors and poets such as Margret Atwood, Michael Horovitz, Lemm Sissay and Polarbear. Raymond’s photography has featured in The Big Issue, The Evening Standard and showcased online by the world famous Southbank Centre.

POETRY & SPOKEN WORD: Bridget Minnamore & Rubix. Rubix is a collective of 15 young London-based spoken word artists who began life as the Roundhouse Poetry Collective. After taking their first show ‘The Greatest Poet That Ever Lived’ to the Edinburgh Fringe in August 2010, Rubix became an associate company with the Roundhouse. Following a scratch performance of their second show ‘House Party’ at the Roundhouse studios, Rubix are currently developing the material for a wider audience. They have performed at the BAC, Bang Said the Gun, Whitechapel Gallery, Rich Mix, Poejazzi, Shoreditch Festival, Shunt, Big Chill and Camp Bestival.

GUERILLA GARDENER: Andre Haining spends most of his day organising events and designing websites for large corporate clients. He also runs his not-for-profit organisation EFORESTS (www.eforests.co.uk) which helps create community woodlands around the UK and runs urban food-growing projects in London. A keen amateur gardener, he started guerrilla gardening in 2006 after seeing Richard Reynolds (guerrillagardening.org) on the TV one day. Since then he has worked with Richard and other guerrilla gardeners, at numerous locations around London, turning grubby patches of neglected land into beautiful urban spaces. He also helped build the Recycled Garden (recycledgarden.net) at the Hampton Court Flower Show in 2008

MUSIC: Tj Owusu, A Ghanaian multi-instrumentalist brought up on a healthy diet of eclecticism. He plays the weissenborn, a Hawaiian instrument designed by a German luthier. Picking up the instrument in his early teens, he was captured by the weissenborn's vocal warmth and ability to paint audible pictures. His object is to create a soup for all musical buds through instrumentation.

FILM: Estabrak is a MA graduate of film and media production from a visual arts background. She began as part of ‘Imagine Art’, a world wide arts project hosted by Guardian Unlimited and has produced stunning short films and installations showcased at the TATE Britain and The Showroom Cinema, Sheffield. Her work has had press coverage in Italy's 'Amica', Middle Easts 'Bidoun' and UK's 'Diva' magazines to name a few. She hopes to travel the world challenging the nature of perception through visual story telling.

That’s it!! Remember to sleep like a whale on Friday night. Roll outta bed late in afternoon on Saturday, for when the eve comes, we MNRun!

BBC E-Mail Response To David Starkey Complaint

2011-08-19T16:10:00.000-07:00

Dear Mr Antrobus

Thank you for contacting us regarding ‘Newsnight’, broadcast on Friday 12 August.

We understand some viewers felt David Starkey's contribution to the discussion on the England riots was inappropriate and racially offensive. We note some viewers also felt Dr Starkey's views were not sufficiently challenged by presenter Emily Maitlis.

Firstly, it is important to stress that Dr Starkey’s views are his alone and not those of ‘Newsnight’ or the BBC. It is part of ‘Newsnight's remit to air and challenge controversial views and we believe his perspective on the riots was robustly challenged during the course of this discussion.

The aim of this, at times heated, ten minute debate was to examine the causes of the recent riots and looting and in many ways it encapsulated different strands of opinion, both ideologically and socio-economically, as to what provoked the violence. Presenter Emily Maitlis directly challenged David Starkey’s views on a number of occasions, asking: ‘Is black culture the cause of the rioting?’ and ultimately ending the discussion by asserting that Dr Starkey was ‘using black and white cultures interchangeably as good and bad’.

Aside from Emily Maitlis’ interjections, guests Owen Jones and Dreda Say Mitchell clearly took exception to David Starkey’s opinions and were given ample time and space to make their disagreements heard. Owen Jones particularly highlighted that many people listening would find the views expressed offensive, and Emily Maitlis provided further context - making it clear that David Cameron had stated that this was not a race issue, and that people taking part in the riots came from a range of ethnic backgrounds.

Although some viewers found David Starkey’s arguments offensive, others agreed with them. It is not ‘Newsnight's’ job to censor the views of our guests; the programme would rather challenge them in a robust way on air, and allow viewers to draw their own conclusions. We believe this discussion was conducted in a fair and professional manner.

Please be assured your concerns were raised with the programme.

Thank you again for taking the time to contact us.

www.bbc.co.uk/complaints

NB This is sent from an outgoing account only which is not monitored. You cannot reply to this email address but if necessary please contact us via our webform quoting any case number we provided.

Kind Regards

Andrew Hannah

Response To David Strakey's Racist Comments Wrapped Up!

2011-08-16T10:59:00.000-07:00

Since the London Riots I've heard some of the most outrageous, outright racism mainly from (educated and unappreciative) white middle class people. This weekend I did a gig at a Festival in Bath and got into a conversation with a lovely (white and higher educated) lady who works for a bank who had this to say.

"What on earth do these ethnics have to complain about living in this country? Its not like South Africa is it? no! we have a fair and functioning society with free health care and welfare state. It's disgraceful and they should have bought in the army" etc

I asked her to expand on the South Africa comment and she said

"White people know about oppression, my friend is a white South African... I mean sure she has black maids and the rest of it but she's having a hard time as a white person out there"

I've not seen South Africa for myself but I'm going out there to work in a township for two months in November. I'll comment on this when I've seen it for myself but I think I know enough to be sure this is a shallow and insensitive comment.

Now, lots of people I know personally have shocked me with some of their twitter comments and facebook updates and I couldn't help but be a little conscious over my own social standing as a young, Jamaican and British male born and raised in Hackney (in a single parent home).

I used to do voluntary work in Hackney Youth Clubs and I've grown up attending quite a few around London. The comment made by a Politician about "the kinds of kids that got involved with the riots aren't the kind to want to go to university or play ping pong at a youth club" is a horrific statement to make.

I've seen kids who despite carrying knives and smoking weed on the (youth club) premises, responded positively to the youth club environment. It kept them off the streets and many of them were pretty good at ping pong. (ha!)

Anyway, after seeing Starkey's comments which has angered and embarrassed as many white people as it has black. I couldn't help but once again be made aware of the horrific prejudice that has surfaced from the skins of our society in this past week.

This video from Nabil Abdul Rashid is on the money!

Here's a poem by Chill Pill's Mista Gee which featured on BBC Radio the other day.

Dear Mr Juvenile (An Overview of the 2011 England Riots) by Mr Gee poet

Conversation With An Anarchist During The London Riots

2011-08-10T18:28:00.000-07:00

fuckin’ police look at em’ all lined up. No wonder people fucking hate them. You feel the gravity here? That’s what fear feels when its injected by pigs... fuckin’ hell, the air here could burst into flames. Burn the city and pork chop these cunts with their sticks! Ere’, I dreamt I wrote a play last night and it was called ‘God The Orchestra’ and it was about a bunch of puppets that go rioting! De’ja’fucking vu, eh? How’d it end? Fuck knows, the puppets burnt their strings and scattered. I woke up in my bed feeling like something is trying to tell me something and this is fuckin’ it! These people call their belief a system and if that’s the case everyone needs another mechanic! One with the earth on their hands instead of blood and oil, that’s the only dirt you can roll in and be the cleanest soul alive. We want peace but this is our war for it. Yeah, we all want fuckin' peace except the pigs who want power. I'd happily sit around and smell the shit out of flowers when things are right! When things are right I'll grow a fucking garden and everyone can bring pig meat to the barbecue! That’ll be the day to welcome a neighborhood that’s right for real fuckin’ people!

Here's another voice on the street -

The Mess Is Our Own By Anthony Anaxagorou (short essay on our youth and London riots)

2011-08-09T16:01:00.000-07:00

Bring in the army! Bloody looters! Yobs! Deport them! Shoot them all like the dogs that they are! I’m sure many of you will be familiar with phrases such as these. Twitter and Facebook have recently become the therapy ground for those sitting watching, from the confines of their living room, the bedlam that has mastered itself splendidly across England’s capital. However, all of these terms were documented as having been said by White Americans during the Watts riots of 1965. A staggering 46 years later and the same sentiments are being shared with little consternation.

Following the shooting of Mark Duggan by police on Thursday 4th August in Tottenham, what originally had begun as a peaceful protest has since proceeded to escalate into an anarchist-driven theme park. Many of those now engaged in the looting of shops and homes are so far disconnected from the main cause of the protests that it is unwise to assume that these individuals are the same ones who marched in the name of Mark Duggan. What has subsequently erupted is the inevitable. As I stated a few days earlier a key psychological factor to any form of social disorder is essentially a group of socially invisible people making themselves forcefully visible. Now before I proceed, by no means am I trying to prescribe anarchy as a means of gaining the recognition of a nation. In the long run this only plays to a peoples’ detriment and helps to reinforce those ill-bred stereotypes ardent bigots possess then unhesitatingly set free once given the chance. I believe with all my being that a collective focus, which incorporates the faculties of both intelligence and leadership is what is needed to overcome the social obstacles laid out before much of Britain’s youth today.

Those living in the privileged sectors of our society will undoubtedly look upon the lootings as imprudent acts of vandalism. The opinions being voiced across the social network stadiums are all similar in nuance and weight, yet we fail to recall that all those involved in the pillaging are young, vulnerable people who our society carefully raised. So why is it that the same anti-social behaviour is unable to occur in London’s more affluent divides? This has unequivocally exceeded the precarious branding of a ‘race riot’ and even the malevolent treatment of Mark Duggan adopting instead a new uniform, one that contains all the properties of a dispossessed class. What we are having problems digesting is that we ALL sat obliviously in front of a voiceless generation who we encouraged to feed off a diet of misanthropic music and film, receive intellectual and scholarly neglect from both the education system and their government, as well as being constantly haunted by the media edifice with the term hoodie, chav and hood rat. If a society holds its young people in such low esteem how then can we demand their respect and cooperation?

It must be noted that the atmosphere is now set for closet racists to abandon their political correctness and hurl their tirade of liberated racial abuse at those they feel are responsible. If only we would learn from the blood that soaks our history. As always we deceive ourselves into believing that these young people live outside our idea of reality, that they are exempt from feeling and emotion and instead deserve the rough end of a heated bullet, or noose, or whip. The irony being that these same bigoted people are so far disconnected from the reality of these young boys and girls that this is most likely the first time they have ever had to acknowledge them in a serious light, so as in past times a persons skin colour becomes the point of aim as we know nothing more about them apart from the fact they are Black or Brown. In places such as Croydon, Wood Green and other parts of East London the looters were predominately Asian, Cypriot, Turkish and White yet our inherent racism prevents us from acknowledging that this is a rebellion of Britain’s lower classes, not its ethnic grouping.

From where I stand there is an emerging danger that far left organisations will now begin to rowel up impressionable Black and Brown men as a means to help carry out their work against the government. This will undoubtedly become the racial imputes that far right members have been waiting for so now more than ever community leaders need to intervene in order to prevent a class uproar becoming an unfathomable attack on Britain’s ethnic citizens.

There is more to be said yet I feel those ominous nights are far from sleep. I will conclude by saying that before you turn in disdain at the masked faces in tracksuits ask yourself how much do you know about their reality? When was the last time you stopped to find out what their every day life consists of? How often do you see wads of police officers stopping to search young Black and Asian boys in the street? Think back to when you were young and how authorities treated you. If we continue to stigmatise and undermine the infinite genius of our young people how can we expect them to act any other way? This is our mess, as any parent will tell you if you bring up a child with hate and scorn you can be guaranteed that when the child grows he will inherit that same language as his own. As someone who works closely with young people and who was once just as impressionable as they are today I ask you to understand their condition, to reacquaint yourself with the empathy you might espouse if it was your son or daughter in the flames and to lose the myopia that this is just another case of young Black boys who have been left to go wild. The last few days are not the result of another Black man being killed by police but rather the volcanic surge that smashes through the social borders of an unequal city only to scream from inside the flames, ‘I’m here, I’m powerful and I’m your problem!’

Anthony Anaxagorou

London Riots (Hackney Cleaned and Boarded Up

2011-08-09T12:40:00.000-07:00

London Riots (Hackney)

2011-08-09T12:14:00.000-07:00

On Being Ugly

2011-08-02T18:38:00.000-07:00

often I walk into rooms as the loudest mouth with the least to say.

I talk like I read self-help books.
I talk like I only mean what I whisper.
I talk like I’ve been lonely.

if I look good
I'm standing a good distance away
from myself.

if I see myself differently,
it’s because other people see me differently.

I talk to myself more than I talk to anyone,
talking to myself is like talking to someone that won’t shut up!

my head is not in the sky, I talk to my feet a lot.

I’m always asking them why I can’t move on as easy as they do.

I look at myself in a broken mirror and see a thousand people that don't want to be me.

I go to parties and sit in the corner and read.

someone will come up and ask what I’m reading and I’ll talk about myself.

I think everyone here is thinking that I think too much.

I don’t know what I think about people that remind me of me

because there is always something wrong with them

especially if they fancy me.

Pics from last nights Chill Pill at Soho Theatre

2011-08-02T04:33:00.000-07:00

New Poetry Videos by Harry Baker & Christian Watson

2011-08-02T04:00:00.000-07:00

Harry Baker has been making waves on the poetry circuit this year and here's is part of the reason why.

Christian Watson featured on this blog earlier in the year. We discussed if Rock & Roll killed poetry. Now he discusses Police killing democracy in this video he just put up.

Conversation With A Homeless Man On Shoreditch High Street

2011-07-26T14:19:00.000-07:00

Yeah bruv, no one’s giving today. People get fuckin’ miserable when it’s raining, it’s like the sky takes the sun right out the people. Ya know, people think you got to be dumb to end up homeless, but look at these people bruv, any of them can end up smelling like the shit they walk into. Even my dad said be careful of women, they fuck you up bruv, alcohol and drugs were invented by men trying to run a woman out their skin. Nuff men top themselves over women, I get it, trust me bruv. If I could start over you know what I’d do? I’d leave the crazy bitches alone and I’d learn three words a day in another language. Within three years I’d speak five languages, there’s a lot of money in language translation bruv. I got a daughter ya know. Beautiful little girl, I don’t see her cause’ the mum fucked me off. Bruv, you ever felt your heart in someone else’s hands? Women don’t have finger nails bruv, just blood and fucking claws. I shouldn’t be thinking about this shit too much, you can’t think yourself happy bruv. I had a mate who read a lot of books, he was into that radical black shit about Africa and shit. My man went fucking psycho, shot two policemen on his doorstep then shot himself, it was the books bruv, he went fucking mad. I got two books, the dictionary and the bible. Yeah, there’s this barber shop I go to and they cut your hair for free if you say you believe in God. Bruv, I walk in there holding my bible so I can get a free shave too, they say I got to look good for God. I think its bullshit though, I just want a free cut in case I see my daughter. Wouldn't want her to see me looking like this. Anyway, bruv, you got any change?

The sun has come out.

Q&A With Chicago Based Poet Robbie Q Telfer

2011-07-19T03:51:00.000-07:00

Robbie Q Telfer was recently voted best local poet in Chicago. However, he isn't really one to place himself over his peers... unless his peers are miniatures... or wrinkly dried up sausages.

He's an accomplished performer of poetry and prose, having published two collections through Derrick Brown’s ‘Write Bloddy Press’.

He's Co-Founder of The Encyclopaedia Show (Winner of a 2010 Orgie Theatre Award) and director of Young Chicago Authors. I was fortunate enough to hang out with him in Chicago and have been itching to interview him for the shapes and disfigurements blog since...

Also, Robbie described me as “the nicest Brit since Margret Thatcher” which I now use for my character references.

Q. Robbie! Now, in your book there is a quote which goes “I know that men are won over less by the written word than by the spoken word, that every great movement on this earth owes its growth to great orators and not great writers... The power which has always started the greatest religious and political avalanches in history rolling has from time immemorial been the magic power of the spoken word, and that alone” - that's a Hitler quote man... I quoted it on my facebok and it upset a lot of people. “RAY! Are you quoting Hitler to push your agenda as a spoken word artist? you MONSTROUS insensitive bastard, nazi, prick etc” can you explain your own significance of that “infamous Raymond Antrobus facebook status?”

A. well, as an american, i definitely have a different relationship to hitler than brits, so that could be part of the touchy nerves there. but i use that quote to put forward the idea that spoken word has great power, and because of who said it, that power can do some pretty horrible things if used unethically. in small ways, it's important for spoken word artists to remind themselves that they can manipulate audiences, and it's up to the individual artist to manipulate for good or for hitler.

Q. You describe many stand up comics as your major influences. Is there a relationship between you being a stand up and a poet?

A. well, i'm not a stand-up comedian. stand-up audiences are sometimes much meaner than poetry audiences. whereas poetry audiences generally want you to succeed, stand-up audiences dare you to succeed. you risk much less when you say "i'm going to make you feel" than when you say "i'm going to make you laugh." that said, my brother is a stand-up and i grew up listening to stand-ups on actual records. i believe i get much of my timing from comedians, and i think that the best stand-ups are artists like any other genre, and everyone is just trying to figure out how to move audiences. i feel like the best poets have the stage presence of stand-ups.

Q. You say Slam poetry competitions are meaningless... isn’t that easy to say as someone who’s already accomplished in that arena? Isn’t Slam helping develop young poets / popularise spoken word as an artform etc?

A. i don't think i would say the competitions are meaningless ever. if you got me quoted as saying that, then i was probably reacting to something in the moment. i think that winning a slam is meaningless, especially in relation to all the other great reasons to become a spoken word artist. it just feels like to me that people who take the competition too seriously are delusional and uninteresting artistically. slam is a game, like scrabble, and although there are national competitions of scrabble, and there are winners, the function of playing scrabble is not to know who the best scrabble player is, it's to connect with loved ones and laugh together. i mean, there are definitely hardcore scrabble players, but playing with them is no fun at all.

Q. Name one object that isn’t a piece of art and tell us why that object doesn’t qualify as “art”?

A. hmmm, this feels like a trap. i'm not sure i'm concerned with "art" and "not art." there are things i like, and there are things i don't like. i suppose art need only proclaim itself to be art, which initiates a communication. it is up to me as audience, then, to apply my own perspective to deem the communication engaging or not.

Q. Why should people still care about poetry? Surely if there is one group of people society doesn’t need its poets.

A. definitely. i would love to start over. a big flood where we wash all the poets away and fill a big boat with only the creatures needed. the L_A_N_G poets' ark invitations would get lost in the mail. its exhausting weeding through the politicians, opportunists, capitalists, charlatans, gate-keepers, and douche bags to get to the stuff that was created exactly for my particular tastes.

but you know, it's not THAT exhausting. poetry, this peculiar way of speaking, can jar your mind into new ways of seeing the universe, and the more ways you see the universe and (hopefully) feel your tiny role in that big place, the less likely you are to hurt another person. poetry has the capacity to claw at evil, and we need all the help we can get.

Q. Why is imagination important?

remember being a kid and you were brought to some kind of maddening playground apparatus? remember throwing your whole body into it with little regard for the physical repercussions, possibly because in that bizarre place anything could happen? you were untethered to the millions of sorrows and newton's laws that cling to our clothes outside that park. a lovely afternoon. you sleep hard that night.

FOLLOW ROBBIE Q TELFER ON TWITTER - @RobbieQT

Also, buy his book. Spiking The Sucker Punch. It's very good! - http://writebloody.com/store/

Word House with Dave Flowz, myself and Zena Edwards

2011-07-18T14:00:00.000-07:00

Did a really fun gig at The Word House on saturday... I know, right? poetry on a SATURDAY!? and it was packed... with lots of very attractive people around... However, I didn't get laid... but I did get paid.

Here's a write up on the night itself -

http://urbanbards.blogspot.com/2011/07/guest-post-review-word-house.html

Pics by Zofia Walczak

Don't forget Chill Pill (one of London's biggest Spoken Word showcases) is back at Soho Theatre on Aug 1st.

Love Poem From A Red Traffic Light To A Cyclist

2011-07-16T06:01:00.000-07:00

I'm a cyclist. I couldn't live in London without my bike. I also hardly ever stop at red lights (unless there's police about). Today while jumping a red light I suddenly had the thought that red lights must be frustrated with all the cyclists ignoring it... I mean, it's a light with a good intension and no wants to feel unappreciated... I actually stopped and sat by the side of the road and wrote this little poem into my notebook... work in progress.

Love Poem From A Red Traffic Light To A Cyclist

I am a colour you do not want to cross
but I see you riding out into traffic like it's a sunset,
or an open road
or a good place to die.

When I show up
all you have to do is know what it means
to be a red light.

STOP

because if love had a licence
you'd have points for speeding,
points for passing me by.

I want you to break for me.

I do not want you to GO.

Raymond Antrobus & Byron Vincent LIVE in Bristol plus Chill Pill NEWS.

2011-07-13T11:23:00.000-07:00

This was a great gig I did in Bristol a couple months ago with Jack Dean, Vanessa Kisuule and Byron Vincent. Here's my opening poem...

Speaking about CHILL PILL... NEXT SHOW is on the 1st AUG 2011 at Soho Theatre... speaking of Soho Theatre we're CONFIRMED for another year run in 2012. YAY!

In My Own Time

2011-07-08T00:00:00.000-07:00

I sent out tweets for people to send me images to write poems to. Today's picture was sent by the superb Sean Mahoney.

when I forget how it feels to remember you
I don’t know where you will go, but I think
I will remember you again when I’m old,
I’ll be staring at my feet in a hospital waiting room
and I will somehow, for no apparent reason
remember the picture I am holding now,
the one I’m about to throw out,
taken one night, sitting on the pavement
under a street light,
its a picture of your right foot and my left,
it means that at our best,
our feet carried the same body.

Until we scraped our shoes
with different roads.

this picture spent summer next to my window
as if competing with the landscape, and now
that summer of mine still belongs to you.

Anything that makes you happy is worth keeping,
But I don’t need this photo.

I know you will come back
in your own way
in my own time.

Derrick Brown in London (This September)

2011-07-04T15:49:00.000-07:00

One of North America's most prolific performance poets is coming to London on 21st September to do a show that I'll be putting on.

Here's an early introduction and a trailer for his film on being a poet that EVERYONE needs to check out.

Performing Poetry and Meeting Craig Charles at The Mostly Jazz Fest

2011-07-03T15:40:00.000-07:00

One of the best things about being a poet is the random opportunities you get. I mean, it could come from anywhere... Radio, Film, Theatre, Animation, Publishing, Advertising etc although this kind of flimsiness comes with its uncertainties and sometimes you just don’t know when next to expect (PAID) work and this creates anxiety.

Today I was in Birmingham for the Mostly Jazz Festival. The poetry, as usual with festivals took place in a small tent in the corner of a field... away from the main stage but still close enough to hear how many more people appreciate bands. If the festival was a school playground the poetry tent would be the nurse’s room for kids isolated for having a contagious disease. For years poets have popped their heads out their small poetry tents with scorn, glaring out across the felid at the crowd of hearts and knickers at the feet of musicians and singers.

“Honestly, a strong poet with a strong poem could hold that stage” I found myself saying to Birmingham based poet Jodi Ann Bickey. (she was the only other poet on the bill on that day) She agreed... but she’s a poet... so of course she will.

“If we just had someone from outside the scene with a genuine love and understanding for what we do we’d be able to access more people and mediums.”

Then I thought about someone I was introduced to recently, Kieran Yates who is a freelance journalist and is responsible for the Spoken Word write up in the metro last week. This has given some of us a cookie with the hope of milk.

Anthony Anaxagorou said to me the other day how little poets actually support each other. His ‘If I Told You’ Video has had over 3000 views and only five poets or so have blogged it or put it on their facebook. We’re running around dreaming we’re going to be the ones to popularise spoken word but it’s going to take more than one poet to do it. FACT.

Anyway, I got sidetracked... I met Craig Charles at the festival and asked him about his interview with Gil Scott Heron. I asked him if he felt like he was interviewing a broken man... “yeah” said Craig “a strong spirit in a broken body. I’m pretty sure it was the AIDS/HIV that took him in the end”

I didn’t know how to carry on the conversation from there.. I just said something like.. “I love Gil’s last album” ...then I was tempted to say “I fucking love Red Dwarf!” but thought better of it.

Back at the poetry stage with Jodi Ann Bickley, we had two time slots. Our first was at 1pm, we had about 10 people sitting on plastic chairs having a rest and most of them looking like they were thinking about something else while we performed... perhaps Eastenders or when the football season is starting again... but the second set at 4pm was good. There was a moment of silence between the songs from bands on the main stage and it felt like if we had something profound to say that’s when it should drop.

“HEY EVERYONE! When you’re an alcoholic, being sober is just another word for THIRSTY!”

I felt a sudden connection with the audience at one point of the “between song main stage silence” and I even heard a “oh’ this ain’t bad” from one man sitting on the grass by the stage... but he might have been talking about his beer.

I got into a conversation with one of the stewards working at the festival. He saw me and Jodi do our poetry and came over. “Hey, enjoyed your poems guys”. Giving compliments to me can be like giving bananas to a monkey with no hands. I just don’t know what to do with them... but I know I want them and anyone that says they don’t are lying filth!

“Hey, I’ve got something that’ll make you jealous Ray” said the steward, a middle aged man with a face like a battered pillow. He got out his wallet and showed me a picture of a black, yellow eyed African woman. “That’s my wife” he said, “very nice!” I told him... although the picture looked more like a mug shot of a woman who’s just been caught with a kilo of cocaine.

Then he showed me another picture, this time of a little girl with an even darker complexion. “And this is my daughter” said the steward who by the way was white... in fact, very white with blue eyes.

The picture also looked like a mug shot but of a little girl who is promised sweets if she lets a stranger take her picture.

He goes on to tell me his wife and daughter are Gambian Muslims who have embraced him as their own and how his wife keeps failing the British citizenship tests so he can’t make their marriage official yet but he’s paying for her to re-sit it. “no shit” I said politely. Jodi looked at me and tried not to laugh.

Now I’m on the train back to London writing this and thinking about inventing a phrase that describes the difficulty of trying to write when a very attractive person is sitting opposite you. It’s crazy how self conscious you get in those moments... I’ve caught myself pouting my lips each time I turn my head to see my reflection in the train window... I’m going to slyly take her photo and show her off as my new wife when I get home.

Head In My Voice

2011-07-01T12:54:00.000-07:00

Chapter one of how to be a poet says all poets must find their voice.

I went to America, figuring
if I put my voice where it stands out
I’d have more chance of finding it.

I walked into diners with the prettiest waitresses,
sure to order a Full English Breakfast and ask

Does that come with tea?

They’d heard voices like mine in the movies.

I like your accent they’d say

To which I’d reply

Hi I’m Ray... as in Ray Winston

Ray Davis?

No?

Ah ok, Ray as in Ray Charles.

like my voice was a new lover I introduced to everyone.

Grinning they’d ask:

Can you say Bollocks that’s bloody brilliant!?

I’d say
Bollocks that’s bloody brilliant!

Then the waitresses would tell me their names and if they didn’t say something like

I’m Amy as in... Do you want to sleep with me?

My voice wouldn’t care.

Because it was becoming proud,
It used to keep to itself but now
It wants to get out more. It wants me to repeat
everything it says.

I’d had no dreams for years.

Suddenly I was in one every night
doing voiceovers in all of them.

The Americans would hear me speak and ask if my voice
could provide the directors commentary to their lives.

I even dreamt I met Barack Obama and he accepted
The Nobel Peace Prize in my voice.

But within four days I stopped pronouncing the T in water.

I was losing the language of my voice.

It was time to leave America.

back in the UK I pronounced the T in water but lost the T in “later”

I’m not sleeping with many women anymore.

British women get very jealous when I talk about myself.

They ask
if the sound of my voice replaced all my ex-lovers?

My voice started to make my face feel inadequate.
I started wishing I only existed as a radio personality.

I’ve stopped talking in my dreams.

I go home alone most the time
so I can write really long poems
just to prove I have a lot to say.

If I Told You by Anthony Anaxagorou

2011-06-27T03:17:00.000-07:00

Here's an interview I did with Anthony earlier this year on feminism and women's rights.

http://offthetangent.co.uk/anthony-anaxagorou-the-corners-speaker-episode-5-podcast

Letter To A Friend

2011-06-14T15:48:00.000-07:00

Dear Lawrence,

The guilt of letting silence speak for our friendship is visiting me again. It’s weird how people can get close then drift off, carrying each other’s secrets. I know if I had a self-portrait you would be a strong colour, a hard brush on my roughest patch. I know I owe you for seeing me through heartaches, breakdowns and self-doubts. It is a weird guilt because I don’t feel like I owe you an apology, I just feel like I owe you SOMETHING for the time and patience you’ve given me over 10 years of friendship.

I must have come off arrogant when I was developing my opinions on things and when I started to tune out of a lot of things that helped us bond. Rap music for example, we used to bump a lot of gangster rap but I moved away from most of it. I developed an ear for abstract, tongue twisting, poetic funk-lovin' emo rappers.

I let you borrow the albums I found inspiring and you returned them saying you didn’t like them. I gave you a CD of my raps and hoped to impress you. You never responded but your sister told me you thought my voice didn’t sound good. This I remember was the first dent in our friendship.

I quit my job as a full time personal trainer and started a career as a performance poet. I went on the dole and even borrowed money off you at times to keep myself afloat. As time went on, I wasn’t making any money off my poetry and you’d make remarks about how you pay taxes so people like me can run around calling themselves artists.

Of course, you work long hours as a train driver on the northern line. You are a dad to a little boy and you embrace that responsibility. Beautiful, I admire that, and I must have come off rather arrogent when criticising your parenting.

I was in the backseat of your girlfriend’s car with your son. He turned to me, jabbed me in the arm with his tiny three-year-old fist and said, “Fuck you Ray” and you and your girlfriend laughed your heads off. I got offended and said, “I don’t think a three year old should do that” and you, of course got defensive as you would, I’m not a dad so who am I to comment on you as parents? … I got it… but I know this was the final kick from the wall.

I was remembering how we referred to each other as brothers and how sincere that was. I remember feeling guilty for our fading connection, as it was me that was changing, you were pretty much the same.

I went travelling for 7 months, I experimented with drugs; I became a performer and got into different genres of music and literature. This made me into a new character… one that needed more feeding from people with minds heading in my direction. I had a new type of hunger for knowledge and experience but felt like your complacency with what you know frustrated me. This again, must have made me come off really arrogant. I’m sorry.

Not everyone needs to have wild dreams and curiosities, in fact at times I wish for a simpler existence. One that doesn’t define it’s worth by what it creates and how many people its approved by.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there is nothing wrong with people having no major ambition. There’s nothing wrong with people working 9-5 and enjoying their weekend. Maybe it’s me, I’m the one poisoned with disillusionment.

Maybe I over think things, maybe I’m too sentimental and I expect too much from humanity. Maybe, I’ve been looking in broken mirrors and expecting myself to look better than everything else reflected in them. Maybe I’m floating around like a restless spirit when life is about sitting down and being still with the little peace you can find.

I’m constantly in need of fuel for creativity and when it isn’t there I feel worthless. Is that crazy?

Maybe I need to go somewhere and just let a sunset be a sunset and a friendship be a friendship.

I hope you don't think of me as arrogant or ungrateful for years of loyalty as a best friend.

Much love to you and the family.

Ray. x

Frank O'Hara

2011-06-14T05:08:00.000-07:00

What a big piece of wank poetry can be.

I've been trying to work on some new pieces for a while and the pressure of consistently turning out quality gets at you!

Also, I've had a number of rejections from publications recently and that grates your confidence. I was asked to submit 6 of my favourite poems and I couldn't... I feel like I've never written a good poem in my life.

So, I've decided to stop writing for a while... do something else...and you know, I'm enjoying my time away from the desk...

Finding this poem by Frank O'Hara cheered me up some.

Why I Am Not a Painter

I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,

for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
"Sit down and have a drink" he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. "You have SARDINES in it."
"Yes, it needed something there."
"Oh." I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. "Where's SARDINES?"
All that's left is just
letters, "It was too much," Mike says.

But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven't mentioned
orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES.

Are performers crazy?

2011-06-11T04:50:00.000-07:00

Performers – it’s true. We are completely and utterly insane. There is no escape from this. Think about it… the intensity of pre-show nerves is every “DON’T FUCKING DO IT!” symptom your body can give. You shake, you shit, you throw up, you piss, you sweat… shit man, we become one big disease crumble.. yet, we have some inner lunacy battling though these very human instincts. The dream of being acknowledged, validated, idolised, self-employed etc wins… almost every time. This is not a criticism but we performers are complete masochists and our audiences are complete narcissists, seeking out pain and pleasure in others and connecting only to what they see (or want to see) in themselves.

I’ve performed a lot of shows this year and you know, some of them went very well… The tour I did in Chicago has changed quite a few things about me as a writer/performer. Most of the top Chicago poets I met are out of performing arts schools, creative writing academies and have every bit of paper that suggests they are a lot smarter than me.

I haven’t been to drama school, university or even college. I left school at 16 with four GCSE’s. Pretty much everything I’ve learned about performance and writing has been from my own research. I owe a lot to Wale Ojo who is a renowned Nigerian actor and director who came up to me after a show and said “you are a good writer but not a very good performer… you need work” and then taught me in just one workshop how better to approach the stage. Breathe, articulate, understand who you are talking to and most importantly… enjoy yourself… see it, believe it and your audience will too.

I just read Bill Hick’s biography and found it deeply inspiring.

Bill Hick’s stage persona was an anti-establishment, social-reformist, critical thinker, spoken word artist and comic. He got a big break by being asked to do a set on David Letterman’s talk show (one of the most popular in America). Bill gears up and performs his strongest set to date, talking in the book about all the nerves that rattle your body in pre-show mode, he smacks his set, the studio audience loved him and Letterman himself is in fits of laughter. It’s a proud moment for him. He goes home and sits in a hot bath to unwind and congratulate himself only to receive a phone call to say he’s been cut from the show due to censorship issues. This hurt him so much he called his mum with tears in his eyes shouting “MUM THEY CUT ME! WHY DON’T THEY SEE… THEY’RE JUST JOKES!?” this shows one of the most popular out-spoken/ anti-establishment performers of the 90’s being rejected by (drum roll) brrrrrmmmmm THE ESTABLISHMENT! ... and it cut deeply into him.

Man, Bill Hicks was crazy.

I’ve asked myself a few times why I do what I do? … I want to be heard. I want to promote a form of entertainment that engages people emotionally and intellectually through this weird and wonderful thing called language. It's amazing to me that we live in an age of gloss machines constantly flashing their lights, yet, we can give Spoken Word shows where audiences are engaged and transfixed by one person and their stories/rhythms/persona.

I want to provide an alternative to the numb, gutless brain of mainstream media… it's amazing how many people think there is no other way. Overall I think I do this because I am completely and utterly insane.

Ray.

P.S

I also owe a lot to other insane people like Musa Okwonga, Joshua Idehen, Mista Gee and Niall O'Sullivan.

Niall booked me for his book launch after my second ever gig (or display of madness) and he encouragement my insanity. I told Niall recently "you are one of the only people who said I could have a career in poetry" and he said "poetry!? I thought you wanted to be a tobacconist"

P.P.S Here's a list of up coming gigs (hyperlinks included)

Brizzlemania w/ Byron Vincent this Wednesday

One Taste hosted by Paradox 19th June

London Literature Festival with PoeJazzi at London Southbank. July 1st

Chill Pill at The Albany w/ Bohdan Piasecki, Hollie Mcnish, Joshua Idehen. 9th July

The Word House w/ Zena Edwards. 16th July.

New Poetry Video Pending Channel 4 Transmission

2011-06-06T13:53:00.000-07:00

Have You Heard? from Adam Docker on Vimeo.

Sign Of The Ages (after Gil-Scott Heron)

2011-05-29T04:50:00.000-07:00

In the end he avoided mirrors,
he recognised someone that didn’t look like themselves.
In the end he avoided mirrors,
there are other ways to look at what time does to us,
this is why we have memories, dreams and sunglasses.

Do you know what it sounds like when a man smashes
into pieces like a crushed tablet?
when a man has enough cracks to slide fingers into his chest, to spread palm
over heart to shake it, yelling

THIS IS WHAT I CARE ABOUT!

He was an immigrant who felt at home
when he got used to the hatred –
this is what happens when you give every piece of yourself
to a world that prospers on the mutilation
of the good natured.

I’m young enough to feel like I can exchange my pieces
for something that can’t be fed back to me in a dog’s bowl,
to feel like I might have a hole wide enough to reach
into my heart and throw it at you and wait for my gold.

But this is not 1961, and I’m not a black man in America,
and I probably spend too much time in the mirror.

It truly is a precious time when we sit down and feel like we’re inside it.
When we’ve unplugged the television and thrown it through a window,
when we’re young enough to look exactly how we want to be remembered.

Before we're at the end, avoiding mirrors.

R.I.P Gil Scott Heron

2011-05-28T02:16:00.000-07:00

Last year I saw Gil Scott heron live at Bestival. A big outdoor Festival on the isle of wight. He walked onto the stage looking like one of my Dad's old west indian friends at the bookies. Black flat cap, drowsy eyes, grey bushy beard and skin like an old tire that's rolled itself over too many dirt roads. I'm sure if I got close enough to him he would have smelt like a piano in a smokey basement bar.

Gil smiled and waved at the crowd. He looked painfully thin. My girlfriend at the time turned to me and said "he looks like he's on his way out". Writing this now I feel I've only just realised what she was saying.

Gil sat down and gave a powerful but nostalgic performance. The tone of nostalgia felt so strong I didn't feel present in the moment. He turned to the audience and spoke about the day he recorded Winter In America with the Midnight Band. He followed this with a slow, obscure and minimal version of Home Is Where The Hatred Is. It's one of my favourite Gil Scott Heron tracks and I only recognised it during the chorus.

A lot of the people around me weren't engaged with Gil. They couldn't relate and started their own conversations, this really annoyed me but I was surprised that my girlfriend (who had never heard of Gil Scott Heron before I banged on about having to see him) she was moved and as transfixed as I was. "Wow... a voice like that belongs only to a man who's seen some shit" she said.

It's true, he sang I'll Take Care Of You with a voice that climbed out his throat wounded, bleeding and naked.

I got to say Gil did seem detached.He could have had the same form and sat in an empty theatre, playing half-drunk at 2am. It was a set for the hard-core fans... but more than anything... I believe it was a set for himself.

This is the way I'll remember Gil Scott Heron.

Smiling at his piano in front of thousands of people with just a few sun rays squeezing through the cracks of a grey cloud.

Thanks for coming out Gil.