If I Told You by Anthony Anaxagorou

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

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

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?

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

Have You Heard? from Adam Docker on Vimeo.

Sign Of The Ages (after Gil-Scott Heron)

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

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.

Chill Pill At Soho Theatre 1st June

Created by Mista Gee (host of Radio 4’s ‘Bespoken word’ and ‘Rhyme and Reason’), Raymond Antrobus, Deanna Rodger, Simon Mole, and Kim-Leng Hills, Chill Pill is at the cutting edge of underground poetry.

After a hugely successful first outing at Soho Theatre, this night of word based entertainment is back.

Show kicks off at 7.15pm.



As well as the Chill Pill poets, the night will feature:

TSHAKA Campbell is an established spoken word poet. Recognised as an accomplished artist and performer, Campbell was voted one of the 25 people to know in San Francisco. He has toured internationally, and has performed at a variety of venues from the legendary Apollo Theatre in New York to the Poetry Café in London.



The LEANO - Folk/Hip-Hop Band Based in London. After appearing at Chill Pill's Scream Bar shows last summer and completely blowing EVERYONE away we HAD to welcome them back to our space.



ADAM Kammerling - Brighton Spoken Word Slam Champ.

Equally at home in the furnace of a Rap Battle as he is on a poetry stage, Adam’s verbal arsenal and range is very impressive. Whether exploring serious ethical issues or illustrating the frustrations of working in a cake shop when you’re hungry, Adam writes with a lyrical rhythm, rhyme and humour that complements his naturally relaxed delivery and amply showcases his poet's eye for the important absurdities and minutiae of urban life.



Jessie Disco Biscuit - 18 year old Cambridge based Slam Poet.

Jessie Disco Biscuit is a name you want to google as soon as you hear it. She's been rocking poetry nights in Cambridge and word got out to us that she's "the next Kate Tempest". Making her official London debut at Chill Pill - We bring her to you LIVE!



ADVANCE TICKETS ONLY £5 - http://www.sohotheatre.com/pl2169.html

Pics from the last So-Chilled Show featured Tim Clare, Harry Baker, Greeds, Keith Jarret & The Chill Pill poets - http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150146942686650.290610.168665641649

A Fasinating Experience At Church

This morning I gave a Poetry Reading at the Stratford Unitarian Church.

About 20 people were present, aging between 40 and 80 as well as a few children. It started with a service delivered by a man called Julian.

His presence was gentle, you could feel the kindness in his heart just from the way he stood, smiled and welcomed you as a stranger without looking like he’s trying to work you out. Genuine friendliness is always refreshing when you live in a city.

I noted the pauses Julian gives between his sentences when he talks. It shows real consideration and weight to the presence of the voice in his words. I admire this greatly.

The service was held in a small hall with five rows of blue fold up chairs. The windows were dyed with bright colours. Light blues, orange and purple so when the sun shun through them it intensified the warmth and you felt like you were bathing.

My body seemed to adapt to another type of gravity. I thought of my stomach as a lottery machine and my guts as white feathers and ping pong balls in a spin cycle.

After a few hymns I was invited to stand behind the podium and read some poems. I started with a new one about loneliness called ‘Hey! Look! The Sun Is In The Sky And It’s On Its Own’.

I felt slightly awkward at first, unsure if my being there was understood or appreciated but I locked eyes with one particular woman who was sat in the middle row. She had wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. Her hair was the colour of dried out straw. I’d say she was about 40. The purple and blue lights made a disco of what was otherwise an intensely sad face. She looked like she’d been crying recently... but I wasn’t sure. I kept reading the poem and the energy between me and this woman was electric.

Not to come off like I was being some kind of prophet but I felt like I was saying something she needed to hear. Somehow, I felt this connected me to the entire spirit of the room.

I was followed by a man called Steven who sang in the Eurovision contest in 1983.

You might imagine some kind of croaky voiced washed up Elvis impersonator with a toupee, but actually he sang a beautiful song about his friend who has become a Dad. It was touching.

After the service I was thanked and got into a conversation with a man who has recently lost his wife to cancer. He was tall, with brown and greyish hair. His eyes were so blue they looked hopeful no matter how his face moved.

I asked him if grief is like heartbreak. He said “they are exactly the same but the belief you won’t get over it is stronger”. He said, almost embarrassedly that he’d read a self-help book called “The Power Of Now” and explained how the history of love for his wife cannot settle inside him. I contributed ideas from philosophy books I’ve read about how time is psychological but it felt too easy to recite ideas that have derived from pain that is not my own.

He told me about the last conversation he had with his wife. She was on her deathbed; she’d hugged him and made a joke about how a man so full of life will find love again in 6 months... the only time he broke eye contact with me is when he said “it’s been a year and a half”

I listened, surprised how this conversation didn’t make me feel awkward... I was looking into his eyes and felt like giving him a hug.

After he left I had a rather profound conversation with Julian in the empty hall.

Some of it I actually want to keep for myself but I will touch on what he said when I told him of my (non-religious) beliefs.

“I don’t know if there is an afterlife... I don’t think Jesus is the sole answer for everything... However, if life is a journey he makes a great travel companion”

Hearing this from a minster you can tell is so well connected to himself and his world felt incredible... like he reached into my heart and shook it while saying “hey Ray... look like this... beautiful isn’t it?”

A Working List Of Chicago Poets

Robb Q Telfer



Dan Sully & Tim Stafford



JW Baz



Laura Yes Yes



Roger Bonaire Agard