Looking back on Leicester's Shindigs

Jonathan Taylor has posted a short piece looking back at Leicester Shindigs, 2010-2017. It was a great pleasure to read there on several occasions, and an even greater one to attend regularly. I hope it will return in some form, but whatever happens, it did a great job of giving both new and established poets a regular forum, and huge thanks are due to Jane Commane, Matt Nunn, and Maria and Jonathan Taylor, who fronted it and did all the behind-the-scenes work that made it such a success.

First Shindig of 2016

I've been very poor at updating things around here just lately, but for now it's worth highlighting this event, on Monday night - as always, it's worth making the effort to get along to. Open mic slots will be available, and Mark Goodwin always reads well. It all starts at 7.30pm, and entry is free.

Daniel Sluman, Cora Greenhill & Stephen Payne, 16.11.15

On Monday night, I was at the last Nine Arches Press/Crystal Clear Creators Shindig of the year, at The Western in Leicester.

As usual, the open mic readers were both varied and of high quality, and it's particularly good to hear pieces of short fiction punctuating the poetry.

The featured readers were all poets whose work I'm familiar with, and all, I thought, shared something in their delivery of their work. They're undemonstrative yet expressive, they pace both the individual poems and the whole set beautifully, and there was always a slight tension underlying their readings, a result, I think, of their ability to create a stillness in the room, a feeling that something is about to happen.

Cora Greenhill's The Point Of Waking is a collection that I've returned to a couple of times over the last year or so, and her reading here will no doubt send me back to it again.

Stephen Payne's Pattern Beyond Chance is recently out from HappenStance, and it's full of collisions between poetry and science, reflecting his day job. Above all, they're poems that constantly ask questions, both about their subject matter and the means of expressing it, and that curiosity is infectious - you start asking the same questions, too.

Finally, Daniel Sluman's the terrible is his second collection from Nine Arches. Judging from what we heard here, it builds on the many strengths of his debut by managing to be even more starkly honest. The result is both harrowing, at times, but also full of astonishing tenderness. The title poem, in particular, was stunning. It's a very difficult balancing act to pull off, but he does it beautifully, and I can't wait to read the book.

Nine Arches / Crystal Clear Creators Shindig

Daniel Sluman, Cora Greenhill and Stephen Payne are the featured readers at the latest Shindig, hosted by Nine Arches Press, Crystal Clear Creators and the Centre for New Writing, at The Western, Western Road, Leicester LE3 0GA, from 7.30pm on Monday, November 16th.

Dan will be reading from his new Nine Arches collection the terrible, while Stephen also has as new book out, Pattern Beyond Chance, from the ever-wonderful HappenStance.

As always, entry is free, and you can sign up for an open mic slot on the door.

The best yet?

I'm not entirely sure how long the Leicester Shindigs have been going. I could check, probably, by trawling back through this blog, but suffice it to say that it's been a good few years, from the early days at The Looking Glass to its current incarnation at The Western.

Whatever the case, last night's might just have been the best yet. Certainly top three, anyway. Four excellent readers, packed open mic slots, and an extremely appreciative audience. Kudos to Nine Arches Press and Crystal Clear Creators for all their work in building the event over the years, and to Jane Commane and Jonathan Taylor for their unflagging enthusiasm as hosts.

Let's start with the open mic. So many were signed up that the readers were restricted to a single poem (or in one case, piece of fiction) each, and that kept things flowing nicely. Regulars such as Roy Marshall, Jayne Stanton, Martin Malone and Charles Lauder Jr were reliably high quality, but there was a heartening number of first-timers, too.

The first guest, Michael W Thomas, was making his return after reading here a couple of years back. As then (when he read a superb poem about the secret language of tramps), he was quietly assured and utterly riveting. I'm always pleased to come across one of Michael's poems in a magazine (and fortunately, he's in plenty), and I rather hope that he's one of those small press poets who's actually widely read as a consequence of his prolific nature, his willingness to offer his work in a wide variety of outlets, and of course his skill as a writer.

Ben Wilkinson's pamphlet For Real, winner of the Poetry Business competition, was a real advance on the anyway highly accomplished The Sparks, and his reading from it confirmed all those good first impressions. It's poetry that thinks very hard about what poetry can do, but it's never less than accessible and engaged with the real world.

After the break, DA Prince read from her recently-released second collection, Common Ground. She's another poet who manages to be understated and precise without diminishing the emotional punch, and she read the same way, giving every word the chance to pull its weight.

Andrew Taylor brought the evening to a close with poems from his debut, Radio Mast Horizon, as well as two forthcoming chapbooks - his poems also work quietly, and perhaps with more of a cumulative effect than the other readers, but again without sacrificing anything in the way of readability (or listenability, perhaps that should be). I look forward to reading more.

So, the only problem now is that Shindig had set itself a very high standard to maintain in 2015 - get along in January to see what's next.

Leicester Shindig - November 2014

This is on Monday - I'll see you there, won't I?

Leicester Shindig, July 21st, 2014

It's Shindig time again on Monday, with guest readers Carol Leeming, Tony Williams, Richie McCaffery and Kerry Featherstone. As always, it's free, everything starts at 7.30pm, downstairs at The Western, on Western Road, and open mic slots will be available on the night.

Leicester Shindig, 20.01.14

Last night's Shindig at The Western was a slightly unusual one, from my point of view, in that the featured poets were, largely, new to me, although I've always enjoyed what I've read from Cathy Grindrod, and Lindsay Waller-Wilkinson's open mic spots at previous Shindigs have always been worth hearing.

I'll certainly seek out more from both after last night's readings. Both were quietly assured and nicely paced, no mean feat when, during Lindsay's set, there were a certain amount of slightly comic interruptions.

After the break, Charlie Jordan was perhaps more obviously polished in her presentation, but none the worse for that, while Joe Coghlan built momentum almost hypnotically from a slightly nervous start. He recited two long poems, and it would be interesting to hear and read a greater variety of his work, but this was a fine introduction to a writer and performer I suspect we'll hear a lot more from.

The open mic spots were of their usual high quality. Rebecca Bird's poem was a highlight for me, as was Caroline Cook's, and Martin Malone read what might be the best football poem I've ever heard, partly because, of course, it was far more than a football poem.

Shindig does it again

I've written on here before about how, at the best poetry open mic nights (and Shindig is certainly one of those), a mysterious process seems to take place by which many of the poems coalesce around a unstated theme.

It happened again last night, with a string of poems about drugs, booze, addiction, and the fall-out from such things. I didn't catch all the names, but there was an astonishingly assured first-ever performance by a young man called (I think) DP Horton, and another fine poem from David Devaney (I think I've got that right). The regulars rose to the challenge, too - Rebecca Bird's Parisienne poem, and Roy Marshall's rather menacing, butcher-themed piece, were among the highlights, but there was a lot else to enjoy, too.

Of the featured readers, both Lydia Towsey and Deborah Tyler-Bennett, who formed the first half of the bill, are familiar faces, but no less impressive for that. Lydia actually did just two, long poems, both performed from memory (something that always impresses me) - the second of them, with its Spanish setting, was particularly fine. Deborah's new book, Turned Out Nice Again, is a collection of stories about music hall and variety in the East Midlands, and as with her poetry, it demonstrates a great ear for natural speech, especially where accent and dialect are concerned (nowhere but the East Midlands is 'home' pronounced 'omm').

After the break Martin Malone read superbly, both from his Templar collection The Waiting Hillside, and from newer work, touching on memory, family, masculinity and landscape. It's the first time I've met Martin or heard him read (although I've long since enjoyed the book), and he's a born performer, projecting his poems through that mixture of stillness and energy that I've talked about before.

Sarah James was a totally new poet to me, but I'll look forward to reading more of her work. She's had collections out from Circaidy Gregory and Knives Forks & Spoons, and her poetry rather defies easy categorisation, flitting between the mainstream and the more experimental without ever being intimidating.

Finally, it's just worth mentioning that there's an additional Nine Arches event in Leicester next month, on Friday October 25th at the Quaker Meeting House on Queen's Road, Clarendon Park. For just £5 you get four poets (Mario Petrucci, Claire Trevien, Alistair Noon and myself, plus tea and cakes). Follow the link to book.

September Shindig!

The latest Nine Arches Press and Crystal Clear Creators Leicester Shindig takes place at The Western, Western Road, Leicester LE3 0GA, on Monday from 7.30pm.

As usual entry is free and there'll be plenty of open mic slots - just sign up on the door if you'd like to read.

Guest readers are Sarah James, Lydia Towsey, Deborah Tyler-Bennett and Martin Malone. Deborah and Lydia will be familiar faces to East Midlands audiences – Deborah's publications include Pavilion (Smokestack, 2010), Revudeville (King's England, 2011) and her most recent, Turned Out Nice Again: Stories Inspired by the Music Hall Tradition (King’s England, 2013), while Lydia is a poet and performer who has been shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize and is currently working to organise a tour of her one woman show, The Venus Papers. She's also Chair and Compere of WORD!, the longest running spoken word night in the Midlands, held monthly in Leicester.

Sarah James is a poet, short fiction writer and former journalist. Her first collection Into the Yell (Circaidy Gregory Press, 2010) won third prize in the International Rubery Book Awards 2011. Sarah's second collection Be[yond], published by Knives, Forks and Spoons Press, is officially launched this week.

Martin Malone was born in West Hartlepool, and now lives in Warwickshire. A winner of the 2011 Straid Poetry Award and the 2012 Mirehouse Prize, his first full collection - The Waiting Hillside - is published by Templar Poetry. Currently studying for a PhD in poetry at Sheffield University, he edits The Interpreter’s House poetry journal. He also has a taste for 1980s Australian indie bands so frighteningly similar to my own that you'd think we'd been raised together in a Perth commune.

Hinterland on Shindig

There's a really nice review of last Monday's Shindig by Rebecca Bird at Hinterland Journal - you can read it here. It's hard to disagree with any of her assessments of the other readers, and I'm very grateful for her comments on my own reading.

While you're at it, have a look at Hinterland more generally. Edited by Rebecca and Ian Parks, it's already featured some high-quality work from the likes of Roy Marshall and Maria Taylor, and it's on the lookout for more.

Shindig in Leicester

This Monday (July 8th), I'm reading at the latest Nine Arches Press and Crystal Clear Creators Leicester Shindig, at the usual venue of The Western, 70 Western Road, Leicester.

Special guests are Kate Fox, David Morley, Zeandrick Oliver and me. David needs absolutely no introduction, to readers of this blog or poetry fans more generally, but the poems I've heard from his forthcoming Carcanet collection are absolutely outstanding, and he's always a riveting reader of his own work. Zeandrick is a student at De Montfort University in Leicester, and I have to admit I don't know his work at all - I look forward to hearing it.

Finally, I'm pretty sure Kate Fox was there at one of my first-ever readings (well, mini-readings), an anthology launch at the Lit & Phil in Newcastle. She was, and still is, a top-notch performer of her own  work (she's a comedian, too), and has most recently been Poet In Residence at Glastonbury. 

It's free and it all starts at 7.30pm, and as usual there are open mic slots available - just sign up on the door if you're interested.

March 2013 Shindig!

The latest Nine Arches Press/Crystal Clear Creators Leicester Shindig takes place at The Western, Western Road, Leicester, next Monday at 7.30pm.

Featured readers are Nicola Deane, Jonathan Taylor, Jess Green and Mark Goodwin, and there are the usual open mic slots available - sign up early to make sure of one. Entrance is free.

November's Leicester Shindig!

The latest Nine Arches Press and Crystal Clear Creators Leicester Shindig! takes place at The Western, 70 Western Road, Leicester LE3 0GA a week on Monday, 19th November, at 7.30pm.

The night's guests are Jo Bell, Dragan Todorovic, Ian Parks and David Cooke, and as always there'll be open mic slots available on the night.

David Cooke won a Gregory Award in 1977 and published Brueghel’s Dancers in 1984. He then stopped writing for 20 years. A retrospective collection, In the Distance, was published in 2011 by Night Publishing. A new collection, Work Horses, has just been published by Ward Wood Publishing.

Jo Bell is a former Glastonbury Poet in Residence, director of National Poetry Day — and now the UK's Canal Laureate. A boatdweller and former archaeologist, her poems are about everything from Roman forts to sex on the towpath (between ducks). Current projects include a collaboration on a sequence with Martin Malone, charting the progress of a passionate relationship.

Dragan Todorovic is a multimedia artist and author of eight books of nonfiction, poetry and fiction. He’s worked extensively in print and electronic media, in Serbia (where he was born) and in Canada (where he lived between 1995 - 2005). Little Red Transistor Radio from Trieste is his first collection of short stories.

Ian Parks is the only poet to have poems published in The TLS and The Morning Star on the same day. His latest collection is The Exile’s House (Waterloo Press) and he is currently Writing Fellow at De Montfort University, Leicester.

Entry is free.

The uninvited guest

You know an open mic night is beginning to make a name for itself when Ezra Pound makes an unscheduled appearance, and refuses to sit down.

The father of modernist poetry/great man/mad old fascist, as he was variously described by readers (and the three are, of course, not mutually exclusive), first cropped up in Robert Richardson’s open mic slot at last night’s Shindig in Leicester (he read three short poems by Pound). And, as seems to be the way with these nights, and with all good open mic nights for that matter, other readers responded by reading his work too, or by reading work informed by or influenced by Pound.

Such themes and tropes have a habit of turning up, as Jane Commane of Nine Arches Press pointed out, but uninvited or not, they’re ultimately welcome, giving the evening something to coalesce around, or work against, on occasion.

Some of my highlights among last night’s open mic-ers included Charles Lauder Jr’s poem The Rocking Chair Thief (think that’s the right title), Kerry Featherstone’s two pieces, Gary Carr (incidentally, here’s the terrific poem he read at the last Shindig) and Graham Norman’s short, taut poems themed around the canonical hours, but in truth there was barely a dud note all night.

The same was true of the featured readers. I’ve blogged previously about Angela France and Daniel Sluman, who made up the Nine Arches half of the bill – both are fine poets who also read well. Angela’s newer work (due to appear in a book from Nine Arches early next year) is intriguingly different from her earlier pamphlet and collection – much more personal and direct. I particularly liked the piece she read about family superstitions.

Daniel read, as ever, with great poise. There’s a contrast between the often difficult subject matter of his poems (the loss of a leg to cancer, troubled relationships, and last night, abuse) and the relaxed and witty introductions that works well, but he’s not a poet to settle for the easy laugh. I could say a lot more, but I want to keep my powder dry for the review of his book that I’ll post soon, especially as two of the poems he read last night are two that I focus on.

In the second half, Sarah Jackson read well from her Bloodaxe collection Pelt. I heard her read in Nottingham a couple of years back, but the newer work was the highlight for me.

Rory Waterman closed the night, with poems from his debut collection from Carcanet (due around this time next year). I knew some of them already, having seen his work in Carcanet’s New Poetries V, but there was an awful lot to enjoy right across the board – the creeping sense of menace in his American-set poem was great. I think it was probably a more rounded selection of his work than appears in New Poetries V, good as that is, and it augured well for that collection next year. 

Best yet?

Monday night's Nine Arches Press/Crystal Clear Creators Shindig was as good as any reading/open mic I've been to - I'd wondered whether the ongoing deluge and the Leicester holiday fortnight might make keep people away this time, but in fact the Western was packed out.

A great bill helped, obviously. I'm not going to attempt to review the night properly, but Alan Baker, Maria Taylor and Robin Vaughan-Williams are all poets whose work I've known and enjoyed for some time now, and all three gave fine readings, as ever. You can read much more about them here and here.

Kim Moore was a new name to me, though, and closed the night with a really fine set (she was down from Barrow-in-Furness, but has family in Leicester, I think). I bought her Smith/Doorstop pamphlet - If We Could Speak Like Wolves - on the strength of it, and it more than does her justice. I loved her opening poem, The Wolf, in particular, not least because of her declaration that she reads it because she doesn't know what it means. That enquiring sense is there throughout the book.

The open mic slots seem to get better with each reading, and it was nice to see more and more West Midlands poets coming to give it a try. Gary Carr's second poem, a letter to his daughter, was a real highlight for me, Gary Longden, Deborah Tyler-Bennett and Jayne Stanton were as good as always, and Graham Norman and Maria Rooner performed the same poem in English, then German, to good effect. Considering I managed to fail O Level German three times (don't ask), I surprised myself by how much I actually followed when Maria was reading.

Talking to Alan and Robin afterwards, we were trying to work out what makes the Shindigs work so well (aside from the poets, obviously). The size and shape of the room certainly helps, as does the fact that there's always been a nice, relaxed feel at the Western - people wander in from the street or the other bar and dip in and out of the poetry, which you don't get at many places. And last but certainly not least, the laid-back, resolutely uncompetitive atmosphere cultivated by Jane and Matt of Nine Arches and Jonathan Taylor of CCC, makes all the difference.

Readings

Just a quick reminder that I'll be reading, with fellow Nine Arches poets Angela France and Daniel Sluman, at the Cannon Poets event at Moseley Exchange, Alcester Road, Birmingham, tomorrow from 7.30pm. It's part of the Moseley Festival.

On Monday, Nine Arches and Crystal Clear Creators team up for the bi-monthly Shindig at The Western, Western Road, Leicester, from 7.30pm. Featured readers are Robin Vaughan-Williams, Maria Taylor, Kim Moore and Alan Baker, and as usual open mic slots will be available on the night.

New at Nine Arches

Nine Arches Press has two new debut collections out now - Melanchrini, by Loughborough poet Maria Taylor, and Absence has a weight of its own, by Cheltenham-based Daniel Sluman. Having heard them both read from the books, I'm looking forward to getting stuck into them, because they're realkly both very distinctive poets.

Meanwhile, over at Gists & Piths, Simon Turner is interviewing another Nine Arches poet, C J Allen, whose At The Oblivion Tea-Rooms was recently published. Regular readers here might recall that I'm a big fan of both Clive's and Simon's poetry, so it's probably no surprise that it's a terrific interview, with a lot of interesting things to say about form, among other things.*

Finally, the next Nine Arches/Crystal Clear Creators Shindig takes place at The Western in Leicester on July 16th - be there!

* Incidentally, I think Clive's reason for wanting to be a painter - "I liked the smell of linseed oil and the way they hardly ever seemed to do anything" - probably sums up my childhood ambition to be a cricketer, and continuing obsession with the game.

A toast...

Tonight is, of course, Burns Night, and while I have no Scottish ancestry that I'm aware of, I'm all for anything that involves the national celebration of a poet, along with the eating of haggis (you can keep the neeps) and the drinking of a single malt or two.

Following on from the big night this year, there's an event taking place in Dumfries this Friday and Saturday, from 7.30pm-11pm, called First Foot @ The Stove. It includes an international art project, conceived and curated by Hugh Bryden and David Borthwick, called Windows On Burns Night. A whole host of poets wrote a piece of their work onto clear plastic, to be displayed on windows around the town. There are more details on it here.

My own poem, Prayer, appears at The Globe. I doubt if I'll be able to get up to Dumfries anytime soon, but I'm proud to have been involved in this project.

Funnily enough, at Monday night's Shindig in Leicester, Burns made a wholly unscheduled appearance. I've talked before about how little themes seem to emerge at each reading, and in the first half of Monday's, mice kept cropping up, especially in John Lucas's fine spot. He read at least as many poems by other people as his own, but it worked extremely well. Jane Commane of Nine Arches Press then challenged someone to read Burns' To A Mouse in the second half. I assumed that the gauntlet would remain on the ground, but Nick Leach took it up magnificently, reading the poem absolutely superbly.

The rest of the night saw great readings from Helen Calcutt and Jessica Mayhew (sadly, Phil Brown couldn't make it), and the usual excellent mix of open mic slots, including a couple of collborations.

Last night, I was reading at Poetry Bites, of which much more later in the week. In the meantime, I'm going to be having a quiet night of it, with a book or two and a large glass of Caol Ila. Here's to Rabbie...

Leicester Shindig! returns

Crystal Clear Creators and Nine Arches Press are staging their latest Shindig! open mic reading at The Western, Western Road, Leicester, next Monday from 7.30pm. As usual it's free and open to all, and you can sign up for open mic slots at the door.

Featured poets are Jessica Mayhew, John Lucas, Phil Brown and Helen Calcutt.

Jessica Mayhew is 22, and is part way through her degree at the University of Northampton, where she is studying English Literature and Creative Writing. A pamphlet, Someone Else's Photograph, will be published by Crystal Clear Creators in March 2012.

Phil Brown teaches English in Sutton and has been regularly writing poetry for about 10 years. In 2009 he was shortlisted for the Crashaw Prize and won the Eric Gregory Award in 2010. His debut collection, Il Avilit, has just been published by Nine Arches Press. He is the Poetry Editor for the online magazine and chapbook publisher, Silkworms Ink.

John Lucas’s most recent book is Next Year Will Be Better: A Memoir of England in the 1950s. He runs Shoestring Press.

Helen Calcutt was born in 1988 and grew up in the West Midlands, with familial roots in South West Wales. Her first pamphlet collection is forthcoming next year with Perdika. She works as a visiting writer for, among others, Creative Alliance, Writing West Midlands, and The Young People’s Writing Squads. She was awarded an Arvon writing Grant in

September 2011.

Looks a great line-up as usual - I'm looking forward to getting hold of Phil Brown's collection.