Showing posts with label Luke Wright. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Luke Wright. Show all posts
Friday, 26 August 2016
The Forward Book of Poetry 2017
The 25th annual Forward Prize anthology is out on September 15th – it contains all the poems shortlisted for this year's prizes, plus a selection of those highly commended by the judges. Those featured include Vahni Capildeo, John Clegg, Maura Dooley, Ian Duhig, Leontia Flynn, Kathleen Jamie, Luke Kennard, William Letford, Melissa Lee-Houghton, Hannah Lowe, Roy McFarlane, Helen Mort, Alice Oswald, Denise Riley, Carol Rumens, Ian Seed, Julia Webb and Luke Wright.
Friday, 8 November 2013
Wordsmiths & Co reading
MATT MERRITT at Wordsmiths & Co. from Chris Bradley on Vimeo.
Here's a short video of part of my reading at Wordsmiths & Co in June this year, part of an evening that also featured David Morley, Luke Wright, Lorna Meehan, and of course host Jo Bell (who you can see in the background).
The poems included are The elephant in the room, The Mind's Skyline, and At Frampton Marsh. I'm grateful to Nine Arches Press and Apples & Snakes, both for the invitation to read, and for producing such a fine video. I was, though, as always, taken aback by just how Leicestuh I sound.
And just in case you didn't know, the collection from which the poems are taken, The Elephant Tests, is available here, along with all manner of bargains.
Tuesday, 18 June 2013
An evening at Wordsmiths & Co
Yesterday, I tackled the A14 and the snarled-up Coventry ring road to get to Warwick Arts Centre. Gig-goers among you will know that it sits on the campus of Warwick University, and that the campus is actually nearer Coventry.
I've got a lot of fond memories of it because of some great gigs I've seen there. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the last time I was in the small theatre I was in last night, it was to see Julian Cope, which is always an experience.
This time, though, it was for the last of this season's Wordsmiths & Co shows, run by Nine Arches Press and Apples & Snakes. I'm hugely grateful to regular host Jo Bell for inviting me to join a line-up of Lorna Meehan, David Morley, and Luke Wright. To read with names like those would be a privilege and a pleasure anyway, but it's the format of the shows that really makes things special. Each poet does a short reading, and is then interviewed by Jo, turning it into a poetry talkshow.
Lorna read first - she's a classically trained actress, and uses her voice superbly. There's a lot of energy in her performance, but she allows the listener time to take in the subtler shifts of language, too - I only wish we could have heard more.
I read five poems from my forthcoming book, The Elephant Tests, and got a good response. I'm determined that, by the time I've done a couple more readings, I'll have memorised a hardcore of the poems from the book.
The interview part was great. Jo's questions were pretty searching without being obvious, and it's actually a good way of finding out exactly what you think about your own writing and methods etc. Certainly, driving home later, I found myself mentally expanding upon and revising my answers.
For a 'page poet', David Morley is a very physical performer of his work (for reasons he explained last night), but I think what really makes him so compelling to watch is that he leavens that with a great stillness when necessary. His John Clare themed poems from his forthcoming book The Gypsy and the Poet were superb - it'll be a must-read.
I've seen Luke Wright read a couple of times previously, and he's never less than hugely entertaining, but I think he continues to get better each time, not least because the satirical edge to his work is both sharper and yet somehow less obvious. In fact, he and David were both fascinating on the subject of poetry with "palpable designs" on the reader - if anything last night showed that their seemingly very different approaches shared a lot of similarities.
And that was that. If ever an evening was worth a bit of gridlock, this was it - I just hope the audience enjoyed it as much as we did. Just to prove it, here's a picture of a very happy line-up, post-show.
I've got a lot of fond memories of it because of some great gigs I've seen there. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the last time I was in the small theatre I was in last night, it was to see Julian Cope, which is always an experience.
This time, though, it was for the last of this season's Wordsmiths & Co shows, run by Nine Arches Press and Apples & Snakes. I'm hugely grateful to regular host Jo Bell for inviting me to join a line-up of Lorna Meehan, David Morley, and Luke Wright. To read with names like those would be a privilege and a pleasure anyway, but it's the format of the shows that really makes things special. Each poet does a short reading, and is then interviewed by Jo, turning it into a poetry talkshow.
Lorna read first - she's a classically trained actress, and uses her voice superbly. There's a lot of energy in her performance, but she allows the listener time to take in the subtler shifts of language, too - I only wish we could have heard more.
I read five poems from my forthcoming book, The Elephant Tests, and got a good response. I'm determined that, by the time I've done a couple more readings, I'll have memorised a hardcore of the poems from the book.
The interview part was great. Jo's questions were pretty searching without being obvious, and it's actually a good way of finding out exactly what you think about your own writing and methods etc. Certainly, driving home later, I found myself mentally expanding upon and revising my answers.
For a 'page poet', David Morley is a very physical performer of his work (for reasons he explained last night), but I think what really makes him so compelling to watch is that he leavens that with a great stillness when necessary. His John Clare themed poems from his forthcoming book The Gypsy and the Poet were superb - it'll be a must-read.
I've seen Luke Wright read a couple of times previously, and he's never less than hugely entertaining, but I think he continues to get better each time, not least because the satirical edge to his work is both sharper and yet somehow less obvious. In fact, he and David were both fascinating on the subject of poetry with "palpable designs" on the reader - if anything last night showed that their seemingly very different approaches shared a lot of similarities.
And that was that. If ever an evening was worth a bit of gridlock, this was it - I just hope the audience enjoyed it as much as we did. Just to prove it, here's a picture of a very happy line-up, post-show.
Friday, 7 June 2013
Wordsmiths & Co
I'm taking part in the latest instalment of Wordsmiths & Co, at Warwick Arts Centre, a week on Monday (June 17th) at 7.45pm.
I'll be joining host Jo Bell and poets Lorna Meehan, David Morley and Luke Wright for what's the UK’s first live poetry talk
show.
It aims to feature poets you know from the pages of books and from
the festival stages, with Jo encouraging us to spill secrets, tell
tales and share the magic of words in an intimate performance space.
It's a collaboration between Nine Arches Press, Apples and Snakes and Warwick Arts Centre. You can read more about it and find out how to book tickets here, and there's also a chance to watch videos of the performances from Series 1 and 2 (this is the closing event of the latter).
It's a collaboration between Nine Arches Press, Apples and Snakes and Warwick Arts Centre. You can read more about it and find out how to book tickets here, and there's also a chance to watch videos of the performances from Series 1 and 2 (this is the closing event of the latter).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)