Several exciting things have started happening recently. I’ve got a couple of poems, ‘Frogger’ and ‘Eating Ghosts’, included in the Jawspring Poetry and Art Exhibition, which will be showing at The Village Hall Gallery in Wimbledon (SW19 4QD) 19–23 March. My poems have been sent to two artists, Siobhan Tarr and Phil Deed, so I look forward to seeing their responses, interpretations, or reactions. There are twenty-five artists taking part, and seventeen poets from Merton Poets, who work will all be shown during the exhbition. There’ll be a launch, with drinks and readings, at 7pm on World Poetry Day, Friday 21 March 2014.
Trevor Tomkins, by Alban Low
Jawspring is organised by Alban Low, who has a line in producing some lively jazz sketches and album art. Check them out on his blog: artofjazz.blogspot.co.uk. We’re talking a about some live poetry-jazz sketching, and producing a film-poem, and I’m sure something is going to come of this. Here’s a short film he produced a couple of years ago, a walk through London streets…and here’s one of my favourite film-poems, ‘Door’ by Lawrence Bailey, based on a poem by Merton Poets’ own Patrick McManus.
On Friday 28 February I’ll be running a group poetry improvisation workshop as part of the Apples & Snakes Powerplant series. It’s FREE and runs from 10am till 3pm (with a break for lunch) at the Free Word Centre on Farringdon Road, London. Full details here. If you’d like to book a place, get in touch with Apples & Snakes on 020 8465 6154. We’ll be using a mixture of structured and freeform approaches to explore how poets can create spontaneously and collaboratively. If you’d like to hear an example of improvised work, check out this piece I produced for my radio show back in 2008, with Sarah Thomasin and Adele Geraghty. It’s called ‘Are You My Friend?’.
This can be a great way to shake out some fresh ideas, create work for recording and performance, and get some writing done that doesn’t involve sitting on your own staring at a screen for several hours. You should try it!
