From the open mic for 27th April 2011, in the Box at the Twisted Pepper, 54 Middle Abbey Street, Dublin 1 – Last Wednesday Series, Reading Inside the Box!!
Declan opened up reminding everyone we were still celebrating our 5th birthday as a company! After a selection of stories and embarrassments all round, we set off.
Bob Shakeshaft started up relying on his memory – the train having usurped the hard copies (well he left them on the train, but it sounds better this way.) He started from memory with a poem about what poetry means to him, followed by ‘Dying Embers’ and following htis with ‘Death in Vein’, all from memory! The second reader on this quiet Easter reading was Anne Tannam. Anne started with her Stranger than Fiction Writing Challenge with a poem – ‘Feach Gach Treo’ , with a poem made completely from phrases on signs and official letters. She followed this with ‘Post Excavations Analysis’. Her next poem was ‘All the Good Words’ and she finished up with ‘Compare yourself to No-one’. Anne, like Bob read without a safety net! After Anne, it was the turn of Susan Wilde, making her Last Wednesday debut. Susan read work from her thesis, poems from travelling around Ireland, ‘Inishboffin’, ‘Galway Hooker’; her next poem was about growing up in Wyoming, where there was little around but space, and she and her siblings had free run everywhere. ‘River Valley Homesteaders’. He final poem was a continuation of this experience called ‘More Stories’ After Susan, it was the turn of Helen Dempsey, who also rose to the Stranger than Fiction Challenge – using the Lemsip advertising slogan as her found phrase! Her next poem was ‘Judgement Day’, her final poem was inspired by something that Declan said last month!! (his prediction that the world was going to end on the 4th of May, so this will be the last open mic) the poem – ‘The Last Open Mic’! Next, Andrej Kapor made a welcome return to the open mic after a long absence – allegedly studying! He started off with a poem that he found in the pocket of a jacket he hadn’t worn in ages – about a girl he was in love with when he was fifteen! A brief plug for his band, Noize Complex, which is a mix of spoken word and music. He read a new poem from this new band life – about being a romantic in a city that doesn’t quite cater for it. Another new poem took Andrej back to the page – reading from three or four bits of paper he found under the bed – doesn’t remember writing them down, but they are in his handwriting – written before ‘ the 9am uniform call’ I guess! His final poem, for which he expressed his rebel side by sitting on the table(!!) is also a cross over piece he performs with the band.
After a short break Ross Hattaway took to the mic, reading in memory of ANZAC day – New Zealanders being fighters – and, of course, beer drinkers! Ross explored the theme of New Zealanders’ experience of wars through different voices, including his own. His first poem was ‘Crossing the Saddle’, from The Gentle Art of Rotting, about the experience of the soldier returning home; he followed this up with a poem from Baxter, ‘Elegy for an Unknown Soldier’, next Bruce Danes, ‘What Lies Among Us’; then back to his own voice ‘Songs for the Battle of Normandy’ and he finished with ‘For the Fallen’ by Binion – the worst poem he had ever read!! (according to Ross’ introduction) After Ross, Raphael Joaquin from Philipines, now living in Blanchardstown made not only his debut at the open mic, but it was his first reading ever! His first poem was ‘Prayer for Japan’ about the terrible earthquake there; his next poem was about the St Patrick’s Festival ‘St Patrick’s Craic’; he then read ‘Wings that Soar’ about bird wings; then ‘In the Midst of my Shadow’, he ended with ‘In a Hurry’ – where everybody seems to be a participant in a Walkathon! After Raphael it was Cliona Ni Mhuiri also at her debut reading – her first poem was ‘Titanic’, sort of about that film; then she read ‘The Whirlwind’. After Cliona it was the turn of Eamonn Lynskey, picking up on Raphael’s theme of the disaster in Japan, Eamonn read ‘Ksuturi Jidai’ from And Suddenly the Sun Again about another time Tokoyo was a devastated city. And then he said it was time to move on to something really crap! He read a poem ‘We the Parents’ that he says he had worked on a lot since the last time he read it, and believes he had disimproved it greatly – in his OWN SPARE TIME! After Eamonn brought the house down – blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah – it was the turn of Alan Garvey, making, I think, his last Wednesday debut. He started with a little incantation, to perform the role previously performed by the safety barrier created by a cigarette, full of billowing smoke, a tobacco composition; His next piece was a poem about sex – which is apparently notoriously hard to write about – but which he thinks is best done by going a little OTT (the poetry I think, rather than the sex!); his next poem was about encountering a ghost at something that looks like a miniature Arc de Triomphe – the entrance to an old gated estate (Brown Clayton)– Alan’s true experience (the ghost of a man who was the gate keeper who suffered from shell shock. The poem is called ‘Great War Ghost’. After Alan it was the turn of Brian Carroll, also making his Last Wednesday debut, coming fresh from the open mic in Newbridge, coincidentally in keeping with the military theme, based on his experience in Lebanon – No Letters on Post 628.
And so it was, until the next time, unless, of course, Declan and Helen are correct, and the world does end before the next open mic!
The Frozen Mic 