Cambridge Festival of Ideas, 23rd October – 3rd November 2013

First word about some events as part of the Cambridge Festival of Ideas, 23rd October – 3rd November 2013, kindly sent to us by Pete Cox:

MJ Hyland will take part in a discussion of the borders between literary genres and whether publishers and writers have become more conservative about crossing those borders in recent years.

Another session which explores the borders between genres is a word-off between rappers and poets. Three rappers will compete with three poets to explore whether rappers or poets make the best lyricists. Mark Grist, famed winner of the Don’t Flop Rap battles, Stephen Morrison Burke, the current Birmingham Poet Laureate, and Hollie McNish, Glastonbury Festival Slam Winner and BBC Radio 4 regular will compete for the poets.  For the rappers are hip hop - Skuff, this year's BBC Introducing 'Rapper of the Week', representing hip hop, Jimmy Danger, founder of record label audio Danger Records representing drum 'n bass, and grime fanatic Deanna Rodger, previous UK poetry slam champion.

Another event sees popular spoken word performer George the Poet give a performance of his work Malik at West Road Concert Hall. George, a Cambridge University student, is a spoken word performer, public speaker, writer and recording artist from North West London who offers social commentary through poetry.

More details at http://www.cam.ac.uk/cambridge-festival-of-ideas

Guest Blog from Pete Cox, Poet

“And so my residency at St. John the Baptist came to an end. When I started there in April 2012 my vague ambitions were to try to write a poem a month, to raise some publicity and possibly write something in the style of a Medieval Mystery play (provisional title ‘Bring me the Head of John the Baptist’). What I actually got out of the year at the church were:
New poems, I actually wrote over fifty and they were poems that I wouldn’t have otherwise written. Every poet, I suspect, needs some inspiration at times and this proved to be mother-lode, though I did have to put a couple of other projects aside. Also this work was intentionally accessible as I know sometimes my work can be obscure or obtuse. We have a small grant so I’m hoping we can put a book together of the poems to sell in the church, but that is still to be sorted out.

New audience, around twenty of the poems were used in the regular parish newsletter and some others were used on websites associated with the church. I also got to perform individual poems at events in the church and at the inter-denominational service for Good Friday. Surely bringing poetry to a fresh audience is something every poet should aim for.

A new act, out of those poems I’ve put together an act of 30 – 40 minutes in length to offer around based around the fact that had you asked me before my year (and, indeed, as I was asked on radio at the very start) I’d have said I was an atheist and did that year shake my doubt?
As for my aspiration of publicity, I regret I only got one piece in the local newspaper, one piece in a local listings magazine and four times onto the local radio station. I had been sending out releases every two/three months but the fish weren’t biting in that pond.

The Mystery play remains a set of outlines and drafts of the loosest sort. From my mixing with the local amateur dramatic circuit I know who I’d want to play God (she’d be sitting at the top of a ladder reading the Weekly World News) and Gabriel (to be played in the style of a brash reporter, all “Exclusive: Virgin Birth in Bethlehem. Pictures on page 2”). From my few performances with a local burlesque troupe I had an idea of who’d play Salome. Perhaps something for the future.

The one remaining function (at the time of writing) is to help select my replacement. I know that the number of applicants is down on last year and when I recently attended the final of the Poet Laureate of Stamford competition they’d had less entrants as well. I have to wonder if a successful holder of such posts might not put other people off, because they then realise that these aren’t some easy sinecure but rather something that deserves hard work befitting the honour of the position.

Now though I’m not looking for anything similar straight away, but if something comes along, you can be sure I’ll give it a good consideration.”

Guest Blog from Pete 'Cardinal' Cox, Poet

Right at the beginning of March I went over to Wisbech for the final of the second Fenland Poet Laureate competition that was held at the glorious local museum. Every time I go there I find something new, this time it was a miniature portrait of Chang and Eng, the original Siamese Twins. No idea what that was doing in Wisbech. Usually with these competitions there are a few that you think are good and a few middling ones so you’re left thinking anyone of those four or five could be winners. Not at this final though, all twelve finalists were top rate and I was so glad not to have been a judge. For those who received Highly Commended certificates I can only say that they were very unlucky, in many other competitions they’d have easily got in to the top three. The winner was Leanne Moden who I’d seen perform at Verbal Remedies as part of the We Love Words festival in Peterborough last September. A name to keep an eye on.

The previous Fenland Laureate, Elaine Ewart, has a blog at flightfeather.wordpress.com Well worth having a perusal of.

Couple of weeks later and I was persuaded to be part of the judging team at a poetry at one of Peterborough’s Academies. In the thirty years since I left Stanground Comprehensive I’ve not had many reason’s to pass through the portals of any secondary schools, so when I was offered the chance to have a look around the Academy to while away some time I thought I would. Dance Studio. Recording Studio. Computer suite with sixty machines. I think our school had a photograph of a computer…Times do change. The competitors were pupils in the Academy and were split between rappers and more traditional poets. So not easy to judge, and the book I mentioned in the February blog post (Poets Ranked by Beard Weight) was of no use what-so-ever. The best thing about the slam was that it had been organised by the pupils themselves and that is encouraging.

On Good Friday I performed a poem as part of the City Centre inter-denominational service.  When I’d been initially asked I thought I could probably write something about Hot Cross Buns, but then, when working on that I started to wonder about Judas. Did he have free-will? If he didn’t, and Jesus’ crucifixion is supposed to be part of some plan, then Judas doesn’t deserve his place at the lowest point of Hell in Dante’s Inferno. If he did have free-will, what might have happened if Jesus hadn’t been crucified? I raised these points with the minister who’d invited me to take part and he was able to provide me with some theological pointers and point out that that wasn’t what they wanted in my poem and could I do something about Jesus’ cry on the cross of “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me…”

Which I did and people seemed happy with, which isn’t bad for an agnostic like me.

Then the next day was the Find Me Keep Me give-away day that I’d mentioned in my last blog. As well as the Poetry A-Team there were art teams, craft teams, a music team and a theatre team. In the run up we’d scratched our collective noggins as to how we were going to give poetry away. One idea was to produce poetry beer mats so we could include a poetry pub crawl as part of our activities. Then we thought about sticking poems to old postcards and putting them into books in charity shops. A third idea was for a limited number of t-shirts, each with a poem on. As we’d have the poems, we thought we’d produce a poster featuring all six poems from each of the six poets as a limited edition anthology. Last idea was for a poetry lucky dip, just a decorated box that people could reach their hands into and to take a poem.

Ok, due to problems with timings with printers some of those ideas didn’t happen (but still could in the near future). I certainly spotted a couple of people with the poetry posters (A1 sized, decorated by members of the art teams) and the poetry lucky dip proved popular, though apparently one person returned their poem as they didn’t think it was suitable. My favourite though were the poetry postcards in the charity shops, as people will be continuing to find these for weeks, if not months, as the books are slowly bought.

For more details about the Poetry A-Team (and a photo of me in a dress) go to http://www.creativepeterborough.com/poetry-team/

Collective Noun: An Evening with 4 Poet Laureates

This is an evening performance to celebrate the contribution of 4 of our local Poet Laureates and to also say a big thank you to St John's Poet-in-Residence, Pete Cox. This will be a event full of beautiful and exciting verse that will display the imaginative of these East Anglian bards and the things and places that have inspired them in their laureateship.

The night includes the wonderful following:

Pete Cox, Poet-in-Resident at St John the Baptist Church
At Easter 2012 Pete Cox was appointed Poet-in-Residence for St John the Baptist Church. Hear some of the work he has produced in that time and about some of the events he has attended.
“Cox is a poetic wildcard, spinning off all kinds of funny, bizarre and fanciful versa…” Neal Wilgus, Small Press Review (USA)
 “Is there no end to this man’s versatility?” Keith Walker, Fanzine Fanatique (UK).

Elaine Ewart, Fenland Poet Laureate
National award-winning poet and Fenland Poet Laureate Emeritus, Elaine Ewart is currently studying for an MA in ‘Wild Writing: Literature and the Environment’, at the University of Essex. She writes poetry and short fiction, as well as creative non-fiction about the natural world. Elaine, a former lawyer, lives in Ely and volunteers at the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust at Welney.
Enjoy her work and follow her poetic adventures online at: www.flightfeather.wordpress.com


Simon Stabler, Peterborough Poet Laureate
The last time Simon performed in a church was as a boy soprano more than 20 years ago. While he still has his medal from the Royal School of Church Music, his ability to sing left him many years ago, thanks in part to underage smoking and barking along to punk records. He may have given up smoking some years ago but still enjoys a spiky rant, with his poem 'This Is Peterborough ...' and 'We Deserve More' earning him the title of Peterborough Poet Laureate at last September’s finals. Having known Pete for many years, Simon is honoured to be at tonight’s celebration and for once, will be turning down his irreverence settings.

Darren Rawnsley, Stamord Poet Laureate
Take a brief journey with Darren Rawnsley, from the 1960s to the present day. A weave of reflection, truth and empathy. From buttercups to riots, intimate cafes to traditions passed down through generations. A 'Box of Allsorts' for the listener to digest.

Please take a poetic pew at our very own St John the Baptist, Peterborough, just behind the Guildhall in Peterborough City centre.

When: 23rd of April 2013
Time: 7:30pm-10:00pm
Price: £3 and please pay on the door, no advance tickets.

For further enquiries please visit the Facebook Event page.

Guest Blog from Pete 'Cardinal' Cox, Poet

Sometimes your past comes back in an unexpected form. When I was a lad at school there was a band I was associated with, though what I did with this band would never have been described as singing. The other members were far more proficient at their respective chores (guitars, drums, etc.) than I was though this is where I first started writing for an audience. This band went through a variety of line-ups and through the late-Eighties/early-Nineties we were known as the Sonic Energy Authority. It happened that this coincided with me getting to know a small number of authors to whom I gave CDs of our work and some of them (including Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Peter F. Hamilton and Robert Rankin) were kind enough to slip mentions of the band into a novel or two. Well we’ve just got one of the tracks we recorded about twenty-five years ago onto the latest This is Peterborough CD from Rowdy Farrago Records (Peterborough Goes Forth). I doubt if it is available from HMV (due to their current situation) but can be downloaded via Amazon and other websites. As well as us (and you’ll quickly realise why we avoided fame) there are twenty more bands, many of whom are much better than us, including a track from the current Poet Laureate of Peterborough, Simon Stabler.

In one of my first contributions to the Book a Poet blog I mentioned that the really rather spiffing magazine Earth Love had folded. This was a shame as it had published a good variety of writers, from beginners through to editors of other publications, and raised money for a number of ecologically-related good causes. Fortunately Tracy Patrick, the editor of the lamented magazine, has been able to put together an anthology of the best poetry from the magazine. Yes, I’ve managed to get a poem in, but don’t let that put you off. A very nice book that deserves to be on the shelves of poetry fans. For details about ordering go to www.earthlovepoetrymagazine.yolasite.com/anthology-2013.php

Enough of this reminiscing, I’ve just been enlisted into the poetry team for an arts event in Peterborough called “Find me, Keep me” and if any of our plans come together, it looks like it will be pretty bonkers. With several teams ranging from sculpture through to theatre, this could make the Easter weekend one to remember. The poetry team is co-ordinated by Keely Mills (a fellow former Poet Laureate of Peterborough) and includes the current Laureate Simon (who I mentioned above) and MC Mixy (yes, another former Poet Laureate of Peterborough, and someone you can find out more about elsewhere on the Book a Poet website).”

© Pete Cox 2013

Guest Blog by Pete 'Cardinal Cox', Poet

I hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year. As Poet-in-Residence for a church I managed to write around a dozen poems inspired by Christmas, some religious, some historical, some reflecting a handful of the minorities of Peterborough. I wangled a performance at one carol service, though some ask why I might go to such a thing being an atheist, I point out that my love of mince pies outweighs any ethical or philosophical objections I might otherwise have. The church also hosts the annual Holocaust Memorial Service and so I penned a poem for that too.

As part of a local circle of poets I performed at the Whittlesea Straw Bear Festival at the beginning of January. The festival is one largely of folk dance and music that also includes storytelling and (for the fourth year now) us performing our poetry in the local library. We always manage to attract an audience and always enjoy the day. However, any description of the festival has to include the phrase “Well, you know the film The Wicker Man …”

I was idly remembering a poetry festival I attended in Oxford ten years ago. On the Friday night I got to the venue early and so had a bit of a wander around to waste some time. When I returned I could see some people lounging around outside, apparently enjoying the evening air and sharing some liquid refreshment. Fortunately before I haled them as fellow poets I realised that they were actually using the homeless day centre next door. Well, it’s an easy mistake to make …

Sometimes you’ll get into a discussion about the relative merits of poets, and previously there has been no firm way to decide who is the better. I say previously because I’ve just bought the book “Poets Ranked by Beard Weight” by Upton Uxbridge Underwood, with commentary by Gilbert Alter-Gilbert (published by Skyhorse Publishing). No longer need we ponder over the relative merits of Lord Tennyson or Walt Whitman, as this tome clearly states Tennyson had the better beard. Sir Walter Raleigh or Dante Gabriel Rossetti? It’s the Pre-Raphaelite by a whisker (if you’ll excuse the pun). The introduction to the book is by Jack Passion, who won a title at the World Moustache and Beard Championships held in Brighton in 2007. By a curious co-incidence (and for reasons I’ll not go into here) I hi-jacked and took control of the photography lounge at that very championship.

Guest Blog by Pete 'Cardinal' Cox, Poet

“I was recently able to attend a talk by Sir Jonathan Miller on his life and work, from being a medical student to being part of Beyond the Fringe (at the Edinburg Festival, then London and New York), presenting the BBC arts programme Monitor, directing such TV works as Alice in Wonderland (1966) through to directing opera on stage. Fascinating, though he did claim not to be a polymath. If you get a chance, go listen yourself.

I also appeared on the local radio breakfast show once last month and when wandering through the city centre I was stopped by someone I vaguely recognised from the local pub. Perhaps he heard me, I thought. “You OK?” he asked, “’Cause you were really wasted the last time I saw you.”

Ah, I thought, obviously he didn’t hear me but I guess he remembers me from the pub. “Oh yes?” I said.

“Are you German, ’cause you were swearing away in German?” Now my foreign language skills boil down to two useless phrases in French, and no matter how often you ask them where your aunt’s pen might be, they’ll not tell you it’s on your uncle’s bureau.

“Err, no…”

“What? Haven’t you been in the prison?”

“No, not me…”

“Well there’s a bloke in there who looks the spit of you.”

Poor chap, I thought, in prison and looking like me. That must count as cruel and unusual punishment!

If any poets are looking for a good website to submit to I’d recommend trying The Legendary at www.downdirtyword.com as it publishes top quality work and isn’t limiting when it comes to the space it devotes to the contributors biographies. Look at a few back issues and if there are other poets that you feel an affinity with, check out their bios as to where else they are also being published.

Finally, let me wish all the Book A Poet readers a Merry Christmas and hope you have a productive new year.

© Peter Cox

Guest Blog from Pete Cardinal Cox, Poet & Writer

For National Poetry Day I was well away from the local poetry scene in blustery Newquay for my Nephew’s wedding. I did however take the opportunity of the long train journey (made longer on the return by having one cancelled) and quiet times in the surfer hostel I stopped in to start a new poetry cycle. At the moment I’m at the stage of sending out the first few fruits of this harvest to see if it has the potential of interest from publications. More on this in later postings, perhaps.
 

One of the other things that I have been writing for a few years now are articles for the local arts cinema. I first went to one of its screenings over thirty years ago (it was a Russian film, halfway through they came out and admitted they had shown the reels in the wrong order) and been a regular attendee for twenty. With every screening they give away a sheet of notes about the cast and crew and an article relating to the film in some way. These articles are usually cribbed from some source or other, production information, for instance. A few years back I thought that for a few films I could try and cobble together an article for them. Good practice for me, something original for them. Some seasons there might only be one film that I’ll contribute something to (this season it was a list of ten British-ish animators to accompany a screening of an Aardman Animation film) but some seasons I might manage a handful.

Unfortunately I have to report another death in the small press scene. Stephen Owen, who edited the quirky and idiosyncratic “4^th Dimension” died earlier this year. He had published work by me in the past and I’d hoped to have that honour again. Our thoughts are with his family.

A magazine that has been going for many years and yet only just come to my attention is the Maidenhead based publication “South”. It recently produced its forty-fifth issue and has an editorial policy that ensures it picks the best poems, not just work from familiar names. To find out more go to its website at www.southpoetry.org

© Pete Cardinal Cox

We Love Words Festival, Guest Blog by Pete 'Cardinal' Cox

“Peterborough’s First We Leaf Words Festival” I read. We Leaf Words? We believe in words? Words are a relief? “No”, someone said, “it’s a heart, it means we love words”. No, it’s definitely a leaf, there’s a stalk and you can see the veins …
 

The festival started for me on Friday 7^th September when I was invited in (the previous day) to the BBC Radio Cambridgeshire breakfast show to do a poem marking the end of their first week and to tie-in with the festival. That though was one of those evenings when I had just 45 minutes in which to write said poem. Fortunately, I had about twenty minutes before going on air to write another verse to mark the success of a local Paralympics athlete. Seemed to go well …

The festival was a mix of big names (Roger McGough, Wendy Cope, Sir Andrew Motion, John Hegley, Attila the Stockbroker and Clive James), up-and-coming names (Helen Mort, Luke Kennard and Dead Poets), local poets (Toby Wood, Keely Mills and Alex Tyler), a play around John Clare, talks, workshops and the final of the Poet Laureate of Peterborough competition.

Favourite bits? Sir Andrew Motion was really good. His new novel is a sequel to Treasure Island, with a big dollop of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness added to the mix. Clive James was brilliant and a real treat to hear him. The workshops I attended with Helen Mort and John Hegley were both very different, but both productive in their respective ways. Plus I found out one of the poets quiet liked my column ‘Pub Scrawl’ in the local pubzine ‘Rhythm and Booze’.

One poet refused to sign my copies of their books because I hadn’t bought the latest one. Fair enough, up to them, I thought. Other people (when I mentioned this) said things along the lines of grumpy old so-and-so. No, I’d respond, perhaps they think I’ll just eBay them, or maybe (as they’re getting on a bit) they can only sign so much or maybe there’s another reason. If they don’t want to sign stuff, it’s up to them. I enjoyed their event and would go to another if they ever came back, just because I’d bought the ticket does not automatically entitle me to their autograph. (You’ll note I’ve not named them).

The title of Poet Laureate of Peterborough (PLoP) was won by an old friend, Simon Stabler, and I hope he gets to do some interesting things in his year. Ten years ago I won the same title and it got me to read at a poetry festival in Oxford and write for an event in Ireland.

So now we’re just waiting for next year’s festival, fingers-crossed.

© Pete 'Cardinal' Cox 

Pete Cox, Poet - Guest Blog, September 2012

“Amongst the many things that I enjoy writing, site-specific poetry has to be near the top of the list. Back when I was Poet-in-Residence for one of my city’s cemeteries (2005-2008) I created poetry trails through the old Victorian graveyard. The first was a series of riddles relating to the wild life of the site and as they ended with “What Am I?” one of the drinkers found something sharp to engrave into the laminated cardboard precisely what he thought the answer was. I’ve kept it as a memento of interaction with my audience, though not on general display. Now that I’m P-i-R for St. John’s church I’ve so-far written about the font, the church clock, the pulpit and a memorial stone. Now every-so-often an event will come up that sparks some creativity and if I can write a series of poems, I’ll put them together as a pamphlet to be given away and hopefully (shamelessly) generate some publicity for myself. 
 

As it would be easy to label me a geek (my life is much like the characters in the American comedy series Big Bang Theory, except I have poetry rather than science) and I have always had a love of almost all things science fiction, the events at which I’m dishing out these pamphlets are often science fiction conventions. I can argue that poetry of the fantastical has a long and noble tradition passing back through Tennyson’s Locksley Hall to Beowulf and Gilgamesh. From Edgar Allen Poe the dark torch was passed to the writers who contributed to Weird Tales and other pulps of the ’thirties, H.P. Lovecraft and his circle. A couple of the most prominent  poets who have used sf tropes in their work are Edwin Morgan this year’s Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy K. Smith. (If you want to know more about genre poetry and current markets, I’ve written a piece for the blog of the horror author Sam Stone http://www.sam-stone.com/) As a result of these and other poems published in the genre small-press I’ve picked up quiet good reviews and been placed in the top three for the Data Dump award (a British prize for best published sf poem) a handful of times. Recently I found that an American book-dealer was advertising one of my pamphlets for a nominal amount. My reaction was to send him a few more and wish him well. In his own way he’s helping to publicise me and for the amount he wanted ($5) he was hardly exploiting the workers.

One British small-press publisher who both uses and reviews genre and non-genre poetry is Southend-on-Sea’s Atlantean Publications, who you can find out more about at http://atlanteanpublishing.blogspot.co.uk/ ".

© Pete Cox 2012