When Colin read his first piece to Wakefield Word, at the Yard Bar in the now defunct Boon’s on Westgate, I wasn’t too sure. Since then, he has produced some of the best short fiction I have ever heard, and he has originated what I consider to be a new format: the “hollisette”: a lyrical story with two main characters, in 1500 words — ideal for Wakefield Word meetings.
In ‘Albedo’, published in the anthology, ‘Apocalypse Now?’ by Grist, Colin deals not so much with the end of the world, but more the way that we try to mitigate it. I told him that his story reminds me of certain Theatre of the Absurd pieces, such as Rhinoceros by Ionesco, and The Fire Raisers, by Max Frisch. I didn’t recommend these pieces to him, didactically. Colin had already accomplished what he wanted to. I merely mentioned them as other examples of what he had already achieved.
Colin explains in very few words the underlying reason why the planet is heading for destruction, without ever using the words “planet”, “heading”, or “destruction”. It is a story told in sub-text, a story told from below.
We had an online meeting to share our reflections on the editing process. We came to the joint conclusion that both our stories had been improved by interaction with the Grist editors, and that we considered the Grist editors to have acted with acuity and professionalism.
To read Colin’s story, you need to buy this book: Apocalypse Now? edited by Michael Stewart ISBN 978-0-9563099-7-6 184pp Published by Grist 2024
I attended a reading of his new book, ‘Eely’, by Steve Ely, in Huddersfield, as part of Huddersfield Literature Festival.
How the hell am I going to describe this? I will try my utmost.
It is a book of poetry. It is not a poetry “collection”. It is not a bunch of poems that somebody wrote, and then put together. Every word in this book is concerted, and part of a single, coherent, dedicated work.
But you can dip in and out of it, and read the individually titled poems in isolation, should you want to.
I am a post-doctorally qualified scientist. Whenever a writer invokes scientific terms in their writing, I immediately want to know with what authenticity and accuracy they are doing it. Steve Ely has done his research, and you may take it that everything he says in this work that sounds scientific has the same rigour as an academic paper in a reputable journal. Steve Ely has dealt with his subject in that regard with more thoroughness than any other writer of poetry or fiction that I know of. I hope he has set a new standard.
This is a working class book. The experiences related are from working class characters who speak in working class vernacular. The breadth of vocabulary and the ingenuity of language in the whole work is broader than anything I can think of. Broader than Ted Hughes. Broader than T. S. Eliot.
I am struggling to describe such an unexpected, diverse, complex, and important object. I would say that it resembles ‘Dread Beat And Blood’ by Linton Kwesi Johnson, in the sense that it brings poetry to a set of subject matter that previously had been neglected. But it is much more detailed and thorough than any other poetic work I have previously read.
Parts of it will amaze and inspire you.
Parts of it will inform and engage you.
Parts of it will make you feel sick.
You need to read this book. If fewer than a hundred million people read this book, the Earth shall die.
The bitterest irony of Brexit is that the Tories, not the Ukips, have managed to take the rational resentment that resulted from the closure of mines, steelworks, and major manufacturing industries, and re-package it in such a way that they can control the degree to which the working class in places like Barnsley, Consett, Grimsby, Stoke, and Merthyr Tydfil become disengaged from mainstream politics.
It is not that the lunatics have taken over the asylum. It is more that the clinical director of the asylum has consulted with the lunatics, and come up with a programme to make them all more mad. But they will still be in the same asylum, and, because of the increased costs associated with this programme, everybody will get less food, shorter exercise and recreation time, and some medications will be withdrawn.
When the Great Strike ended in 1985, the people of the mining communities were tired out, and conflicted. It was a war and, like any other war, in spite of what Billy Bragg says, it was not a “liberating experience”. Wars are complex and nasty sequences of events in which mass groups of individuals are crushed by forces. The strike made things different but, if it made anybody free, it was only for fleeting moments. As J. K. Galbraith observed, absence of money limits freedom more than dictatorial government ever could.
I am presumptuous enough to say “we” still have our banners. Nobody in my family was a miner, but I supported the strike when I was 17. I donated money. I went on marches. I gave out leaflets. I had never-ending arguments with my father. It got to the point where we could not ask each other if we wanted a cup of tea without it resulting in an argument about the miners’ strike.
But the banners represent nothing if we are not in control of our own destiny. If you march behind one of those banners, I would like to think you are an independently-minded, democratic socialist. I would like to think that you have the instinct to question what you are told. In 1985, the ruling class used the strike to accelerate the pit closure programme that they had already started. This country appears to be on the brink of another epoch-making political and economic change, the direction of which still lies with the ruling class.
However you voted in the referendum, I ask you this: since when did change which is in the hands of the ruling class ever benefit the working class?
I arrived at Lobby 1867 on Westgate in Wakefield with only a vague idea of what I was going to read in my open mic slot. The organiser and compere, Tim Brookes, told me I was on second from last, in the second half, and so I would be able to listen to nearly all the other performers, and see if any theme would emerge.
Tim Brookes began with a piece called ‘Watch With Mother’. My friend and Black Horse Poets colleague, Stefan Grieve, read ‘If Time’, and ‘Sanctuary of Words’, which he wrote at a recent writing workshop at Wakefield Library, organised by Tim Brookes, and conducted by Gaia Holmes from Halifax.
I am not going to review all the open mikers. It suffices to say that the standard was generally very high, but some people could still do with doing a timed rehearsal beforehand, INCLUDING ANY PREAMBLE, all the better to stay within the 4 minute slot. Tim is commendably energetic in enforcing the time limit, but more cooperation from the readers would make his task easier, and wouldn’t kill anybody.
Aamina Khan read her pieces off a smart phone. She did not give titles to any of her pieces, as far as I could tell. When she is not reading a piece, Aamina talks incessantly, in a way that I find engaging. The banter is sufficiently relevant to her performance to be worthwhile, but not so long as to prevent the pieces from speaking for themselves. She read: a piece about regional accent (Aamina herself has a Calderdale accent), a piece about pain, and a piece that she said was inspired by me – by William Thirsk-Gaskill. I did not quite follow the explanation of this, but I gather it was to do with a reading that she and I attended, along with other poets in an anthology called We’re All In It Together, published by Grist Books. I had said something to her at that event. It might have been, “We are not many peoples. We are one people.” I also caught the phrase, “And then this old guy came up to me”. I am grateful for all acknowledgements. She finished with a piece about the deadline for a university assignment. The narrator may or may not be trying to convey ADHD. Aamina finished her set to rapturous and well-deserved applause.
The next headliner was Emma Purshouse, from Wolverhampton. She opened with a piece about the flamingoes in Dudley Zoo, delivered in Black Country dialect, and recited from memory. She followed with a piece about a contemporary version of Punch & Judy, delivered by Punch. Her next piece was introduced with the words, “This is what might happen if Thelma and Louise lived in the Black Country, were in their seventies, and didn’t have a car.” The next was about a poster on a pub wall, delivered in the voice of a drunk, female narrator. And then a poem about the sounds made by a walrus, narrated by a male walrus. And then a canal poem, set in Tipton, and poem about a woman who meets an antagonist on a bus.
Emma Purshouse’s poetry is mostly delivered in a Black Country accent, and contains dialect, the most significant elements of which are explained in advance. The accent and dialect are well-handled, because all the pieces stand up because of their subject, characterisation, and craft: the accent is the means of delivering the poem; it is not the whole poem. It lends authenticity, rather than acting as window dressing. Her first full poetry collection is called Close, and published by Offa’s Press. (In my browser, WordPress has not rendered this correctly, but the link to Emma’s website still works.)
The second half was compered by Lisa Falshaw, another Black Horse Poets colleague. She read a Larkinesque piece called Photographs, and an ode to a paperclip.
The third and final headliner was Steve Pottinger, also from Wolverhampton. He mentioned coming from a relatively small city, near a relatively larger city, which diverts money, publicity, and opportunities away from the smaller city. That gave me an idea for my open mic slot. His first piece was about returning home from a trip to Birmingham on train full of drunks. It was authentic and well-observed. And then came ‘In Praise of the Hardiness of Market Traders’. ‘The Crown and Sceptre, Friday’ is a poem set in a traditional pub and again was well-observed, and not sentimental. Next came a preamble about a real, Chilean street dog called El Vaquita. The preamble was just enough to set up the poem, which was moving and powerful and full of emotion, but again, without sentimentality. ‘Fatima’s Working in Cyber’ was an economically-written and acute satire based on a Conservative goverment poster from a few years ago. It raised loud cheers. And then a poem about Palestine; ‘7:19 In The Evening’, about a busker singing in Birmingham New Street station, which was a suitably lyrical and calming end to a set full of fervour. To find out about El Vaquita, you can either google it, or you can attend one of Steve Pottinger’s performances, which is certainly the course I recommend.
Another open miker I will mention is Faye Marshall, a regular at Getting Gobby in the Lobby and also a colleague of mine from Kevin P. Gilday’s lockdown venture, Scribbler’s Union. She continued the West Midlands theme with a piece about racism experienced by an Irishman in Birmingham. It packed several punches, and was well-handled.
I read a piece called Echo, which my wife says is the best poem I have ever written. It is about my late mother’s dictating machine, and all the punctuation is set out in words. Further to Steve’s remarks about larger, neighbouring cities, I finished with a short, silly piece I wrote about Leeds, which provoked suitably ironic cheers.
My piece mentioned the discovery (or, as I read it, the “invention”) of oxygen, and so it was entirely fitting that the final performer was Tom Priestley, who was standing in for Joseph Priestley, who couldn’t make it. I have heard him perform before, and he delivered another excellent set in his distinctive voice.
The open mikers were good. The headliners were outstanding. For a “pay as you feel event”, it was incredibly good value for money.
I am devastated by the death of Benjamin Zephaniah. I corresponded with him when I was in my late teens. He helped me during a difficult period in my life.
In 1984, I could write to him, and tell him everything that I was experiencing, and he would not judge me. He listened. He responded. He took me seriously. He contributed to my not going entirely off the rails, when I was a teenager. He used his genius in that regard. He never asked me for anything. He gave of himself. I am glad to say that I made the best of him that I could. If I had not, I probably would not be posting this, now.
As well as being an out-and-out literary genius, he was a political activist, and a very nice, generous chap. He will take a lot of getting over. We miss you, Benjamin.
Contact the compere or organiser via their preferred method of communication. Do this as soon as possible after the call for open micers begins, because many events will fill up within a matter of hours.
Read the guidelines, particularly with regard to the duration of the slot.
Rehearse the best piece you have, that you have not already performed at the event.
Time the piece as you rehearse it. Make sure that it is shorter than the slot.
It doesn’t matter whether you recite the piece from memory, or read it from a book or paper. However, if you intend to recite it from memory, then make sure you actually know it. If you are going to read it from a book or paper, then make sure that you have the book or paper to hand at least 10 minutes before you are due to go on.
The only kind of preamble that is appropriate in an open mic performance is the title of the piece, and trigger warnings about any sensitive material in your piece.
Don’t say why you wrote it. Don’t say where you were when you wrote it. Don’t say why the piece is important to you. Don’t say why the piece should be important to us, the audience. Don’t tell us, the audience, how to appreciate the piece.
If you are a poet, then express yourself through poetry, through the piece.
Let the piece speak for itself.
If the piece does not convey enough information for the listener to understand it, then rewrite it — in advance of when you ask for an open mic slot.
The guiding principle is, “Use the time of a perfect stranger in such a way that they will not consider it to have been wasted.”
If you are certain that some people you know are going to be attending the open mic event, and you are intending your piece to appeal mainly to them, then you should not be doing open mic. The whole point of open mic is for spoken word artists to reach people they do not know, personally.
Stick to the time limit. The easiest way to do this is to read one piece, only, with no preamble.
That is the best way to make a favourable impact on both the audience, and the organiser of the event.
If the time limit is 3 minutes, then 3 minutes and 5 seconds might be acceptable. 3 minutes and 15 seconds is not acceptable.
If you go over by 15 seconds, and every other performer goes over by 15 seconds, that might mean that the last performer, or two performers, can’t perform, because the event has run out of time. Or, possibly more likely, it might mean that the last two performers have to perform to an emptying room, because the audience is going for buses and trains.
If you want to be able to perform for longer, then get booked as a headliner.
You are more likely to get booked as a headliner if you stick to the guidelines while you are doing open mic.
It was certainly not to do with any ideological difference regarding the lyrics. It was to do with the balance between the individual, and the collective: the balance that has always been at the heart of jazz music, which perhaps needs to be borne in mind, even though this is not a jazz-related post. When I got the chance to participate in Commoners Choir, set up by Boff Whalley from Chumbawamba, I was glad. I knew that any venture started by Boff would have humanitarian politics at its heart, and would be conducted with the utmost rigour. I enjoy singing. I used to contribute to an Irish (and I mean, Irish) session at The White Stag on North Street in Leeds, which was demolished some years ago. (The subject of a poem in my collection, ‘Throwing Mother In The Skip’.) I learnt, from attending rehearsals of Commoners Choir, that I am a bass. My voice broke when I was seven, because I was given steroids for my idiosyncratic aplastic anaemia. Be that as it may. The fact that I am a bass is not surprising. When Boff was saying, with appropriate hand gestures “higher, higher”, or “lower, lower”, that was great.
The experience of the recording was exhilarating.
These events took place in Leeds, my place of origin. I was conceived in LS17 and born in LS2. Boff is what some people may consider to be a “dropout” from Leeds University. I consider Boff to be a massive cultural import.
Though I enjoy singing, including choral singing, the kind of performance that I am concentrating on at the moment is individual spoken word performance. I realised during my time with Commoners Choir that choral singing in Leeds was not where my creative energy should be spent.
My next open mic performance will be at Getting Gobby In The Lobby, in Wakefield, on 15 November 2023.
My next booked performance will be at Huddersfield Literature Festival in March (see programme for details) in pursuit of a short story collection called “Apocalypse?”
The fact that Boff (who is outstandingly a much more established artist than I am) and I are not working on the same project does not by any means that we have any ideological differences.
We both believe that the community must recognise individual aspirations. The economy must feed and house everybody, with no exceptions. With regard to the ruling class: hold them to account, and keep holding them to account, until they eventually fall. Boff’s music has had a seminal effect on me. I could name so many tracks. Three will have to suffice for now.
These are tracks that I first heard twenty or thirty plus years ago, but I know every word of the lyrics:
Unilever (possibly, in the history of rock music, the greatest ever track that has nothing to do with sex or personal relationships) Rappoport’s Testament. “I never gave up. I never gave up. I crawled in the mud, but I never gave up.” Add Me. Look me in the eye, and try to tell me that anarcho-socialists do not have a sense of humour.
Boff Whalley is a musical genius. An out-and-out, musical genius. His work has changed the course of my life, for the better. But I can’t sing in his choir, because I have other things to do.
The immediate reason I bought the ticket (GBP 7.50) for this gig was to hear The Hitchers perform their signature track, Strachan. I first heard that track on the John Peel Show in about 1997, and it had an immediate effect on me. I do not often go to gigs these days, but I still consider that gigs in small venues are essential for the development of new music.
The Pack Horse in this case is the one next to the Leeds University campus, not the one on Briggate. I decided to go by car. I parked on Rampart Road, and walked about a quarter of a mile to the venue. The streets were full of students, many in fancy dress. The pub was crowded. Downstairs, every customer was a student, and all apparently oblivous to the performance that was about to start, upstairs.
Upstairs, the age of the customers increased by about 30 years. The sex ratio went from 50:50 to 90:10 in favour of males. Hair largely disappeared. Day-glo fancy dress was replaced by black T-shirts and denim.
The stage is only about a foot high. It has a patterned rug on it. As well as the ceiling-mounted speakers, there were speakers and monitors on chairs, and one on a block of concrete. There was a small mixing desk at the back of the room. The background music seemed to be Cuban jazz. The live music started reasonably on time.
The PA set up was typical of a pub performance. It all seemed fine, except that it was impossible to hear the vocals. In other words, the sound was very different from what you get by listening to a recording of the same band.
The Hitchers came on second. Their line-up is two electric guitars, bass, drums, with the drummer and the lead guitarist also performing the vocals. There was a lot of banter in between songs, including a running commentary on the printed set list. The performance of Strachan was all in good order, except, as I said, the vocal tracks could have done with coming more cleanly through the PA.
Indignation Meeting also discussed the set list as they went along, except, like the UK constitution, it was unwritten. Their line-up is two electric guitars, bass, and drums. The drummer is the lead vocalist, and also plays a trumpet. He plays it with one hand, while continuing to play the drums with the other. At one point, the bassist played a couple of bars with his instrument held behind his head, Hendrix-style.
The genre of music that Indignation Meeting play is “railway punk”. This appears to mean, “short, fast, amplified tracks, with a single vocalist and strident percussion, with lyrics mostly on the subject of the British railway system”.
Like the front man of The Hitchers, the front man of Indignation Meeting plays the drums, sits at the back, and provides a commentary in between tracks. As well as what track they were going to play next, subjects covered by this commentary included: water (procuring more plastic beakers full of it, for drinking), and what amounted to sleeve notes about the tracks. If you want to know the content of these sleeve notes, you are either going to have to turn up to an Indignation Meeting gig, or buy their CD, which costs GBP 8.00 and is called Trouble In The Shed. The band also has a 7″ single, which is due for release in November. I forgot to note what this is called. The CD is on a label called Deputation Records: DEP001CD.
I don’t know how much more material in the railway punk genre Indignation Meeting have to produce. I hope, like Half Man Half Biscuit, they continue to write songs about subjects that other bands would never touch. I hope they get bookings in enough venues, and big enough venues. I hope that somewhere another band is rehearsing, who will one day, fairly soon, support them.
At GBP 7.50, this was outstandingly the best value for money gig I have been to in over 35 years. I have put my name down on the Indignation Meeting mailing list.
To the allegedly “English” men on social media who have been saying, “It is a different sport”, I have no response, because none of them I have seen so far on Twitter (for which it shall remain) have more than about 20 followers and I could not care less about their so-called opinion.
To you, the people who matter to me, I say that I am appalled by (at least) all of the following:
1. How anyone who purports to be English and is interested in team sport could fail to be jumping up and down with jubilation about the fact that the Lionesses are in the final, to say nothing of the fact that the USA and Germany have already been eliminated.
2. Even if you insist that “men’s football” and “women’s football” are “different sports” (which they are) but that is all you have got, then you still have a problem: a linguistic problem.
In the following phrases:
(1) FIFA Women’s World Cup
(2) FIFA Men’s World Cup
Both the particles except “Men’s”, “Women’s”, and “Cup” are exactly equivalent. It is the same organising body, and the same planet.
The trophy is different, but, in a parallel world, you could imagine a society in which the Women’s and Men’s World Cups were held in different years (as they are in our world) and both sets of teams compete for the same block of metal.
The planet, in my opinion, is the decisive thing.
Did the Lionesses qualify for the tournament?
Yes, but they were just women.
Did they get through the group stage?
Yes, but they were just women.
Did they win their tie in the group of 16?
Yes, but they were just women.
Did they win their quarter final?
Yes, but they were just women.
Did they win their semi-final against the host nation, in front of a crowd of 75,000 mostly hostile fans, in a nation that has the reputation of producing some of the most mentally and physically tough competitors, and most cohesive teams, of any nation on Earth?
Yes, but, in this case, they were just women.
Be all that as it may.
“When they take to the field for the final, they will be competing for the World Cup.
Yes, but they will be just women.”
— No. The last bit is not just emotionally but logically untenable.
Argentina is offically the current holder of the Men’s football World Cup.
USA is officially the current holder of the Women’s football World Cup.
A new Women’s World Cup holder will win the title on Sunday.
But the “World” in both the Men’s and the Women’s is the same planet, the same society, the same global importance, the same jeopardy.
[Addressed to the people who are never going to see this:]
If you purport to follow football, and you purport to support England, but you are still trying to say the Lionesses’ achievement is not important, then you have something fundamentally wrong with you.
And I despise you all the more, because you have all but reduced a bona fide (that’s Latin) Englishman (one word) to the unspeakable vulgarity of having to explain why being English, on this occasion, is important.
I heard about this collection some time before it was printed. Michael Stewart read some of the pieces at Huddersfield Literature Festival in 2022, and he explained the concept of the collection:
“The Dogs is a book about what humans have done to the world and what we have done to ourselves. Specifically, it is a book about ‘Man’s best friend’ — their origin myths, and their place in the world before they were co-opted into human society and ideas of pure breeding and dysgenics. The Dogs also imagines a future where dogs have developed the power of speech; led by the non-violent UnderDogs and the more radical direct-action Der UberHünd, the animals of the world begin demanding their rights.”
The realisation of that concept in 49 poems, in three sections, is more elaborate and varied than I was expecting, both in terms of the ideas that are examined, and the styles in which the pieces are written and presented on the page. The collection deals with many complex and universal themes, but the treatment of ideas is built up out of concrete details, and engagement with the reader’s senses and emotions.
The book opens with a one-and-a-half page introduction. One of the things this conveys is the reason why I could never keep a dog. I could not bear the responsibility. I have inherited a sensitivity from my father, regarding animals. I don’t like animals, simply because they cannot talk to me and tell me they are happy. And so, I felt raw by the time I had finished my first reading of The Dogs.
The acknowledgments include a mention of Crow by Ted Hughes. Another poet this collection reminds me of is Adrian Mitchell. This is because of the combination of the literal, the personified, and the metaphorical in the subjects of the poems; the use of some non-standard typography, in combination with images (by Louis Benoit) and the way that the individual and the present is combined with the historical, social, and political.
I have just re-visited the collection to count how many of the pieces have a conventional rhyme scheme. I was surprised to find that there is only one. That is an indication that Michael Stewart is a poet who knows how to write free verse that reads like poetry, rather than, as the so-called traditionalists say, ‘prose cut up into bits’.
Every reader will find their own personal associations and reflections in this rich collection. The most poignant of mine came to me while I was reading the third and final section. I recall a punk I met in Leeds in unusual and constrained circumstances in the spring of 1984. He had a Mohican, and was wearing leather, chains, Doc Martens, and a tartan mini-skirt. On the back of his red biker’s jacket was written what I took to be the name of a band. In Gothic script, it said ENGLISH DOGS. He was in a cage, with no food or water.
iamhyperlexic 