Shake the Dust

This spring I'm happy to be involved in a project called Shake the Dust run by spoken word organisation Apples & Snakes.

Shake the Dust is a celebration of the spoken word and will get young people into writing and performing their own poetry. My role is to assist another poet (the brilliant Mike Parker) delivering workshops in schools. Well, funnily enough my job description is "Shadow Poetry Coach", so for me this year is all about being a shadow (because shadowing is also what I'm going to do for my Swenglish project)

Last week I went to the first training session with poet Jacob Sam-La Rose. He insists on trying all the writing exercises himself before he tries them on his students. A very sound idea! The Poetry Coaches and their Shadows had to use their heads and pens and come up with a group piece.

Jacob calls this method "row writing": you write for a couple of minutes on a given theme and then pass the paper on to the next person. Our group came up with a very funny piece on the theme of truce called "It's easy to forgive a pet". We then performed this poem, standing on a line, looking angry at first and then moving closer together. I'm now looking forward to see what the teenagers make of this exercise ...

Winning the Bang Said the Gun Poetry Slam!

I've come second and third several times. But this was the first time I actually won a poetry slam! And not any poetry slam ... Bang Said the Gun is a poetry collective that runs a weekly poetry night in south London. They took their show to Edinburgh Fringe Festival and were awarded with 5 stars. I can only but agree!

I happened to be a London for two reasons:

1. Taking part in Jacob Sam-La Rose's excellent masterclass on running poetry workshops for young people (organised by Apples & Snakes)
2. The yearly YLG (Youth Library Group) Conference

I had no idea that the third reason for my London stay would be Bang Said the Gun. I only found out about it a few hours before the show kicked off, and decided on a whim to perform Making Over My Landlord, so maybe the spontaneity contributed to winning: I was quite relaxed, and did it for fun. And fun it was. On the tables were empty plastic milk containers filled with little stones (???) for the audience to rattle. It felt like being part of a massive maraca orchestra.
Here is special guest Will Stopha performing a very topical piece about robots. Note his matching top!
I was also very impressed by Richard Marsch's and Katy Bonna's poet duet. They performed a piece about stag and hen nights ...
Me with my trophy: a golden welly boot gun! And best of all I got invited back to perform at the next event which is Thursday this week! 8pm at the Roebuck Pub in Great Dover Street, London (nearest tube is Borough) Join the Bang!