A Night to Remember: Word Book Night at Southampton Central Library

I turned up 20 minutes early, walked about, loitered, dragged my feet, & slipped through the apperture of the library about 10 minutes early, into the pre-event bustle of chair-locating & relocating & camera setting-up & the sort of chatter that only happens before events, like a sort of dawn chorus: How are you? I'm alright. Light your shoes! Isn't it hot?!

Being the first to sign up to the open mic, I settled into one of the comfier chairs & awaited lift-off. Which came unswiftly but surely as event lift-offs always come, bar rain or acts of God (which probably include rain).

Then there was wine.

Then there was more wine.

The uber-able compare-ing of Robert Sean Casey oiled our noctural way/s (for were we composite or disparate or both, grammatically speaking?) through one of the most enjoyable evenings I've had in a long while.

It was St George's Day, & I was (re)introduced to a poem about Englishness, by Daniel Defoe (who, synchronously enough, I happen to be studying). Share & share alike, & all that, thus:

The True Born Englishman

      Thus from a mixture of all kinds began,

That het’rogeneous thing, an Englishman:

In eager rapes, and furious lust begot,

Betwixt a painted Britain and a Scot.

Whose gend’ring off-spring quickly learn’d to bow,

And yoke their heifers to the Roman plough:

From whence a mongrel half-bred race there came,

With neither name, nor nation, speech nor fame.

In whose hot veins new mixtures quickly ran,

Infus’d betwixt a Saxon and a Dane.

While their rank daughters, to their parents just,

Receiv’d all nations with promiscuous lust.

This nauseous brood directly did contain

The well-extracted blood of Englishmen.

      Which medly canton’d in a heptarchy,

A rhapsody of nations to supply,

Among themselves maintain’d eternal wars,

And still the ladies lov’d the conquerors.

      The western Angles all the rest subdu’d;

A bloody nation, barbarous and rude:

Who by the tenure of the sword possest

One part of Britain, and subdu’d the rest

And as great things denominate the small,

The conqu’ring part gave title to the whole.

The Scot, Pict, Britain, Roman, Dane, submit,

And with the English-Saxon all unite:

And these the mixture have so close pursu’d,

The very name and memory’s subdu’d:

No Roman now, no Britain does remain;

Wales strove to separate, but strove in vain:

The silent nations undistinguish’d fall,

And Englishman’s the common name for all.

Fate jumbled them together, God knows how;

What e’er they were they’re true-born English now.

      The wonder which remains is at our pride,

To value that which all wise men deride.

For Englishmen to boast of generation,

Cancels their knowledge, and lampoons the nation.

A true-born Englishman’s a contradiction,

In speech an irony, in fact a fiction.

A banter made to be a test of fools,

Which those that use it justly ridicules.

A metaphor invented to express

A man a-kin to all the universe.

      For as the Scots, as learned men ha’ said,

Throughout the world their wand’ring seed ha’ spread;

So open-handed England, ’tis believ’d,

Has all the gleanings of the world receiv’d.

      Some think of England ’twas our Saviour meant,

The Gospel should to all the world be sent:

Since, when the blessed sound did hither reach,

They to all nations might be said to preach.

      ’Tis well that virtue gives nobility,

How shall we else the want of birth and blood supply?

Since scarce one family is left alive,

Which does not from some foreigner derive.

(Did he read that then, or later? I forget.)

Cat H Randle kicked off the open-mic-ing with confidently & engagingly presented poems about swallows & postmen & being a Bright Old Thing - bagging my vote (for there was voting, for book vouchers & gigging). I really can't stress enough how much of a difference people's styles/modes/ways of performing make to how the audience experiences their words. If I can ever perform so ... enjoyably ... as Cat H Randle, I shall be a happy poet indeed.

Then (& this is where my memory shall start to fail me) there was another poet. Let's say Jen Hart came next. She probably didn't, but she came SOMEWHERE, & "does time matter?" What strikes me about Jen's performances - consistently - is the fine modulation of her delivery. In terms of rhythm & cadence, it is exquisitely done. It helps that I also like her poems - but, frankly, she could read out a shopping list (an ASDA shopping list, even) and it would sound scintillating.

Now, at this point, you may be thinking: She's being awfully nice about EVERYBODY. Can she really mean it? Is she just being polite? The thing is, though, I'm not just being polite. I was genuinely impressed by lots & lots of people's performances. It was a particularly good night for the standard of performances (&, though I am a bit of a purist about these things, about the standard of the POETRY, the WORDS THEMSELVES, as well).

ASIDE

IMAGINED YOU: Isn't poetry MORE than just the words? Isn't it the performance, too?

ME: No.

IMAGINED YOU: What?!? Really?!?

Me: Really. I mean, a poem is a collection of WORDS, dear. WORDS and PUNCTUATION MARKS. DATA. I'm sorry, but, much as performance may ADD TO and EMPHASISE the qualities, qualia, of a poem, IT ISN'T A POEM.

IMAGINE YOU: *shrugs*

POST-ASIDE

Who then?

Well, there was Antosh Wojcik (yes, I had to make recourse the the event's facebookian guest list to spell that one), who performed poems about his birthday party (& won the vote of the crowd - a pleasant postparty present, no doubt).

Then there was me. Ta dah! (Actually, I think the quality of both my poetry & my performance has plateaued, of late. I no longer find what I do ... exciting. But - "what to do?!?" she said, plaintively.)

&, finally, there was Mark Badbelly Lang - whose voice is unto me a sort of trance-maker. Again - he could say anything. I really don't mind what he says. So long as he says it as dithyrambically as he says his poems. Which I have a sneaking suspicion may have started out life as songs (at least some of them). They have an ineffable quality that poems-that-have-been-songs have, which I am at present underqualified to elaborate on. His presentation of them is speallbinding, actually. I can quite imagine him at some sort of Viking feast, regaling warriors with Illiadish things. 

Then there was a break. & more wine. 

Then Antosh Wojcik's victory was announced.

Then there was Angela Chicken, who performed quite possibly the most BEAUTIFUL set I've ever set ears on. Really, she writes beautiful poems & performs them beautifully. Treatish for aesthetes. (Such as my self.) Her poem about the inventories of the Titanic struck me as particularly fine - I won't spoil it for you by explaining why. Go seek it out for yourselves, if you haven't already heard it.

Then there was a stonking set by Stewart Taylor, who ... well, are there even words for it?!? ... ranged about like a sort of epic-telling king of the comedic, making me laugh so much I dislodged my coat from the back of the chair on which I was sitting. He really is impressive enough for anywhere, now, & should be booked AT ONCE like a sort of human hot cake.

Then there was Bohdan Piasecki, who I had seen before (POSSIBLY at Freeway at The Winchester in Bourtnemouth, POSSIBLY OTHERWHERE). Apart from being interrupted by the eruptive noise of my camera going off during his first poem, his set was accompanied by a peculiar hush. He was Important. Everybody knew he was Important. That seemed to be the gist of it. He did a wondrous poem about (about?) language learning dialogues (which I had very much hoped he would, having heard it before & thought it a splendid thing). 

& then there were free books. 

& then there was the walk home, amidst the unbookladen undergrads, armying along the roads with little thought about the temperature - me clutching a coat & a copy of Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?