Stamp is a unique spoken word journey with North East’s My Place or Yours Poet in Residence Mike Edwards in celebration of his time at Thornaby Library as part of www.myplaceoryours.org.uk, a unique online writers’ residency.

Plus a host of other spoken word surprises. Plus: Got a poem or monologue on the themes of libraries or place?

Then take part on our Stamp Open Mike! To book a place or for info contact claire@applesandsnakes.org

When: Wednesday 5 May 7pm

Where: Thornaby Central Library, The Pavillion, Stockton On Tees, TS17 9EW

Tickets: Free

stamp

So last night, as West Brom inched their way to Promotion, we climaxed the MPOY WBA residency with a celebratory gig at B’ham Library Theatre.  I was so proud to showcase the talents of two young Midlands poets – 16yr old Dan Cullen and 19 yr old Matt Windle, who I mentored – and they were both outstanding

Jo Bell, my mentor  (who promised future bliss for the ‘morning after the night before gig’ hangover with 4 bars of top notch chocolate, thanx!) was our sterling MC/referee, and what can I tell you about Byron that you won’t already know? That he was ridiculously brilliant – you’ll know that already – the ‘Jarvis Cocker’ of poetry as he has been dubbed – but we know he’s even more than that – and 2010 will be his biggest and best year yet surely – with his first book coming out too. So I was extra chuffed that some of my mates who are ‘poetry virgins’ were saying afterwards how they’ll pay big £ to see him next time:) But they’ll bring Tena lady too….. as he is that funny….

So my huge thanks to everyone who came along, to all at Apples & Snakes for the whole MPOY experience, down to them handing out the half time oranges – now when do you get that at a poetry gig normally?  And here’s to WBA doing us proud by getting promoted next…..  to which ends, here’s the Hawthorns Lords Prayer that the audience joined in with at the gig. Although I may be more of a buddhist, we’ll call on the Bee Gee lookalike and anyone else to help us keep our Promotion space this season…..

The Baggies Lords Prayer.

By Charlie Jordan.

Our Father, who art at the Hawthorns,

hallowed be our game.

Thy Kingdom come,

promotion won,

on turf as it was at St Andrews.

Give us matchdays to celebrate,

as we forgive refs who red-card against us.

And lead us not into the Play-offs,

but deliver us from third place;

for Bobby’s the King here,

Matteo for glory,

Premiership forever.

Amen.

(Boing Boing)

The My Place or Yours residencies are drawing to a close: Charlie Jordan’s showcase in Birmingham marks (I think) the last physical expression of our mostly virtual project. West Brom Words is going to be a rip-roaring, rollicking celebration of football and all things West Brom-related.

Charlie’s valedictory gig takes over the Library Theatre, Birmingham on 25th March.  Byron Vincent is joining us to wave the My Place flag, and I’m MCing in my new ‘Sheffield Wednesday girls’ shirt (above). Local heroes Dan Cullen and Matt Man Windle are on the bill too – and I hope we will have an audience that represents the full glories of the West Midlands live literature scene, the brightest in the UK. Charlie’s material ranges from the football pitch to the gym via the bedroom – don’t miss it folks, give My Place or Yours its proper send-off!

It wasn’t difficult to release her from the page. Chaucer’s did that six hundred years before. The challenge was to inhabit the character’s voice. How would I get a live audience to believe that the diminutive well-spoken woman on stage was in fact a larger-than-lit woman of the world? I performed it to a couple of friends. One was frank: ‘Your Nigerian accent is shit’. I decided to focus on a few key words e.g. ‘nes’ rather than ‘next’ and to punctuate the punch lines. It was more about attitude than accent.

Two performance experiences: one, at the Africa Centre to a tiny audience including my dad. The poem was new. I was totally intimidated by the presence of family plus Nigerian Nigerians who didn’t appreciate my textual intervention or the humour. In contrast at the ICA, the younger, predominantly British Nigerian crowd screamed with recognition. They weren’t laughing at her; they were laughing with her. The ultimate test would be to perform it to a younger Nigerian Nigerian crowd. In Nigeria.

But for the time being, we’re back on the London-Canterbury route. The recording you’re about to hear isn’t live from the Canterbury Festival; it’s live from my through-lounge. No introductions, no background coughs or guffaws. No applause. This is a rehearsal, the closest you’ll get to the voice in my head. If you listen closely, you might even hear the splashing of the Thames.

As a regular act on the performance poetry scene, I found myself naturally creating pieces that could work dramatically but never set out to do so. By the late 90’s, my poetical manifesto was, and still is, to break down the wall between literature and live act. As a poet, I place myself somewhere between page and stage. And what has always attracted me to Chaucer’s Tales is their celebration of both. The Tales are themselves masters of intertextuality – Chaucer was often rewriting existing texts – but there was always a dramatic imperative: they must entertain. In the Prologue to The Wife of Bath’s Tale, and elsewhere in Chaucer, he presents friction between the authority of the written text (auctoritee) and the truths we acquire from life (experience). My character is born of literature and life. Wherever she goes she’s preceded by both her literary original and her doppelgangers, market women with gap-toothed smiles and a string of ex-lovers.

The Wife of Bafa comes from Nigeria, she speaks Nigerian English, she references Ibadon University and the exclusive Lagos district, Victoria Island; but the poem takes place in ‘This London’. As I lived in London for sixteen years it tends to feature regularly in my work. I didn’t have a particular London setting in mind (in contrast to Jean Binta Breeze’s dynamic The Wife of Bath speaks in Brixton Market).

London is the implied setting but in reality, the poem would be set wherever I got a gig! Alice Ebi Bafa has sold lace, linen and Dutch wax on several continents…