Visiting Barracks Lane and hearing Jay perform has been making me think more about how art responds to place in different ways. Some of my favourite visual art isn’t in galleries but is in the outdoors. Richard Long made a series of pieces of work where he walked through fields making lines, or made marks with rocks in the landscape and created sculptures. His work is also exhibited in galleries but it still feels inextricably part of the natural world.

In today’s Guardian there’s a piece in the travel section about Andy Goldsworthy’s work in Haute Provence which he has been creating over the last few years around this incredibly beautiful area. There’s a video about it on their website, I’ve linked to it here.

Tim Crouch’s play England compares art galleries to churches and hospitals. I love art that exists around you and that isn’t made separate and put in a special place. The fact that performance poetry can and does happen anywhere is one of the wonderful things about it. Seeing Jay performing her beautifully crafted work in the yurt in the garden where much of it was created was great. I wonder what the relationship to the work will be when she performs at Soho theatre on Weds and if it will change the way that Jay performs it?

How do you find performing in different places? What have been seen that has really worked?

Front Row last night was really interesting. A fantastic interview with Bobby McFerrin talking about how he takes and manages risk in performances which I found fascinating particularly in light of the festival performance conversations in the previous post.

Interestingly, this was followed by a conversation about crime novels and particularly about their relationship with where they are set. I hadn’t thought of a genre being defined by place but indeed crime is.

Something later on about blogging, but that wouldn’t be of interest, would it?

Geraldine

On Saturday I visited the amazing Barracks Lane Community Garden.  As Jay’s written the garden was a toxic ridden waste-filled site which has been transformed by volunteers. It’s easy to write this but so incredible to achieve. Barracks Lane is an oasis behind the Cowley Road and the fact that the yurt was full to bursting the night I was there is a real testament to the volunteers that have made this place.

I’d come to see Jay performing and to feel closer to her residency and was also treated to peppermint tea grown in the gardens, home made cakes and fantastic music in the yurt.

Alan Buckley, of Hammer and Tongue fame with a collection published by Tall Lighthouse, hosted the evening and read some of his own poetry. He’s one of the organisers of the gardens, rescued me when I got lost at the allotments and gave me a history of Barracks Lane – his poetry’s pretty damn good too. Between beautiful acoustic music I also got to hear some of Jay’s poetry written in the gardens. It was so great to hear it, having followed it on the blog and I’m really looking forward to seeing her perform again with Iain Sinclair for Apples & Snakes at Soho Theatre.

Thanks to all for a lovely evening.

Interesting programme about poetry and places around Britain fronted by Owen Shears. Starts with Wordsworth on Westminster Bridge.

Poetry season coming soon on BBC – watch that space!

I thought I’d add some links to a few things I’ve seen recently which I thought might be of interest to the resident poets and people visiting the site.

Booktrust has their first poet in residence.  You can follow his journey at: http://www.booktrust.org.uk/show/feature/Home/Writer-in-residence

Poet Yemesi Blake wrote a piece on the creative art of blogging which is up on the Literature Training website:

http://www.literaturetraining.com/metadot/index.pl?id=40306&isa=DBRow&op=show&dbview_id=2323

Also, I just read this piece on the Guardian website about regional accents and I wondered if any of the writers had thought about poetry, place and dialect?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/mar/26/regional-dialect-british-english

Geraldine

I’ve been thinking about our memories of places and how we ascribe emotions and relationships to place which may not be accurate and often conceal truths we’d rather forget.

I was born in Halifax and my Grandparents lived there until fairly recently.  I was excited to hear about Channel  Four’s new drama Red Riding.  I hadn’t read the books and frankly can’t have read much of the pre-publicity.  Oh a drama about my homeland, rolling hills, heather, a pint of good bitter, the Bronte sisters and Winifred Holtby, think I.  http://www.librarything.com/author/holtbywinifred

Oh but no, Yorkshire in the 1970’s was tough and Red Riding didn’t hide this.  It was really well written but extremely dark and disturbing.  My parents left Halifax for the South Yorkshire countryside for a reason, and they didn’t stay there long!

http://redriding.channel4.com/

I wonder, what is the history of the places that you know?  How is that represented now and what do you think about that representation.  Cornwall and the Lake District have similarly sugar coated images that conceal poverty and deprivation – Anna and Emma what do you think?  What was in the places that you are in residence and what will be there in the future?  Who occupied these places before us?

Geraldine

Welcome to My Place or Yours – a new kind of writer residency from Apples & Snakes, the UK’s leading organisation for performance poetry. Five poets are writing about places in England which inspire them, exploring new ideas and creating new poetry. You can click on each poet’s photo to read their work as it progresses. You can also participate in the whole conversation by commenting on any of the posts. Each poet is working with a mentor, who will post feedback on the work in progress – we want you to do the same. We’d like you to give your feedback to the poets and let them know where to take the work next. Take a moment to wander round and make it your place. We’d love to hear from you.

There are some good tips here from Simon Armitage on what to look for when reading poetry.

http://www.poetrybooks.co.uk/PBS/pbs_new_to_poetry.asp

Geraldine

Thought you might be interested to see that Jen Hadfield won the TS Eliot prize.  She lives in Shetland and writes poetry about place.  You can listen to her reading on the link below:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7813000/7813375.stm

Gerry