Been in the library earlier doing some writing and people watching/chatting. Below is another work in progress based on a conversation i had with an older gentleman who uses the library and something i heard a friend of his say to the lady behind the desk regarding ‘bringing back the stamp.’

He says ‘You used to have a stamp. Now it’s all lasers and barcodes.’

He knows he’s getting old but he’s not averse to change.

He doesn’t mind the smooth lines,

Or the multicoloured scatter cushions.

He’s not phased by the computers or the coffee maker.

The fact that the Quiet Room has gone doesn’t bother him.

He knows the wall-pinned newspapers,

Were on the way out even then.

But if he misses one thing,

 If he had one wish,

He would bring back the stamp.

That reassuring thud.

The rhythmic thump,

That takes him back

To visiting the library as a lad.

His dad unfolding Ordnance Survey maps,

Whilst he would head for Westerns and Crime.

Stamp.

Pulpy covers show square jawed men, fedora hats.

Stamp.

 His dad’s rough fingers trace lines and tracks, plan next weeks hike.

Stamp.

Blotchy ink, muddy dates, the book’s history like a well-worn path.

Stamp.

His dad lifting him on to his lap, smell of ash and grass.

Stamp.

His dad’s crusty laugh, ‘not another cowboy’ and ‘two pages and we’ll head back.’

He says ‘You used to have a stamp. Now it’s all lasers and barcodes.’

Another session in the library yesterday. I had a wander around Thornaby town centre, a mix of slightly foreboding 60s architecture merging into newly regenerated areas and familiar high street shops. I wrote the first few lines of the ‘Journey’s poem  for the book based on my journey to the library and, hopefully, left it open for someone to carry it on. I’ve also been working on some pieces based on the centre and how it has changed. Until recently the centre was so 60s, lots of heavy set grey buildings, harsh lines, curly gangways and multi story flats. I was chatting to a guy in his forties yesterday who said he remembers hating the centre even as a kid . “Too much concrete.” The centre was dominated by The Pavillion, a community leisure centre which has also been refurbished. The library was inside (and is still on the site). I started thinking generally of how modern that must have been when it was built and that is forming the basis of The Leisure Centre, a work in progress.

The New Leisure Centre

 Wasn’t designed as a monstrosity

Each brick was laid with optimism

A desire to experience the velocity

Of cities in the sky

How high they stacked its car park!

Monolithic and square shouldered

Dissected by shafts and gangways

The New Leisure Centre

Is a state of the art community facility

Incorporating an ice rink

A multi-purpose gym

 Olympic sized swimming pool

Squash courts, saunas, children’s soft play

An array of high quality dining and refreshment spaces   

A Brave New World of sleek lockers

Burnished badminton courts

Where shuttlecocks floated like satellites

The neon reception

The machines vending powered soup

The stuf astronauts drink!

Just think

(well, like i said, it’s a work in progress)

Spending the afternoon in the library, hoping to generate some ideas for poems and a first line or two for the blank book. First, though, i think I need to write a bit of a foreword for the book and some loose rules as to what sort of content we’re looking for. Obviously we want people to write whatever they want but i guess we have to be careful people aren’t going to just take it out and scribble all over it or worse. I’m thinking I’ll begin a poem or a story based around the library and the surrounding area and see if people can then take it on and map ‘their’ Thornaby.

On Tuesday i’ll be back in here doing a reading and a bit of a workshop so hopefully, once i have the first few lines done, there will be someone willing to pick up the baton and carry the poem on.

Fairly quiet in here today, not a lot of people reading really either. Mainly people using the computers to look at facebook and stuff. I’m now going to find a corner and do some scribbling…..

I’m currently in the (very lovely) Thornaby Library hoping to recruit some participants for the Journeys Project.  We’re going to go ahead with the idea of the ‘blank book’ which people will be able to take out on loan and contribute to the creation of, hopefully, a new ’epic’ poem or story.  Once we have a a few people we will look at how we want to begin the poem or story and then the book will officially go on the shelf for people to take out. (It’ll be stamped and everything!) A press release is going out any day now.

We currently have a display in the library showing some great images of Thornaby in the past which hopefully will prompt some stories and memory sharing.  There are lots of images of some very seventies looking concrete buildings which are no more.  We just had a guy telling us about a particularly stubborn  tower block that took five days to demolish, a story there surely. I’m quite interested in the thinking behind those seventies tower-blocks that are now considered ‘monstrosities.’ They weren’t built to look ugly, they were built with a real optimism and yet, now, we acknowlege that they look hideous.  Thornaby’s going through a real period of regeneration at the moment and I think it’s look great but what will people think of it in 40 years time?  

Hi all, this will be my first official blog on here or any where else. No image as yet but as the image i was going to use was a pic of me dressed up as the invisible man, i guess it doesn’t make much difference.

Anyway, i’m a writer and performer from Stockton on Tees. I should shortly be embarking on a Myplace project in the town of Thornaby, Teesside and Benwell, Newcasle, based around notions of journeys.

This first blog is really just a bit of a test and to introduce myself.

So, very briefly, about me:

I’m 28 and live in Stockton on Tees.

I perform regularly across the North East as a performance poet and deliver creative writing workshops in community settings.

I also perform as characters such as ‘Thomas Oswald Spennymoore’ a self righteous philosopher and troubadour and as ‘The Invisible Man.’

I am a member of Monkfish Wordtank a multi media spoken word collective.

I have never written a blog before.

Met up with the team I’ll be working with on the Myplace project in Newcastle the other day and we got in some workshop dates and discussed some ideas. We’re aiming to create some groups in the two libraries we’ll be working with and get them thinking about notions of place and how to ‘map’ it creativity. We’ll be rolling out some physical maps of the areas an hopefully getting people to share memories/experiences and then perhaps creating ‘mythical’ maps or maps based on formative expericnes. We don’t want it to dissolve into a rose tinted ‘weren’t things great back in my day’ sort of thing though, but it’ll be interesting to see what people come up with. We’ll then be looking at creating stories and poems and putting those poems to music for a performance. I’ll be looking to create some work of my own from that too as well as generally being on hand in the libraries. We also thought that, as we’re working in libraries, we might get a blank book that people can take out on loan for a week or so, writing the first line of a poem or story and handing it back in for some else to take out and take up the story, with me adding and editing in between. Reckon some really great things could come out of that!

Bye for now

Mike