Chilling Out

Oooh, the Big Chill is getting closer…. close enough for Charlie Jordan and I to start really working on her West Brom commissions and honing them into shape. At least, Charlie is really working on them, sweating blood over new pieces. I then ring at some inconvenient moment and critique them viciously. I don’t know how welcome this is (not very, I would imagine) but I can certainly see Charlie’s work developing in response to this project, and her voice becoming stronger and more sophisticated.

It won’t surprise any of you to hear that for us, as for many of you, the mentor/mentee benefits are not all one way. Being involved in this project is making me think hard about a number of things – how best to frame constructive comment, how to conduct by email a conversation about live performance, how to keep up the pressure without reducing your mentee to a nervous wreck, and also how I would approach some of these commissions / residencies if I were in the shoes of these writers. I was getting concerned that I had never seen Charlie perform her work, but this week she sent me some of her poems as sound files and it was massively helpful. Digital technology, as Tom Chivers points out, has all kinds of practical benefits for artists and this was one.

The My Place project is also, of course, making me think about my own place – in particular the canals that I have visited this summer as part of my annual narrowboat journey. Can I write about them in an interesting way? Let’s see…