Oldest Swinger in Town…

‘Daddy, what’s that big yellow thing up in the sky?’

‘It’s the sun, son, and it’s been a long time coming this year…’

But hasn’t it been a delightful couple of days? On the downside we weren’t really prepared for it and had to do all of the usual boring stuff we do at weekends like shopping and washing, with the added chore of cutting all the hedges and grass and trying to regain some sort of control over my jungle of a garden. Well, I say ‘we’ had to do, but obviously Ben just sat in a darkened room with the curtains drawn killing Nazi zombies on his X-Box, as per.

Shouldn’t moan, though, because chores aside I’ve had (by my standards) a busy week of ‘social’ with two nights out at ‘The Best Small Live Music Venue in the UK’, (so sayeth NME magazine, and you can’t sayeth fairer than that), the Tunbridge Wells Forum. The first of these was on Wednesday night, and was a poetry event called ‘Word Up’, where I, along with eight other ‘slammers’, read a few poems to thunderous applause from what was pretty much a capacity crowd by Forum / poetry slam standards. This was very reassuring, because the last time I read poetry at the Forum, as part of a musical festival, I died on my arse [see here for full story]. This time I was much better prepared – i.e. pissed – and even slipped in a couple of ad-lib one-liners that went down very well too.

As with other Word Up events, the Tunbridge Wells Writers (of whom I am one) were out in force, both as slammers and supporters, so it was a really nice opportunity to catch up with them having missed the last ‘official’ meet up because of my holiday. I’m looking forward to getting back into the swing again at our next meet on Tuesday night, when poetry and live reading will again be key topics as we discuss our video poetry project ‘Lipschtick’ and a performance evening at a local cafe scheduled for July 10th. Oh – and we’ve got our group ‘picnic in the park’ on the 7th, which coincides with a local one-day music festival. My we’re a busy lot!

But coming back to the Forum…

My second visit was on Saturday night, when I went to the Crap Eighties Disco with a few friends who very thoughtfully signed up for it at the last minute when I was whining on Facebook about having nobody to go with. The previous Crap Eighties Disco had been brilliant – the place packed to capacity with a good mix of people who remembered the music from first time around and sweet young things who were there ‘ironically’. Sadly, this Saturday the turnout was a bit disappointing, and it appeared for the early part of the evening as if the ‘Crap’ prefix I use sardonically was going to prove accurate. The hall was almost empty, and the few people dancing half-heartedly beneath the tarnished glitterball looked like they were regretting their eighties fancy dress costumes, which effectively debarred them from moving on to another venue.

We almost decided to call it a night at this point, but as we already had drinks and had loosely arranged to meet up with another friend we decided to hang around and see what happened. Which turned out to be a good decision, because while we were standing outside sipping our drinks we had failed to notice the place gradually filling up, and while numbers didn’t quite match those of the previous eighties night those who did stay more than made up for it with enthusiasm. Cutting to the chase, I drank lots of lovely beer, danced for hours, both with my friends and some new acquaintances we made on the night, and had loads of fun. I was also approached by three different people who took the time and trouble to come over and tell me how much they had enjoyed hearing my poetry earlier in the week, which was a HUGE ego boost and just what the doctor ordered.

All in all, then, a good week for getting out and about. If I keep this up I’m going to end up with a social life whether I like it or not. Who would have thought it after all those years in the wilderness?

Oh – Just in case you’re interested here are a couple of the poems I read on Wednesday. ‘A Taste of Honey’ is quite graphic (PG rated, I’d guess) so bearing in mind that this is a Monday Club blog I have linked rather than posting directly. Both poems are from a collection I’m working on called The 4am Club, which is a kind of emotional blood-letting exercise containing poetry that wakes one up in that cold grey hour before dawn demanding to be written. It’s not all doom and gloom, but even the humorous / romantic ones have a dark side. Don’t we all? *wink*

Both went down well at the slam. I hope you enjoy them too…

• Soul Food
• A Taste of Honey