White noise (About Tuesday)

Last thing I remember a shoe left the stage, hit the crowd. Might have been a boot actually. By crowd I mean huddle. Up there on the stage before there'd been a man, a hat, a man in a hat, a prophet of sorts, I swear. And a girl who talked tea leaves.

There was sign language. A poem, signed. And that was kind of wonderful (so thanks Richard and Fay). And, behind all the poems that night I heard a kind of white noise - white noise, the new pin drop. The silence in the poetry, the poetry in the silence.

The last Edge of Town night, the July one, the birthday one, was kind of raucous, we concede. And it's not that we don't like raucous* in its time and place. But Tuesday night was warm, spectacular, aglow. An autumn.

We had new tales from the great young Jade. Chants. Rhyme. Wit. Rhyme. Wit. Wit and rhyme.

I hope you people recognise yourselves. You know who you are.

Yep. Tuesday was how we dreamt poetry nights might somehow get to be. And I'd be curious to know how it was for you. You can click comment and tell us and the others, those who couldn't, those who didn't, what your eyes and ears saw.

And whatever it was, we hope you'll join us back there (at The Edge) next month - October 7th - 8pm. We'll fight off those early sunsets.

Amy

(*My, the word raucous looks funny when you look at it for a length of time... )

‘Cos litter is street too, yeah?

If a rose by any other
name would smell as sweet
can we make litter glitter with
a name that’s more “street”?
Rubbish, garbage and trash all sound
negative; petty.
Let’s big up our litter; call it
“Urban confetti”.

Mark Niel

Mark is the winner of this month's Ripping Pages theme thing. He wins a £10 Waterstones voucher. Next month's theme is to be phobia. The usual rules apply 1,000 words poetry or prose. Deadline: October 31st.