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.

Next open mic night - September 2nd

The next open mic night will be taking place on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 at 8pm at The Edge of Town in Northampton.

Here's one we did earlier.

Path. Hell. Good. Intentions.

Our website is no more. So we reckon we're going to use this blog to update people from now on. I hear some of you loudly pointing out that we never updated it anyway. And you are right, very right, and we're sorry.

It's not that we don't intend to do these things because we do. Oh yes we do. We hear you back there. Path. Hell. Good. Intentions. Yes, yes.

Enough self-bashing. Future information, when it appears, will appear here.

Open mic night - Tuesday August 5th, 8pm

Our next open mic night will be taking place on Tuesday August 5th at 8pm at The Romany in Northampton. We look forward to seeing you there.


It is by sitting down to write every morning that one becomes a writer.
~Gerald Brenan~

Lazy (Gone Since November)

Guys. I don't even like the word guys. Why am I using the word guys? What is wrong with me? People. Yes, people. I have a confession to make - and it won't altogether be news to anybody - I'm lazy.

Caple and I don't really have set roles within this little thing we set up but if we did I'm pretty sure I would have responsibility for web and e-mail - and, as you all know, I've been, let's look for a suitable word here, crap. Sackable.

My excuse used to be - and I might have used this one on you, and there is some truth there in it - that I updated websites all day for work and was exhausted by the whole process. But that excuse is no longer valid or acceptable. So I'm going to update. I promise. At least the date, the time, the venue - necessities. Niceties may take longer. But necessities, yes.

We love you guys (What the hell is wrong with me?) Having a dozen of you turn up on the wrong night sucks. Eloquent, this morning. It's not going to happen again.

Voila. That's all.