Summer's Blood

Youth Poets v MCs, Glastonbury, the Ashes, and a weekend of Wise Words.

Autumn is here and the chaos of the blast matches the machinations of my mind, but Blimey! What a summer! The equinoctial nature of my blog posts, so far, means that I've got a whole summer of poetry adventures to relate. This might require the engagement of your time and consciousness. On the other hand, summarising these expeditions into two posts a year means that I know you've got the time to read it. And, as I recently condensed 13.6 billion years of the history, physics, chemistry, biology, geology, geography, sociology, politics, poetry and maths of Existence into a 7 minute song, 6 months of my life should be no sweat.

While I was remembering how to be me on stages across England in the winter, I was also leading a team of spoken word genius inspiring young people across Brighton and Hove to be themselves on the stage of Bite!: The Brighton and Hove Youth Poets v MCs Slam. With support from some ACE people, our little bipolar city and some Apples and Snakes from South East of Eden, the team: myself, Rosy Carrick, Paul Stones, Adam Kammerling, Tom Hines and Jon Clark, took our gobby posturing into the schools and youth clubs of Sussex-by-the-Sea. We are all veterans of our own annual clash that grew from an event that Tom and Paul organised in a tiny pub in 2003 to the biggest spoken word show that I know: a crowd-freaking event at the Concorde II, where we leap from smirking pantomime to the spilling of metaphorical blood. It was time to run a young performers' version, and the youth clubs took it up. The youth clubbers did not need reminding that they were individuals and we were equally loved and hated, adored and ignored.

But like Rocky, or Luke Skywalker, or the largely blonde aerobics team in the worst film I ever saw, (about two competing aerobics teams,) we came back from the brink using will power, teamwork and The Force to bring two teams of Wordwarriors together to create an astonishing show. And we created it together, out of laughter, banter, rolled up pieces of flip-chart paper and gaffer tape. Two images of the pre-show workshop stand out in my mind: we took it turns to perform a line or two and then step back and watch the rest of the team, poets and MCs, coaches and new-blood, perform it back to us, mimicking physical, verbal, vocal style. A truer, more joyous, mirror never existed. And then, as the door-opening time approached, we looked around at the team we'd created, the boxing ring stage we'd created out of stage palettes, plastic tubes and the aforementioned paper and tape (for the ring rope), and the mess we'd created in the room, there was a simultaneous feeling of readiness and panic. 10, 9, 8, the microphone was dangled from a hook in the ceiling above the ring, 7, 6, stools were placed in opposite corners and boxing gloves placed on them, for effect, 5,4, the ringside light went on, the music went on, 3, 2, the last scraps of paper were scrunched into bin bags and thrown behind the stage, 1, the teams took their places on opposite sides of the ring, the doors opened and a large, diverse crowd of people poured in to what seemed the most well-prepared and perfectly set-up show they could imagine. And the young performers stormed it.

No matter how many times young performers told the coaches that they weren't sure if they could do it, they were still there, in their teams, and when the time came to do battle, in the act of initiation which was taking the stage, nerves and self-doubt appeared to be left outside the rope, and strong, individual performances were thrown into the ring before a well-impressed audience. But don't take my word for it. Have a look at the footage yourself. And join in. Next year will see Brighton's 11th Annual Poets v MCs Battle (find out about it at Hammer and Tongue or Slip Jam:B) and
BITE2!

Ok. That'll do for now. I've got a world to put back on its axis. The rest of the summer later. Blessings.