Festival films

We've had some brilliant films taken during the Write to Ignite festival by Jane Garfield. We are in the process of uploading them to You Tube and onto our myspace page. At the moment you can see films of John Hegley at Hackney City Farm and Michael Rosen's Poetry Street Workshop, we're hoping to put up footage of Jam Sandwich at The Premises up later this week.

www.youtube.com/user/writetoignite

Let us know what you think...

Review of A Word In Your Eye

It’s an unremarkable fact that most text we see in our daily lives is created digitally. In the age of blogging and text messaging, who still gets their hands dirty in pursuit of the written word? Evidence that some do can be found at the Marie Lloyd Bar in Hackney. A sundry collection of Hackney-based artists are part of an exhibition entitled A Word In Your Eye, curated by Claire Hynds.

Enlisting media from printmaking and comics to myriad forms of collage, these artists/poets have absconded with our overworked alphabet and rescued it from quotidian use. In doing so, they frequently verge into the territory of the cryptic. Text is distilled to its essence as line, squiggle and decontextualised symbol.

A Word In Your Eye is largely focused on collecting and appropriation, apt themes, considering that collecting and re-processing are elemental to using language itself. The content the exhibition ‘reads’ like a walk down a city street: misheard snippets of conversation, modulated modern chatter and half-glimpsed text and slogans define the general experience. But so many of the art-making methods represented here are detached from contemporary visual culture; they are labor-intensive and a bit “crafty.” But Matt Black’s film stills overlaid with dialogue text are a welcome exception, as is Steve Smith’s graffiti collage. Smith collected the tags of numerous graffiti artists throughout the city and applied them upon a single panel. In the final product, only vague cues denoting scrawled text remain.

The failures of language serve as the show’s other leitmotiv. Susan Mackervoy‘s coy prints – part etching, part photocopy, part rubber stamp – present lightly knocked-together linguistic fragments. Although they betray an air of indecipherability, the prints are not vexing. Rather, they possess a character common to much of the work on display: in the process of exploring the visual aspects of communication (stymied or otherwise), they bring to light the visual nature of poetry.

Review by Emily Candela.
A Word In Your Eye is at The Marie Lloyd Bar, 289 Mare Street, Hackney until the 29th September.

Review of Speakeasy, September 3rd 2007

On the inaugural evening of the Hackney Word Festival, the warm and talented Baden Prince Junior presided over a relaxed and candid atmosphere at Speakeasy, a monthly spoken word event held at the Marie Lloyd Bar.

Spoken word gatherings are best when there is no stark division between audience and performer, entertainer and entertained. This particular Speakeasy was an intimate affair in which an eager and attentive crowd welcomed the lexical arrangements of the evening’s participants. The convivial feeling peaked when a woman emerged from the ranks of the audience to belt out a tune of her own invention. Reaching the end of her song, she laughed to herself and dodged off the stage amidst proud applause.

Many punctuated their speech with dashes of melody or humming. Three men from Creative Connections, an organisation run by Speakeasy’s host Baden, did so to great effect during their performance of a collectively composed poem inspired by Nelson Mandela’s final night in prison.

In between introducing the evening’s participants, Baden frequently sifted through a well-worn folder of his own lyrical yields. A veritable jukebox of spoken word, he petitioned the amused audience for requests, “What do you want? Politics? Sex?” More often than not, he revealed deep yet quirky takes on love in a gentle voice devoid of the typical spoken word lilt.

The Inspired Work Collective, led by the spellbinding Janett aka Melted Demerera, are a women’s writing professional development organisation from Lewisham, South London. They took turns at the mic, sharing profoundly personal yet meticulously constructed pieces that had the audience rapt. As Demerera’s songlike timbre drifted amongst the bar’s onlookers I felt myself settle into a willing hypnosis, grateful that the fleeting Hackney Word Festival had introduced me to this fixture of creative life in Hackney, Speakeasy.

Review by Emily Candela

Review of The Mary Wollstonecraft Live Experience!

Despite an amused interest in catwalk fashions I had never before seen white linen over a cuboid wooden crinoline. The image on the big screen of women riding about on these square hobbie horses was a perfect metaphor for the constraints of eighteenth century fashion and convention; impractical to the point of ridiculous (not that the average stiletto heal is much better). However, last night these skirts were only filled on the big screen, around the park the actual costumes sat empty, deflated, Wollstonecraft-less.

There's the nub of the matter, surely in The Mary Wollstonecraft Live Experience! there should be a live Mary Wollstonecraft? Perhaps answering questions or even just basking in the evening sun like it showed on the fliers? But Mary was confined strictly to celluloid. While the dress, set up so the kiddies could have their photos taken with it, only highlighted her absence.

There was excellent live jazz performed by the Dedrie Cartwrite Trio, which was so good that people came from the pubs nearby to ask who it was. But we had not come to listen to Jazz, there had been no particulars about the Dedrie Cartwrite Trio in the pre-performance advertising.

There was a live Internet feed broadcasting us, the audience-picnickers, to whatever surfers might be happen to drop by. The aim of this was apparently to make the event "Global not Local" but the excitement which might have been induced by such a stunt 15 years ago was, in 2007, pretty non-existent. The audience knew that no one was watching and the moment they were asked to hold placards up showing their messages to the world, the atmosphere turned to one of embarrassed people trying not to let the event organiser down.

The kernel of the night was the film. It was a recording of the 2005 event in which a small troop of actors including three "Mary Wollstonecrafts" and a "director" set about making the film of Mary Wollstonecraft's life in Stoke Newington. The common enough film within a film conceit worked particularly well in this context, allowing modern day comment and criticism on eighteenth century characters. This blurring also allowed the audience to get involved as "extras". However the film of the 2005 event never felt like an artwork in its own right, indeed many of the people who came to the park last night had come merely to see if they could spot themselves in this recording. Thus, whilst the evening was pleasant enough, it felt more like a genteel after show party than an event in itself.

Review by Holly Hopkins

Review of Poetry Street Party

It is easy to feel some trepidation when faced with the words "local" and "young" on a Flier. Will we be faced with a bunch of students reading truisms into sheaves of paper? Or worse, reading with the glow of true belief, about the truly extraordinary nature of their cat Barney? We need not have feared. With Rosen as ringmaster it was foolish to expect anything less than a night of good entertainment.

The four voices which made up Poem In Between People displayed a surprising range in content and style from a rabble rousing tribute to London, to an account of the natural progression and loosening of a childhood friendship. Particular praise must be given to a poem seeming at first to celebrate a 25th wedding anniversary only to go on to show the twofold nature of such culturally enshrined bonds with the image of two young people separated by traditions dictating the rules of marriage within tribes.

Annie Freud then read from her collection The Best Man That Ever Was; an event that lead the audience from the kitchens of the inventor of the individual fruit pie, into the upper stories where we sat at the bedside of a distressingly Dead Bat. The night was finished by Adisa's carefully crafted sound-collage of music and words. A truly enjoyable experience.

Review by Holly Hopkins

Lazy Gramophone review - 12th September 2007

Standing outside any pub in Hoxton Street amid your usual unremarkable collective of council estates and dodgy would-never-eat-there Chinese cum just about anything takeaways, I really didn’t know what to expect as I entered the Macbeth pub as a Lazy Gramophone virgin.

I was greeted by the white suited Master of Ceremonies, Phillip Levine, who had taken early advantage of the free face painting stand – from this I knew that Lazy Gramophone was shaping up to be a spoken word event with a theatrical edge.

The first act, poet Ernesto Sarezale stepped up into the red glow of the stage to a round of timid applause. He started off well, but then became increasingly muffled until the two girls warming up with hula hoops in front of me took precedence in my interest. I watched on, thoughtfully chewing on my cola bottles which were handed out at the start of the night.

The following performance by Carl Slater was a needed improvement executed in simple old skool spoken word style - a man, a mike and his perspectives on love, life and anything else. Carl’s stance and demeanour was natural and unhurried and his delivery engaging.

I didn’t have too long to dwell on his performance as the M.C, Phillip Levine introduced the hula hoop girls to the stage. Pavlunka as they’re known began their act to a thumping electro beat looking like nu-rave Fame extras. It was all skipping, jumping and neon complete with hesitant audience participation, including a guy they used for a cramped game of double-dutch on the stage.

Of all the acts of the night, Ventriloquist was the most anticipated, having seen him at the Spitz I knew what a performance he and his band could give. As expected he was charismatic, profound and amusing all at the same time. His insight and dexterity with words is almost mesmerising. Thoroughly enjoyable.

By the time the last performance was announced, The Macbeth was decidedly busier with most of the local crowd covered in glitter stars and blue face paint. I guessed many had come to support the final act of the night – Paloma Faith. Paloma and her band delivered a passionate, noisy performance. I likened the depth of her vocals to Amy Winehouse but distinctly more theatrical with her starched turquoise skirt and red wig. The audience responded well by dancing and getting more rowdy. Afterwards, a breathless Italian man collapsed on the seat next to me gushing about how great Paloma was. It was his tenth gig he enthused. Interesting.

The remainder of the night was left to the DJ to mellow the proceedings with a cool mix of experimental hip hop as the crowd mingled and looked cool. I left The Macbeth pretty satisfied. Lazy Gramophone was a ‘multifarious’ night as promised but minus the pretence and crap‘trend’ factor one kind of expects from this creative enclave they call Hoxditch. Yeah, I would definitely come back and next time I’d get some face paints.

Review by Nii Amu Swaniker

John Hegley at Hackney City Farm

Sunday's show with John Hegley at Hackney City Farm was fantastic, the sun shone down on children, adults and farmyard creatures alike, as John read and sang his way through an A to Z of animals with support from musicians Diego Brown and the Good Fairy.

John Hegley: Not Just Udder Poetry Show
Sunday 9th September 2007

Review by Gemma Seltzer

It was sunshine and cock(rill)s on Sunday down at Hackney City Farm with the marvellous John Hegley entertaining bewellied children with his A to Z of animal poetry. Playing his ukulele, Hegley shared his views on the octopus that gets a nasty shocktopus, Jesus' pet dog and a pair of goldfish living in a Luton bungalow.

Hegley played to a crammed corner of the farm covered with chickens, children, and their parents sitting on haybales. He opened his performance by inviting a woman to describe an armadillo, which she did in her native German, humorously translated by a man leaning on the cow shed. This readied the crowd for the audience participation that ran through the rest of the set, from singing in rounds to a complicated solo by the tallest man there.

Hegley doesn't make a fuss about his work; he simply tells us what he's seen out and about with his uniquely clever, misshapen rhymes. And he doesn't make a fuss about his performance, frequently diverting his attention to someone's mobile phone, a lost child and the more intelligent spectacle-wearing spectators. Because of this, the poems seem to begin with the audience, rather than come from the poet himself, which is fascinating to see.

Hegley's poems seem to grow bigger as he proceeds. Each poem becomes funnier than the last, until the whole crowd both adults and children is hysterical. Unfortunately, the breaks in this set for the duo who sang rhymes accompanied by a guitar, a kazoo and a weird bee doll, prevented Hegley from reaching a comedic peak.

What a funny man John Hegley is, the funniest poet around maybe. He was especially apt in a farmyard setting, making full use of his animal-related repertoire. His performance was short enough to keep the children's attention and gave ample time to admire the rather large pigs in the next field afterwards.

For a video clip of the Farm show click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtJA4t4LYfA

http://www.johnhegley.co.uk/ http://www.diegobrown.com/