Putty in their hands – May’s audience poem
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘we need suggestions for the audience poem. Open your mouths. Be free.’ (I didn’t say this last bit. I might have done). A voice from the back pipes up playfully, ‘Giraffe Café’. There is a low groan, with an element of ‘tch!’ to it. In case you didn’t know, and why should you, the respondent was referring to the café in nearby Exeter that was, last week, the scene of an attempted terrorist attack, bringing home the dark realities of contemporary extremism to us sheltered south-westerly breeze-blocks. Not the kind of start you’re looking for in my position as ‘theme-find focuser’. ‘You’re steering us toward a dark place,’ I acknowledge, ‘but we don’t seem to want to go there.’
Others begin to chip in. ‘Toffee apple’ is offered from near the front, I can hear that everyone’s relieved. We’re not into being edgy tonight it seems. Someone else suggests ‘good taste’, which I reject on the grounds that it’s a bit abstract and they were just making a point. A muffled voice from the middle of the room shouts ‘putty’. Or was it puppy? It’s unclear. I ask for clarification, but there are too many contending voices. Someone woofs, helpfully. But can I trust them? I decide to go with putty, it’s more interesting, less expected. Offered the choice of ‘giraffe café,’ ‘toffee apple’ and ‘putty’, the audience also opts for putty.
Liv Torc put the poem together, and it goes like this…
Putty
Pick it lick it roll it flick it
You are the smooth edge to all my panes
Push and press it feel it smooth and oily
Friendly bendy all-purpose squishiness
I modelled you on my own image and was unhappy
Like playing with my balls – with oil
Oh the pain of your thumbprint as the putty pushed and pored…
Pretty shitty smelly smutty putty
You’re so slutty
And oh, in my dreams, you will be putty in my hot, hot hands!
Oily chalk beneath my nails
I glue you, join you, fill you, bond you,
Aren’t you glad that I belong to you
Putty come quick, putty come slow,
Give me your stick and I will start to glow
Putty sticks things together, in this poem
It oozes out of the Mastic Gun
Can be all things to all men
Picks up the imprint of the morning news,
Expanding and stretching obscenely under thumb.
Putty potty, potty putty, pity putty
In your hands
Without putty, life would be paneless (geddit?)
Use that putty to fill the holes of life
Putty is now obsolete, it isn’t what it used to be…
Tags: audience poem, interactive arts, Liv Torc, putty, toffee apple