| 20 June |
Wondermentamailout and Forthcoming Attractions… |
I thought the blog would like to know what a typical Wondermentalist mail-out looks like. And in the process tell you about forthcoming attractions. If you’d like to receive the mail-out then mail me at matt.harvey@copperstrings.com and say, “I’d like to be on the wondermentamailing list.” Then leave it with me…
Greetings and welcome to the Wondermentalist June mail-out
Why the wondermentamailout when there’s no June Wondermentalist? Because there are two in July, in Exeter and Dartington. And because you have a right to know. A hunger, even. You may be experiencing wonder pangs – it can happen. Also because I want to tell you about podcasts, about Copperwires and your chance to contribute to a bicycle poem, and about my own appearance at the Consciousness Café in the Barrel House, Totnes, on June 26th.
On July 5th Wondermentalist goes to the Phoenix in Exeter (01392 667080), upstairs in the Voodoo Lounge. Bill Greenwell will be there, Jerri and I will do a bit more than usual, Nomad Shuffle will achieve intermediate gorgeousness and we’ll hear from Liv Torc and Beryl the Feral. All the Dead Poet Slammers will be lecturers from Exeter College. It’ll be fantastic and we hope it’ll become an annual Phoenix event. Nevertheless it’s along way for our regulars to go and frankly we don’t expect you to, unless you live in the vicinity.
We hope you’ll come to Ways With Words (01803 867373) on Monday 14th July in the Great Hall, Dartington. Here our Dead Poet Slammers will be provided by folk from the Ways With Words writers roster (see the brochure for who’s around at that time…), which will be fascinating and rather exciting. There’ll be cameos from Beryl the Feral, John Elliott and Mim Darlington, advanced loveliness from Nomad Shuffle and once again a bit more Jerri Hart and myself. I’m anticipating the audience poem will reach new heights. You never know.
Talking of collaborative poems… You’ve probably noticed from the programmes (have you?) that Wondermentalist is but part of a wide network of sites including a social network, CopperStrings, and a podcast place, Traydio. This network of sites has its own newsletter, CopperWires that you can subscribe to (as I do, obviously) which is running its equivalent of our audience poem interactive arts phenomenon. The theme is Bicycles. You get to it by clicking here.
After every wondermentalist there is someone who tells me that his or her line was cruelly, mistakenly, wrongly left out of the audience poem. I commiserate with such people in a cursory way, shrug eloquently by way of acknowledgement of the crumbliness of cookies everywhere, and get on with my life. Now you have chance to put things right. You can contribute to a bicycle poem. I promise, unless it breaks the unwritten laws of decency (and even then it’s 50/50) your line will be included. It will be published all over the place and probably read live at Wondermentalist. From there stardom is but a short step away. Trust me.
I promised a podcast. Paul Wetton has put together The Newer Improved Matt Harvey (also featuring Nathan Filer and Elvis McGonagall) which you get to just by clicking on it. It’s an embedded link. If podcasts are the new radio, embedded links are the new conversation. Marvellous, isn’t it?
Finally I just wanted to tell you that I’m speaking (and reading, a little) at the Consciousness Café in the Barrel House, Totnes, on June 26th. Consciousness Café is a regular discussion group with an invited speaker who talks for half an hour or so before it moves into a group discussion. I’ve been invited to offer thoughts on “A Poet’s Consciousness”. It’s quite a poser – and that’s what I shall probably feel like, standing there and speaking as if I have an iota of a hint of a clue. Nevertheless, I’ll be making as good a fist of it as I can. And probably enlarging on what may or not be meant by Wondermentalism. Come and join in the discussion, or simply listen to the sound of one man floundering…
Hope to see you at one (or two) of the above. The wondermental things apply.
hugs, kisses and manly handshakes
Matt