Wondermentalist

I introduced the May Wondermentalist with the poem below. It’s a wonder I hadn’t used it before. Don’t be surprised if I use it again. The live version of this is up on Traydio right here. To lend drama I asked Dan from Nomad Shuffle to throw the sugar-free biscuit and crisps at appropriate points, and he did an almost sterling job. This explains audience’s ooh’s, aah’s and apparently unmerited applause…

Setting the Scene

(An introduction to any poetry event - with helpful directions in Italics)

We are the people and this is the place and the time

Past and future fade out as the present steps into its prime

For we are the light and the dark and the space inbetween

And this, the first poem, is simply called Setting the Scene

And we are the half-light and this is the time and the place

And my name is Matthew* and this is the look on my face** (*insert own name)(**indicate facial regions)

Tonight (name of poet) will take a deep breath and then risk it

And we are the people and this is a sugar-free biscuit

Yes we are the place and the time and my name is not Bernie

And tonight we, the people, are going to go on a journey…

We’ll amble down Imagery Avenue

Meander down Metaphor Mews

We’ll gaze at the skies up at Prophecy Rise

And light a soft, spiritual fuse

We’ll trip on tiptoes down Controversy Close

Quite disturbed by the people we meet

We’ll skip very lightly whilst shivering slightly

Down Subtle & Sensitive Street

We’ll get all effervescent on Ecstasy Crescent

Stroll vainly down Looking Glass Lane

We’ll be shedding our load down Catharsis Road

Achieving temporary cessation of pain

We’ll become self-aware round at Consciousness Square

Of the being beneath all we do

Then talk out of our arse at Brain-Stem By-Pass

And almost go down Virtual View

We’ll be broadcasting live from Dysfunctional Drive

With efforts both whole and half-hearted

We’ll get all self-important at Self-Centred Court and

Then all meet up back where we started

Where we shall be hearing

From parts of the sum of the whole

From the depth of their skin

To the tattoos engraved on their soul

And some will say just say how life could be

And some just how it seems

An acute combination

Of fluids and sinews and dreams

While our flesh is substantial

Our words are like will o’the wisps

And we are the people

And this is a packet of crisps

(*hold up a packet of crisps)

Postscript: When looking for a copy of this on my computer I found the unused line, that I admit I think is pretty good. This tells you more about me than I should let on…

Yes we are the people and my name has never been Heidi

And my head is a mess but my heart is surprisingly tidy

These lines too:

This evening’s a sponge-bag with motley selection of soap

Which will soon froth up into a rich, creamy lather. We hope.

Hmmmm

It was our last Seven Stars outing till October and what a wonderful and ever so very pleasant evening it was. Isn’t Jude Simpson a star? She is. If I had a pound for everyone who’s come up to me since the show to tell me how much they enjoyed her set – well, I’d have enough to go absolutely bonkers wild at a car boot sale, I can tell you.

For the introductory poem I put myself entirely in the hands of Dan, drummer of Nomad Shuffle, whose job it was to throw first a sugar-free biscuit then a packet of crisps from the wings directly into my outstretched hand. In such a way that I could catch it. Whilst not making it look easy. He did this, as if not making it look easy was easy. Which it’s not. Nor is it easy in the first place. Not for any of us.

The unusually talented John Elliott was next to stand up and be counted and he assured us, musically and lyrically, that ‘everybody’s different’ – in way that left me nursing the suspicion that some are more different an others. He was followed by Jackie Juno – without husband Brian Abbott, with whom she assures us she has a very special chemistry – nevertheless she achieved a winning musical-comedy intimacy with deceptively cherubic George Cooper. You may wish to confirm this for yourself on Traydio.

The Dead Poets’ Slam was one of the best in memory with Bill Greenwell, Surabhi Forest, Tony Gee, Jude Simpson, Jackie Juno and John Elliott treating us to ‘Banjo’ Paterson, Rumi, Anonymous, AA Milne, Vivekananda and Emily Dickinson respectively. Emily Dickinson won, by a one point, from Rumi, who was one point clear of AA Milne. It’s lovely to see late poets getting into the spirit of things. Her prize – a copy of Jude Simpson’s Secret Rapper – was collected on her behalf by John Elliott. What would Jude have received if AA Milne had won? It’s hard to say, because he didn’t. Not yet.

Jerri Hart was last up before the interval and like Ms Juno was accompanied by the engaging Mr Cooper, whose first name had stepped sideways to Jorges. Together they performed a rousing version of Sheikh of Araby that shall live long on the memory for the acts of wanton violence perpetrated by Mr Hart upon the dogged and persevering Jorges, and also for Mr Hart’s splendid trumpet playing which was in danger of being forgotten alongside his assaults on his accompanist, which fell somewhere in that happy middle place between slapstick and attempted manslaughter.

It was, as ever, a magnificent interval, with multiple contributions to the audience poem, this month on the chosen theme of ‘putty’. The poem, put together by Liv Torc, can be found in the next or next but one post on this very blog.

A prize was awarded and the poem was read out, to gasps of wonder, recognition and dismay. There had been talk of the audience poem being placed in the Totnes Times. Hmmmm, not this month maybe. However close to our various edges the putty poem took us, it was all a good introduction to episode six in the continuing adventures of Empath Man. I won’t tell you more than that the two muggers who attempted to rob him that night got more than they bargained for. One of them discovered a gift for rap and rhyme while the other, articulate beyond his aspirations, discovered a different form of self-expression. Please visit traydio. Subscribe to the podcast, if you can.

(By the way, everything I’ve said here is utterly butterly true - don’t you agree??)

It just remained for Jude to charm our pants off and win a deserved encore for her funny and moving poems and songs, before Jerri and I put the everyone into and then quickly out of their post-Jude misery with a beautifully moving and argumentative Shorelines of your Mind.

Before the interval, after the Dead Poets’ Slam, I ask the audience to set a theme for the collaborative poem. I never know what to expect. The first suggestion took me by surprise. ‘Penises’. Why should I be surprised? I’d asked for a concrete (as opposed to abstract) noun. Penises qualify. Then someonesaid ‘pasties’, fair enough, and someone else said ‘male genitalia’ – as if they really hadn’t understood what was being asked of them. Interesting. The audience eventually settled on ‘handbag’. When it came to the voting – the informal expressing of a preference – there was a very muted response for penises, which, again, surprised me. I’d honestly thought they’d generate more enthusiasm, not in themselves but as subjects for a ‘what are you like?’ poem. but they didn’t, and there’s an end to it.

 

Here’s the poem as put together by Beryl the Feral and read out on the night. A standard was maintained, I’d say.

 

Glambag, handbag, miscellaneous slam bag

An unnecessary accessory

Nosebags for the donkey that is the female ego

Holder of all secrets tawdry and sublime

Collector of tickets and old lipstick slime

Clutter collector, essentials dispenser

Incontinent cornucopia of miscellaneous Matter

A repository for a suppository, a pessary or a tampax

Essential survival sack for seriously extreme shoppersssssss

All of life is here, and a bit extra

A lonely lady’s dance floor respite

Labyrinthine conundrums

A portable black hole, a tiny tardis with a Gucci label

Prada – a larder for Pina Colada

When the floods come, my handbag can be a sandbag

Clutch, clasp, a place fro the rasp

A grand in a handbag is worth two in a busted sack

All the world is  handbag, with pockets and corners and zippers

In black leather to match my mood

Hard and horny like a crocodile’s winkle picker

Mother confessor, diary professor, pen and ink, kitchen sink

Handbag, sandbag, old bag, bagman, douche bag, swag bag

Men confusers, lipstick losers

A place for things I’ve never needed

Accessory of mass Oestruction

Weapon of man’s destruction

Dense dark dangler

Not a penis though,

The Queen always carries a handbag – it always looks empty…

This is my review of the night.

The performers did us proud. They were all so very, very good.

Jerri Hart couldn’t be there. He’d lost his voice. Really lost it. We missed him, and the audience chanted his name. Then, at my request ‘just the women’ – I felt it’s what he’d have wanted. A warm and generous audience, as Dean and I were to prove (in the sense of ‘test’) at the end.

Leonie and Asha from Rae were wonderful, I hope we’ll have them back before too long. They reminded me of why I love Radio 3’s Late Junction. They’ll now be lending Traydio that warm, eclectic, exotic Late Junction feel. Next up was Liv Torc, brilliant winner of the Vibraphonic Slam in Exeter, with her personal superhero, Anxiety Girl, and she was followed by what I think was the best Dead Poets’ Slam so far, won by Dean Parkin reading Kenneth Koch’s To Kidding Around.

The audience poem was fantastic, again, and you must read it. They chose the theme of eggs. Eggs – what are you like?  [Read it here.] And Empath Man, without the promised theme tune (get well soon, Jerri) managed to get very cross with a crowd of people before being lured up the ladder and into the basket of Scorpio Rising’s hot air balloon.

Nomad Shuffle, still expanding, with percussionist Dan adding texture and zest, did a beautiful moving self-penned number dedicated to a friend. Then Beryl the Feral, who’d put together the Eggs poem in the interval, stepped up to deliver an utterly delightful short set that removed any possible traces of cynicism that may have been lurking in the room.

Dean Parkin delivered a delightful set, including the best audience participation cheek popping I’ve ever heard – then stepped into the breach, the unfillable Jerri Hart-shaped space, performing Shingles of your Mind with me, Matt, at the end, on a blue guitar purchased that afternoon. He played the Bobby Shaftoe version and, as debacles go, it was one of the most enjoyable and best received I’ve ever been part of.

But this is all just my opinion, and I’m about as biased as you can be. Where you there? Tell us what you think. How was it for you…?