As advertised last week, took meself off down to the Wellington on Friday night to check out the Non-Confined Expression Open Mic Poetry night.
It was a very lively one. With lots of poets of varied age and experience. There was a real spirit of supportiveness and kinmanship between the poets, several of the guys reading live for their very first time (always a priviledge to watch - brings back shaky memories). Stephen James Smith was also among the readers, giving his usual fantastic performance. There were some very mature readers too, one of whom read some great immature, bawdy, and funny poems ranging in topics from the barmaid to other women.... ok - they were all about women.
Damien Kinnerk generously allocated 10 minutes per reader, so it was just as well I happened to have my entire collected works with me. With all the practise last weekend I was fairly confident that I knew my poems well enough, (the 3 that I do know off) so tried focussing on reading them a little slower than usual this time, instead of being all about getting finished and getting off in the shortest possible time. The result was my second ever standing ovation for a poem (the same poem btw - the thumb tack one - for some reason men love it when women are mean in poetry!). The crowd were also unbelieveably fulsome and friendly in their chat and praise afterwards, which left me leaving the place feeling like I was leaving the set of Cheers (where everybody knows my name - geddit?). It was really cool - a really really nice crowd, as we left, some of them were grabbing the mic for a sing song. Fair play to the non confined poets, they ran a great, inclusive, and happy night, that felt mostly just like a big gang of friends getting together for an aul poetry hoolie - Brilliant.
8 comments:
By the way - i know the font is all messed up in this post, but I have twice attempted to fix it, and twice I have failed. I know they say 3 times lucky, but why take that chance? I'm off to see my granny.
Sounds wonderful! And the small text is just you whispering in awe of a fantastic evening...
Great night,well done and thank feck for mentioning the text issue ,I thought I was gradually going blind.Again.
DO - yeah it was a good un, will be holding it in memory for a long time
TFE - thanks, yes I knew my less firm readers would be confused by that.
Sounds great Niamh. Congrats on the ovation!
tks uisce, twas a good one
is it every friday or just the once off or every month?? And congrats on the standing ovation.
twas a once off for now, but i'd say it'll become a more regular thing, they've a group on facebook you could sign up to for more updates, if you don't want to get a tattoo.
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