Laughs and Shivers and 7 Towers

Poetry is definitely getting more popular and trendy, as comedy was in the 90's, poetry open mics seem to be opening every other day - am thinking of starting one myself, maybe in my house, Niamh's Salon de Póit's, or some such, but that's a story for another time.

On Wednesday night however I ventured into town alone to visit, for the first time, one of the older, more established nights in the city, that being the 7 Towers last Wednesday series, I'd been trying to check it out for ages, and just hadn't made it until now. Like the Glór sessions it's another downstairs kind of place, you feel hidden away in the depths of the pub, with fanciful gossamer drapings behind the stage and red glass chandeliers.

It starts early, 7.30, which is nice, because it then finishes early 10.45, great for those of us who are unable for the late late nights, (except on fridays when the late late makes it acceptable). As I say it's a well established night, run by the folks at 7 towers publications since long before it was cool. There is a great mix at it of young and old, so it feels like a more multigenerational thing than anything I've been at before, and there was a really impressive range of talent on display, about 12 readers, at about 7 minutes each.

The highlights? Steven Conway had a lovely story called Shrodinger's bus, there was a poem about an earthworm surfacing on the M50, Anamaria Crowe Serrano gave us some breath taking poems, literally - catch your breath kinda stuff, there was Andrej - a regular from the Glór nights who blew the crowd away with a cover of a great poem about Tommy Cooper's death, and his own poem was pretty amazing too. Ross Hattaway, Oran Ryan, and Eamon Linskey too made for really very enjoyable and thought provoking listening. A few other really striking readers whose names I didn't catch also gave us a few good laughs and shivers.
I liked the feeling of experimentation there as well, one lady read a poem she had written that very day, it felt very fresh from that point of view, felt like the work was all new to that environment, no reading the same old same old... a challenging thing but also very exciting.

All this, and a good sized crowd at it on a night when we were spoiled for choice with another new open mic The Brown Bread Mix Tape happening at the Stag's head (which I'm reliably informed was also brilliant and which I'll have to try and get to next), and lots of other literary happenings/ launches etc in the city. SPOILED we are.

(Speaking of spoiling if you've read this far I might as well tell you it's Mr VC's Birthday today, he started a blog yesterday - An Flíp - feel free to go over and wish him a happy day, but you don't have to)