It was hot, clammy, jam packed, on the busiest live poetry week of the month Stephen James Smith still pulls the crowd. Some of the reasons why:
A friendly atmosphere - he will introduce himself to you personally if you're in early and then introduce you to the people beside you if you don't know anyone.
Encouraging crowd - people are there to listen, and they give almost as much as they get, there's a lovely vibe of everyone just wanting everyone to be as absolutely great as they can be, and then they are. There was a lovely reading from Julie Nixon, only on her second poetical reading outing ever with some great lines. Ann Tannam* also wowed with some really heartfelt poems, and one particularly clever one on the theme of listening. While I'm talking poetry - Stephen James also treated us to his newest poem - one written for a piece of music - it sounded great - look forward to hearing the full package.
Quality - there's always, always some outstanding talent down there, this week Marcus Carcass* took my (secret not actually given out) top act award for his unassuming manner, lovely lyrics and ohmygod kickass guitar playing.
Extras: There's free food sometimes, lollipops, raffles, fun and frolics galóre.
Me? I read one bus poem - the life after death one, and a few other newbies - all went grand, managed to say em without reading from the page, so was happy enough with that. Sadly didn't manage to persuade anyone to sing Robbie along to the Alien Stalker poem (managed to ask a guy who HATES HATES HATES Robbie, so didn't ask anyone else after that) - but people still seemed to like it.
In other news: The dog is learning to talk. It's official. She does this cute long loud yawn thing before walks, and in the mornings, and I've kind of been encouraging her by giving her a big pet after it, anyway - now she does it when I turn away, to get extra attention, until she runs out of yawn juice. She'll be in the act soon. Watch this space.
*apologies if I've spelled your names wrong
4 comments:
Markus is brilliant.
Heard Stephen's poem yesterday too and thought it was cool.
Your dog tails are reminding me more and more of Sunday Night That's Life vignettes, in a good way
Sounds like a great night! I like hot and clammy.
Well done on not neeeding the page to read. That, I cannot do.
Your dog talks? Pshaw, Titus (actual) plays dead. Most of the night when the fire's on. You're a spoiler, aren't you?
Thanks Uisce, I don't know the Sunday Night That's Life - but I'm sure they must be most exciting and impressive.
Thanks Titus - yes hot & clammy - better than cold & clammy any day.
Our dog steals the coal from the fake fire and eats it, so it's hard to even have the fire on any more. And yes. A definite spoiler.
heard the marcass fella on myspace.. he's a bit fecking good alright... you've been having a right ball around the place again. all this and a talking dog!.. jeez, Dublin gets all the cool stuff!
Post a Comment